Category: Media

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. (more…)

Dec 2, 2020
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. (more…)

Dec 1, 2020
Is Rupert Murdoch going bust?

This video has been reposted from Michael West Media 25 November 2020

Nov 27, 2020
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. (more…)

Nov 25, 2020
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.
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Nov 25, 2020
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.
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Nov 18, 2020
A Harold Evans postscript

What sort of obituary do you think The Sunday Times would publish about probably its greatest editor, Harry Evans? (more…)

Nov 15, 2020
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.

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Nov 12, 2020
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.
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Nov 9, 2020
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. (more…)

Nov 9, 2020
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. (more…)

Nov 6, 2020
Growth of Pearls and Irritations

The past six months have been very encouraging for Pearls and Irritations. (more…)

Nov 5, 2020
Data Retention – An act of blindness

A Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security and Intelligence (PJCIS) report into the Data Retention Act has made 22 recommendations that, if accepted, would lead to increased transparency, raise the threshold for when data can be accessed, and reduce overall access to our telecommunications data.

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Nov 3, 2020
Premier kept his side of the bargain but the media didn’t want to know

An easing of restrictions in Victoria was predicated on two criteria: a rolling 14-day average of fewer than five cases per day; and fewer than five mystery cases over the preceding two weeks. (more…)

Oct 30, 2020
We have just about given up on the mainstream media.

For Labor, there is no point in getting into a fight you will never win. The Murdoch myrmidons will always be their enemy, and since they have become invulnerable – like the banks, they are too big to fail — they have to be accommodated. (more…)

Oct 26, 2020
Shaoquett Moselmane MLC returns to Parliament despite the media. (AMUST Oct 23, 2020)

Mr Shaoquett Moselmane MLC returned to the NSW Parliament on Thursday 22 October 2020 following months of controversy after the Parliamentary Privileges Committee exonerated him and cleared the way for his dignified return to the House.

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Oct 25, 2020
Tamed estate: ‘no holes in Gladys’ story’ … give or take 152 moments of amnesia

The Premier then went on 2GB to discuss with shock jock Kyle Sandilands her relationship. Not a sentence I thought I would ever write. This one doesn’t really require further elaboration. (more…)

Oct 23, 2020
Megaphone Madness: how reckless media impeded Victoria’s Covid-19 recovery

The media we consume influences our compliance with Covid-19 recommendations. Poor media coverage in Victoria is impeding the state’s recovery. (more…)

Oct 19, 2020
James Murdoch, Rebellious Scion (NYTimes Oct 10, 2020)

Increasingly uncomfortable with News Corp’s politics and profit motives, Rupert’s younger son chose chickens and sheep over Fox, and insists he doesn’t watch ‘Succession.’

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Oct 18, 2020
Remembering Harold Evans (AIIA Oct 9, 2020)

Harold Evans had an indefatigable role in encouraging and expanding coverage of international affairs in the publications he edited and in the books he published. He also had great enthusiasm for hiring and fostering well-trained Australian journalists.

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Oct 18, 2020
Julian Assange and failure of mainstream media

On 18 September, a little over a year since Amal Clooney was appointed as the UK’s special envoy for media freedom, she resigned. Among Clooney’s barrister colleagues are Geoffrey Robertson, Jennifer Robinson, and Gareth Pierce, all of whom, at their Doughty Chambers human rights practice, are advocates for Julian Assange.

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Oct 13, 2020
Australian media in the Asian century

Pompeo and circumstance

Our foreign minister, Marise Payne, flew off to Tokyo for a rare meeting of the “Quad” on Tuesday with counterparts including the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. (more…)

Oct 9, 2020
Media failure again on alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria

Two new reports from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons challenge claims that chemical weapons were used in two alleged attacks in Syria. (more…)

Oct 9, 2020
The Liberals Quietly Removed That Budget Surplus Mug From Its Store & We Can All Sip The Tea (Pedestrian March 10, 2020)

The Liberal Party has quietly removed a mug promoting a return to federal budget surplus from its official merchandise range, amid mounting speculation the Federal Government won’t put the 2019-2020 budget “Back In Black” after all.

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Oct 8, 2020
The numbers game: how Morrison is playing journalism off a break (Crikey Oct 5, 2020)

All politicians know that numbers create news. It’s simple maths: the bigger the number, the greater the news. And Scott Morrison knows this better than most. He knows how to use numbers as signs of action for the media — and he knows journalists can’t resist them. Just look back over the past week…

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Oct 7, 2020
Australian media in the Asian Century

The struggles and contradictions in media understanding of China. (more…)

Sep 25, 2020
Assange: Still waiting… for your right to know

We’re all still waiting … for your right to know. The right of the public in our democracies to know what’s really going on is being tested at this very moment at the Old Bailey in Merry England.

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Sep 24, 2020
Feeding the Chooks: Scott Morrison’s marketing triumph over mainstream media complete

Scott Morrison has perfected the art of media manipulation by briefing a select club of Canberra correspondents together, rather than leaking to individual media outlets. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the marketing genius of the Prime Minister and the increasingly meek mainstream media.

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Sep 23, 2020
Les Miserables – Killing the ABC in a time of national emergency

Empty chairs at empty tables … where my friends will sing no more. (Les Miserables – the musical).

The departure of many of the ABC’s most experienced journalists, producers and presenters has immiserated the public broadcaster.

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Sep 16, 2020
Local lad’s strife pips looming crisis

It’s one of journalism’s nastier cynicisms: When judging news values 100 distant deaths equals ten closer to home and one in the suburb where the paper circulates. If public contempt for the media is to be cured then The West Australian is in much need of reform.

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Sep 14, 2020