When I visited Ken Inglis early last month, a few weeks before he died, I found him engrossed in the day’s edition of the Sunday Age. It was perhaps eighty years since he’d begun reading the papers as a schoolboy in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Preston, and during that time he’d become one of Australia’s most highly (and warmly) regarded historians. But his passion for the press — his fascination with the way it recorded “the history of the present”, as the historian Timothy Garton Ash calls it — was undiminished. And not just newspapers — on the table beside his bed were copies of the New Yorker, the magazine that helped shape his style and fuel his remarkable curiosity. (more…)
Category: Media
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LAURIE PATTON. Unpopulate or perish – revisiting the Whitlam decentralisation vision in a digital age.
On the 45th anniversary of the election of the Whitlam Government Laurie Patton reflects on a forward-thinking policy that deserves revisiting for a digitally-enabled world. (more…)
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IAN MACPHEE. A deeper view of the Rohingya crisis than media provide.
Since writing my blog on 13 October in defence of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (whom I will now only term Daw Suu) external media has continued its criticism of her for not condemning the military for its brutal attacks on Rohingya people in Rakhine state on the border of Bangladesh. As I stressed then, I have no doubt that Daw Suu would be as appalled as most people about the rapid military action of which she would have had no knowledge until it occurred. But, had she condemned the brutality she would have risked being displaced by the military and unable to achieve anything for the rest of Myanmar. (more…)
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. If you want to know the truth
WikiLeaks continues to get up the nose of the media and security establishment. They will use a newly revealed proposal to make Assange Ambassador to Washington to make things worse for him. (more…)
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RODNEY TIFFEN. The age of the mega-leak
The Panama Papers looked like the culmination of a new era for leakers — and then the Paradise Papers came along. But can we expect action to follow? (more…)
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Beersheba and the Militarisation of Australian History.
The commemoration of the centenary of the battle for Beersheba illustrates many features of the progressive militarization of Australian history. No other aspect of our past attracts the lavish funding provided by the federal government. The cost of the commemoration must be considerable given the abundant travel grants and the funding of the new Light Horse Museum. The attendance of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and other prominent Australians, including the Ambassador to the USA Joe Hockey, further enhances the asserted national importance of the event. The uncritical reporting of the accompanying Australian media contingent provided little scope for sceptical assessment of the battle itself and its long term significance. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. How a rogue organization operates.
This week Crikey has been running a series, the Holy Wars on ‘How The Australian targets and attacks its enemies ‘This prompted me to recall my own experiences and earlier writing on how News Corp intimidates its critics and threatens and seduces governments.
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’. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. Open letter to Communications Minister, The Hon. Mitch Fifield
Can we just be serious just for a moment?
Having read your piece in The Australian headed “Shrill Attacks on ABC Adjustments Are Hysterical, Unhinged” (9/10/17), I cannot believe that you, Minister, REALLY believe in what you have written. (more…)
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JULIAN CRIBB. Our Parliament: an unqualified failure for the future
Australian politicians have next to no qualifications or skills when it comes to deciding the focal issues of our time. No wonder the decision making of recent years has been so poor. Julian Cribb argues that a continued political bias against science, technology and education risks placing Australia among the also-rans of the 21st Century. (more…)
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ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Developments in Japan including threats to press freedom
Most international attention on East Asia today is sharply focused on North Korea’s nuclear and missile developments. But this does not mean that we can neglect the significant developments taking place in Japan’s domestic political landscape. Since winning the December 2012 elections, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has maintained a commanding majority in the national Diet, and Abe himself is sometimes called ‘all-powerful Abe’. (more…)
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MICHAEL WEST. Why are we still pursuing the Adani Carmichael mine?
Why, if Adani’s gigantic Carmichael coal project is so on-the-nose for the banks and so environmentally destructive, are the federal and Queensland governments so avid in their support of it?
Adani employs the lobbying firm Next Level Strategic Services.. The director of this lobbying firm is Cameron Milner,who was Bill Shorten’s Chief of Staff, former ALP State Secretary in Queensland and who helped run the last election campaign of the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszcuk. The co-director of the same lobbying firm is David Moore who ran Campbell Newman’s successful 2012 election campaign
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JOHN MENADUE. The submarine mess that Pearls and Irritations has high lighted for 18 months.
At the National Press Club yesterday Mike Keating and Hugh White again drew attention to the very serious problems of our proposed submarine purchases. We will be following their addresses further.
The following is a repost from December 16 last year.
For eight months in Pearls & Irritations, Jon Stanford, Michael Keating, myself and others, have drawn attention to major problems with the proposed build of the Shortfin Barracuda submarine in Adelaide by the French company, DCNS. With the exception of Brian Toohey and Michael Pascoe. I cannot recall one journalist who has seriously examined the problems of our future submarines. Yet those problems are screaming out for careful analysis.This post highlights the background to the submarine decision and the serious lack of public debate.
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PAUL BUDDE. Digital media and media diversity
The changes recently proposed to the Broadcasting Act will allow for a further concentration of media power in Australia. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. Testing times for the ABC with a ‘competitive, neutrality enquiry’.
One of our most trusted institutions is under real threat- and, like Humpty Dumpty, once broken may never be able to be put together again. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. The female revolution at ABC News.
‘But the women (foreign correspondents) were (likelier than men) to be more thoughtful in looking at the wider context or human side of stories. In short, they were inclined to be nosier and would go the extra mile to pin down or dig deeper into an aspect of a story’. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. Upgrading the NBN with G.fast has its limitations
Quite coincidentally, at the same time that G.fast is being discussed in Australia a similar discussion is taking place in the USA; and there is doubt there too about the contribution that G.fast can make to improve the performance of the faltering broadband systems in both countries. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. The end of the Foxtel wars
The announcement of the proposed merger of Foxtel with Fox Sport Australia, combined with Telstra’s agreement to dilute its shareholding in the pay TV operator, paves the way for the end of the Foxtel war between News Corp Australia (formerly News Limited) and Telstra. The decline in revenue and subscriber numbers will most certainly have provided News Corp with the ammunition it needed to break the stranglehold that Telstra has held over Foxtel for more than 20 years. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. ABC deal comes back to haunt the Government (Episode Two).
Last week I began my summary of the Government’s complex negotiations aimed at getting its Media Reform Bill through the Senate with the words: “Make a deal for political expediency and then unforeseen consequences usually follow. The ABC and its future is not a ‘bargaining chip’ for the Government to use to pass legislation in the Senate. Yet a deal brokered by Communications Minister Fifield to gain Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm’s vote some months back, has already come back to haunt it……..”. Well, the ‘haunting’ continues. (more…)
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IAN McAULEY. Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Turnbull, and the ABC – a Faustian bargain
Turnbull’s deal with One Nation, to require the ABC to be “fair and balanced”, looks innocuous at first sight, but if implemented it would see the ABC cast into the wasteland of moral relativism. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. NBN goes against the very principles of conservative government
That the NBN goes against the very principles of conservative government became very clear to me in my discussion with the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network. When addressing the various well-documented problems of the NBN the chair of the committee repeatedly mentioned in defence of the current multi-technology-mix MtM policy that many other counties were also not deploying national FttH. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. ABC deal comes back to haunt Government.
Make a deal for political expediency and then unforseen consequences usually follow. (more…)
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John Menadue. Rent-seekers and the hollowing out of democracy (Repost 12/2015)
‘Rent-seeking’ is a term understood by most economists. It refers to the ability of powerful groups to extract special concessions and favours at the expense of the wider community. (more…)
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LAURIE PATTON. The broadband debacle: NBN Co needs to eat its own dog food.
Whoever is in office three years from now will have the biggest ever infrastructure debacle on their hands if we don’t do something soon, writes Internet Australia’s Laurie Patton. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. A $30 million gift to the great rent seeker, News Corp.
Inevitably a scandal over $30 million of taxpayers money to Foxtel tended to get lost in the rush. But it remains a scandal nonetheless, especially when the government admits – no, boasts – that there is no record of the transaction; apparently the cash was simply handed over in a brown paper bag with a wink and a nudge. (more…)
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John Menadue. Murdoch’s Media Tax. (Reposted from 29/12/2015)
Rupert Murdoch complains that he faces unfair competition from a taxpayer funded public broadcaster like the ABC and SBS. Yet in effect, he imposes his own consumption taxes on consumers. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives set the rules but they keep breaking them. (Repost from 7 February 2017)
Many people around the world are concluding that the system is rigged in favour of powerful insiders who bend the rules. The populists – Trump, Farage, Le Pen and Hanson are adept at tapping into that disempowerment and the sense that the system is rigged against them. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. Mid-year NBN assessment.
The rollout of the NBN has been gathering pace, but many problems remain. Most of the issues mentioned below have been addressed by me at various Senate Inquiries over the last decade. The fact that they have not been addressed and/or resolved is an indication that politicians have so far failed to deal with them. (more…)
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MICHAEL THORN. The cricket pay dispute and how broadcast deals drive unhealthy product marketing
After the series of serious drug and alcohol incidents involving rugby league players and officials in May, some quite reasonably made the argument that sports that so closely embrace alcohol brands can hardly be surprised when the behaviour of players clothed in these brands act badly. This was cited in support of the argument that alcohol and sport are not a good mix. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Rupert Murdoch’s abuse of power. (Repost from 7 August 2013)
Controlling 70% of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers, one would hope that Murdoch would exercise some responsibility in the use of that power. But none of that responsibility for Rupert Murdoch! (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Chilcot – The Iraq war and Murdoch’s war on critics. (Repost)
On 1 July 2014, I posted a story about the role of News Corp and Rupert Murdoch in the Iraq disaster. The Chilcot Report confirms even more how News Corp publications misled readers and viciously attacked their opponents. News Corp demonstrated that it is indeed a rogue organisation. See repost below: (more…)