Fighting Fake News with Real 31/12/21/; The Shovel, Murdoch Protected, Our World Changed; LNP Strong Point?; Fact Check; Refugee Laws

 

Man contracts, then recovers from COVID while waiting in testing line

"By day 14 I was pretty sure I was clear" 

 

Half a million Australians have called for a Royal Commission into Rupert Murdoch’s abuse of power and Australia’s media concentration. But are News Corp thuggery and media diversity really the main game? Michael West investigates a mollycoddled media.

The irony of course is that the government interferes. It interferes to compel Google and Facebook to pay money to its allies News Corp and Nine. It interferes to give cash handouts to mainstream media; multi-million cash grants to Foxtel, millions in JobKeeper subsidies to Nine, Seven and others.

It interferes to subsidise its mates but will not interfere to increase competition and fairness in media by reforming defamation, indeed by being real champions of free speech rather than rhetorical poseurs.

So defamation, in our view, is the greatest threat to the rise of independent media. Without public subsidies, as they hide their soi disant “Independent. Always.” journalism behind paywalls, independent media would put old media to the sword. Indeed, it will anyway, but there will be a fight.

Meantime, government policy is strongly skewed to keeping its media allies afloat, pumping out the messaging, and undermining smaller innovative media companies who don’t kow-tow.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton has even claimed the public ought to subsidise a special defamation fund for politicians to sue their critics.

Source: Rupert Murdoch media inquiry misses the real bogeys – Michael West Media

 Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is time to look back at 2021 and consider the most consequential developments, as covered here at Informed Comment. […]

 

Afghanistan

Top 6 Ways our World Changed in 2021

I keep reading that the Coalition will play to their strong points in the upcoming campaign which, according to some, are national security, the economy, cost of living, and something that hovers around vaccine rollout/post-pandemic recovery/getouttamyface freedom. (Kaye Lee )

Source: Strong points? I don’t think so – » The Australian Independent Media Networ

abc.net.au

We fact checked Jim Chalmers on debt accrued during COVID-19. Here's what we found

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers says the two-thirds of the debt in the budget was borrowed by the Government before the COVID-19 pandemic began. RMIT ABC Fact Check

 

The legislation is an attempt to shield the Morrison Government from legal challenges currently in the courts against lifetime detention of refugees. In April, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights raised concerns that the legislation would result in fewer checks on indefinite detention and had sought clarification from the Minister. No response was published before the legislation was rushed through Parliament.

David Burke, Legal Director, Human Rights Law Centre said:

“The legislation exposes Minister Andrew’s willingness to leave growing numbers of refugees languishing in detention without any plan.

“The government should not have the power to lock people up for potentially the rest of their lives without any safeguards. This forces refugees into an unthinkable choice between spending potentially decades in immigration detention, or agreeing to go back to a country where the Federal government recognises they will be persecuted. These new laws allow the Morrison government to warehouse people who have nowhere else to go.