Media
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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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Independent media winning the battle of the online audience
Independent media, online and print, continues to grow. Meanwhile, traditional media is under threat on many fronts, driven by stalling readership and declining revenue. News Corp, in particular, is losing out in the online audience stakes. Continue reading »
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It’s a man’s world: we need to call out News Corp’s hostility to women leaders (The Conversation, 18.11.2020)
Julia Gillard did not simply threaten the political status quo as Australia’s first woman prime minister. As an unmarried, child-free, atheist woman from the left of the ALP, she also threatened Murdoch’s conservative ideology. Continue reading »
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Tamed Estate: stop the presses; the Prime Minister took a barre class!
No holds barred? Kid-glove treatment for the Prime Minister, climate change denial, Murdoch media appears desperate and breaches of hotel quarantine. Continue reading »
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Have your say: Senate inquiry into media diversity in Australia
After more than 500,000 people signed a petition launched by former prime minister Kevin Rudd raising concerns about the influence of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the Senate is to hold an inquiry into media diversity. Continue reading »
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A Harold Evans postscript
What sort of obituary do you think The Sunday Times would publish about probably its greatest editor, Harry Evans? Continue reading »
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Tamed estate: “And on the second day, he said: ‘Let it be forgotten,’ and it was.”
The federal Coalition’s PR team clearly forgot the Streisand effect: the phenomenon whereby attempts to suppress information lead to far greater exposure than the information would have generated intrinsically. Continue reading »
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Off the Ground: A new generation of foreign correspondents
Mazoe Ford is billed as the ABC’s ‘Southeast Asia Correspondent’. She’s been reporting on the civil strife in Bangkok – from Sydney. Continue reading »
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Tamed estate: Australian media conservatives applaud Trump’s ‘victory’
Two former Australian prime ministers have joined forces to speak out against the power of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, calling for a royal commission. But why do they have so much power anyway, when they get it so spectacularly wrong, so often. Michael Tanner explores the bizarre antics of Murdoch’s pundits during the US election. Continue reading »
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The real originator of fake news is Trump
We always knew that Donald Trump would be a bad loser. It is not in his genes to accept defeat by not-so-sleepy Joe Biden with good grace, or even bad grace. Continue reading »
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Media in the Asian Century: upheaval all around but no Australian perspective
For the Australian media, it seems, it’s always safe in England or America. Anyone noticed that despite a daily death toll from Covid-19 of near 500 in the UK and near 1,000 in the US, there is no talk of withdrawing correspondents. Continue reading »