Media
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Tamed Estate: IR reforms ‘dangerous’, ‘extreme’ but let’s go with Christian Porter’s description – ‘modest’
When tabling the omnibus Industrial Relations bill in early December, Christian Porter described the changes as “modest”. The mainstream media duly followed suit and in no time at all had even dropped the quotation marks. … Continue reading »
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Tunnel vision: the media’s love affair with Craig Kelly and conflict
The media’s focus on divisive figures like Craig Kelly simply excuses the equally dangerous views of his less vocal, climate change denying colleagues. It is on these politicians that the media should focus…. Continue reading »
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ABC Country Hour – mouthpiece of Liberal National Party and rural elites?
ABC Country Hour is marketed as the “voice of the bush”; but whose voice and whose bush? A recent investigation reveals how Country Hour does the bidding of the Liberal and National Parties and their powerful friends while glossing over the likes of climate change, Indigenous issues and the #watergate scandal…. Continue reading »
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Murdoch & Morrison v. The ABC – GetUp fails a commendable mission
GetUp has added public broadcasting to environmental justice, human rights and other worthy issues. Through the just-released video, Murdoch & Morrison v. The ABC, it’s trying to arouse anger against the impact of News Corp’s never-ending siege of the national broadcaster … Continue reading »
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Take on News Corp at your peril: how a rogue organisation operates (repost from 27 Oct, 2017)
The way News Corp operates must be traced to Murdoch himself for he has told us that ‘for better or worse (News Corp) is a reflection of my own thinking, my character and my values’. … Continue reading »
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Google leaving Australia serves nobody, but it is not an empty threat
Google is threatening to withdraw its search functions; Facebook is threatening to remove news posts. Not idle threats but with its flawed media legislation, the federal government is using the wrong solution for a problem that requires regulation…. Continue reading »
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Media in the Asian Century: Digging in deeper in an already fraught relationship with China
China sanctions a sting in the tail for Trump officials; role of ASPI in provoking ire of China flies under the radar; and conservatives perform impressive backflips on Biden. … Continue reading »
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Confected outrage all in a day’s work for News
A lesson in skewing the conversation; Morrison’s gloss wearing thin?; promoting US election conspiracy theories; and kid-glove treatment for Gladys…. Continue reading »
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Fake news abounds in the misguided war on the digital media platforms
Opposition is growing both locally and globally to media laws introduced by the Coalition Government requiring tech giants Google and Facebook to pay for displaying original news content. Why should our domestic monopolists get preference?… Continue reading »
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Hurrah for double standards in corporate world
Sycophancy from Joe Hockey; double standards in the corporate world; one-sided coverage of the plan to force Google and Facebook to pay for news content; quarantine confusion, again… Mainstream media serves up the usual…. Continue reading »
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Murdoch son raps media for ‘toxic politics’ (Financial Times, Jan 18, 2020)
James Murdoch has castigated the US media for the ‘‘toxic politics’’ threatening American democracy, saying proprietors are as culpable as politicians who ‘‘know the truth but choose instead to propagate lies’’…. Continue reading »
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Copying and pasting government drops?
Spruiking the Coalition’s 2020 tax cuts; Australians’ ‘$200 billion’ war chest; Google’s experiments; free speech; and even a Liberal Party self-congratulatory piece on the NBN. … Continue reading »
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Media concentration in Australia and the Murdoch damage
It is important that any arrangements made for Facebook/Google/Twitter to pay media companies for content are made transparently and equally available to ALL online media publishers who meet (a very low) bar and wish to participate.No government should ever facilitate the handing over of money to tax shy oligopolies…. Continue reading »
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Media in the Asian Century. An Australian anti-China hawk helped draft US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific
“In many ways (Australians) were ahead of the curve in understanding influence operations and interference in domestic systems,” one senior US official told me. “They were pioneers and we have to give a lot of credit to Australia.” The official singled out former Australian senior intelligence advisor John Garnaut for praise…’… Continue reading »
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The ALP – the Australian Liberal-lite Party
When Labor leader Anthony Albanese dumped his party’s franking credits policy, the mainstream media duly trotted out the “retiree tax” line. “Subsidies to wealthy superannuants to continue” doesn’t have quite the same ring…. Continue reading »
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WeChat’s Potential for Social Activism and Civic Action in the Chinese Diaspora (GJIA Dec 10, 2020)
WeChat is predominantly used by Mandarin speakers both within and outside China. Although this social media platform is owned by a Chinese company and is subject to China’s censorship and scrutiny, it nevertheless has the potential to enable social activism and civic action in the Chinese diaspora across the globe…. Continue reading »
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The elephant, the canary, the wolf and other beasties to dispatch by journalists.
The tweeters are using the media as spittoons. Along with the contrived malice of Donald Trump and the spinmeisters of government they’re doing their damnedest to discredit our profession. We don’t need help: This is a job we’ve been doing ourselves…. Continue reading »
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Tamed Estate: News’ and Nine’s PR and the plight of the (Liberals’?) media
Old media caps off annus horribilis 2020 with its traditional horrible week. Michael West, standing in for Michael Tanner, looks at the fall of Fairfax, PR masquerading as journalism, who guards the Guardian, Seven News’ calls for war with China and how Scott Morrison’s media team has the game sown up…. Continue reading »
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Media Manipulation from WWII to today
There’s a place for the rogue journalist who refuses to be manipulated and managed by the military. A place that has been explored extensively by Australian journalist and war correspondent Wilfred Burchett…. Continue reading »
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BBC & ABC threatening hearts and minds
Apropos the times, in Covid-Speak government propaganda and lies spread by compliant media are a war-mongering contagion and the only vaccine is the Truth.. and where do you get it? At principled alternative media sites like Pearls & Irritations. They save lives…. Continue reading »
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Mainstream media either ignore or castigate youth
Youth have borne the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting recession. Hearing from young people is therefore more important than ever, yet their representation in the media is minuscule and dropping, according to a recent report. News Corp’s widespread use of damaging stereotypes about young people was also notable…. Continue reading »
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Tamed Estate: youth excoriated for their behaviour, not so senior citizens
On the journey of Covid-19 and “enemies of the state”, hotel quarantine, sycophancy, the vaccine, MPs’report cards, and Reds under the … somewhere. … Continue reading »
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Media in the Asian Century: Read all about our media expertise on China!
This week Sharri Markson exposed the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the British MI6 and others for a gormless bunch of gumshoes and naifs…. Continue reading »
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Tamed Estate: IR changes good for workers. Really? The fine print is buried.
With workplace reform winging its way towards the Senate, the mainstream media’s coverage of the changes was predictably unbalanced…. Continue reading »
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Divide and conquer – Google and Facebook show who’s the boss!
After a year of reports, submissions and public inquiries – and much posturing on all sides – the Government has finally delivered the draft legislation designed to bring Google and Facebook to heel. But who is holding the leash?… Continue reading »
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Tamed estate: War crimes and China tweets
The biggest story in town? That all depends – it might be the Brereton Report on the killing of Afghan children by Australian soldiers. Then again, it might be a China tweet…. Continue reading »
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Framing the Palace Letters by our National Archives
It doesn’t need a conspiratorial mind frame to explain the Murdoch media, Morrison Government and National Archives synchronous framing of the Palace Letters – just a realisation that such strategies are now so institutionalised that overt co-ordination is unnecessary…. Continue reading »
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Not only governments exert foreign influence. What about Rupert Murdoch?
A Royal Commission under the best leadership could shine an enormously powerful spotlight on the fact that NewsCorp grossly breaches our foreign interference laws on a daily basis…. Continue reading »
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Is Rupert Murdoch going bust?
This video has been reposted from Michael West Media 25 November 2020… Continue reading »
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The Tamed Estate – cover-up of the Queen‘s role in the Dismissal by the National Archives and The Australian
The release of the Palace letters was pure theatre. Every element was meticulously stage-managed: the set, the props, the narrative. (From the Palace Letters pp 168-172)… Continue reading »
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