Old Dog Thoughts |
News Corporation employs Right-Wing Broadcasters providing them with a platform ensuring the inequality of speech. Their Social Media Platforms not only advocate conservative, and extreme right-wing wing views. They monitor out most opposing opinions which they are entitled to do. However, they also simply lie when they say they provide an arena for fair and balanced discussion in a no-spin zone. They don't it's all spin.
The Deputy Editor of the Sunday Telegraph Clair Harvey was true to Murdoch Media form on The Drum last night in her Ultra conservative "opinion" on Assange. 1) she didn't like him, and she was glad he was such an unlikeable character. Now that's the Murdochian approach to Islam, Africans in Australia "we just don't like them" so isn't that great my opinions have relevance and substance on that basis alone.
Assange isn't a Journalist, despite the fact he won a Wakely award. Harvey replied that the Journalist Associations vote to do so "shamed" the very notion of journalism. If shame is brought down on journalists and their low reputation, it's been because of the Murdoch media's model of business which is rapidly ridding itself of journalists altogether. How arrogant was that of Harvey? While she seems an outsider, a non-member, we must assume she is but hardly a respected one. She works for an organisation that, in fact, shames the profession daily with it's racist, ethnocentric, and religious opinions that guiltlessly tar whole groups and communities of Australians promoting division and exclusion like Muzac to the public daily, and not just occasionally.
Clair Harvey was judge and jury all in one and clearly hoped Assange was morally hanged drawn and quartered. She did protect herself by saying that would be a step too far and he shouldn't be imprisoned. She was no doubt sitting on the kerbside yelling he's guilty thumbs down. Australian or not she was clearly presenting the editorial opinions of the head office of Fox Corp in the USA. The opinion genuinely hers maybe but certainly aligned with her paymasters the Murdochs. Now that's hardly "fair and balanced", mind you, she was invited on the ABC which does try to be even-handed. Murdoch's vigilantes are everywhere in the Anglosphere competing for the consumer dollar less than they are that of the top end of Aus. Clive Palmer gave them a fortune along with other advertisers, and they weren't promoting the Labour cause.
Imagine Barr has an exclusive right to interpret what's in classified material in Trump's favour, which could go so far as to suggest Alexander Downer was a Russian mole. Given Trump's history, it far from being impossible. (ODT)
Key points: Mr Trump declassified documents that prompted Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian collusion It's believed these documents could relate to a meeting Mr Downer had with a Trump campaign official in 2016 The US Attorney-General has the power to reveal the documents publicly, drawing criticism he will present misleading information favouring Mr Trump
The truth: editorial interference at News Corp and Sky was just too much Whittaker, the former editor-in-chief of the Australian, came to Sky after a 30-year career at News Corp where he was a hands-on editor with a skill for running campaigns for the Murdoch empire. While Frangopoulos managed to keep the widely respected Speers on board at Sky – despite multiple approaches from the ABC and the commercial networks – Whittaker is believed to have irritated the Walkley award-winner by being too interventionist.
Despite Sky's low ratings – most programs average fewer than 200,000 weekly viewers – Speers' interviews are frequently reported in other media outlets. "The power of that amplification is a huge benefit for Sky," Allen says. Related Article Cassidy summarises the morning's political news on the 'Sunday Papers' segment. 'The most unfashionable rock star': How ABC's Insiders beat Sunrise and Today "You can't just stick someone else in his chair and hope for the same result. It takes years to cultivate the kind of contacts David has. When he leaves with his little black book, it'll be a loss for Sky."
Cassidy – a former press secretary to the late Labor prime minister Bob Hawke – founded Insiders in 2001.
The day after the election, a fuming Kevin Rudd took to Twitter. "In all the election commentary last night, not a single word on the elephant in the room," the former prime minister wrote.
"Murdoch, with 70 per cent control of Australia’s print media, ran the single most biased campaign in Australian political history. Reason for the silence? People are in fear of Murdoch’s power."
“We have two Australias,” says regional economist Terry Rawnsley. “One which has benefited from a generation of economic change including deregulation, reduced trade barriers, technological change and globalisation is in the inner cities. Then we have another Australia which has struggled with these changes, including the loss of manufacturing jobs, increased job insecurity, little growth in wealth.”
Moved from extreme concern about the First Hockey Budget to extreme concern about the Islamic terrorist threat.The result has been a slight return from extreme unpopularity to mild
unpopularity in that polling.
Attempts to terrify the populace into supporting Abbott and his
insanities, we are losing freedoms every day. Now all our cyber
activities are available to Senator Brandis at the stroke of a single
pen on a single sheet of paper. We no longer have freedom of movement
around the world. Our civil rights are being eroded with every sitting
of our Parliament.
Our Attorney General, George Brandis explained that there is nothing
unusual in all this curtailing of freedom. That the common man has spent
most of his existence in servitude. That this Government is simply
restoring the natural order of things.
Which is a coded message for, “Support us in the polls or we will take the next step”.
After practicing secrecy with the Department of Torture and disappearances
Border Protection It seems that the secrecy surrounding ASIO is to be
beefed up with journalists being put on notice that they are not to even
look at the ASIO building upon pain of incarceration and banishment
from the Murdoch Press.
No elections.
No need for any more annoying polls.
No more Parliament for that will be suspended because of the emergency.
No discussion about the rights or wrongs.
No more civil liberties for they will become treasonous.
Bloggers, tweeters and the Fifth Estate will be arrested.
The 3am knock on the door will be coming to a home near you!
Those people under thirty who need welfare will get their work for the dole – IN UNIFORM!
Soldiers with automatic weapons on every street corner.
Tony Abbott as Prime Minister for life
We have seen the collective power of News Corp in action when the Daily Telegraph,The Herald Sun The Courier Mail and Australian set out to get Rudd and do it for Tony. Akerman, Bolt, Albrechtsen & Devine in their collective portrait of Kevin did not find skerrick of human quality. They were coupled with headlines of a quality never seen before. Abbott on the other hand was raised to the equivalent of sainthood by these arseholes who claim independence of thought and freedom of expression.
Now we are told that these print media outlets are all hemorrhaging cash and are being supported by News Corp's online real estate site and Foxtel entertainment. That they certainly aren't fulfilling Murdoch's commercial agenda but are at the top of their game when it came to his political one.
"The truth is sad and salutary. News Corp’s domination of the press is a
threat to Australia’s democracy. There is now no politically realistic
way to overcome this problem.
“The effective control of the media is the
first step on the road to controlling the values and future direction
of our society.”......Robert Mann
How is 66% control going to be wrested from Murdoch? His personal agenda is the sale or neutering of the ABC & SBS and total destruction of Fairfax his only commercial competition which like all print media is also struggling financially. Most of the multitude of alternative blogs and websites are seen by only
a tiny fraction of the population. In societies like ours, newspapers should be the most important news agenda-setters and as much as we don't like it News Corp dominates without news. Their papers tend to be 25% information and 70% Murdoch commentary. In other words the majority that passes as news in their papers is actually propaganda.
Mr Murdoch’s newspapers always respond in unison – as with some
divine wind – they pursue their relentless campaigns in favour of
current Murdoch objectives – particularly his political ones. Every
journalist in Australia knows that.
“It is the saddest reflection imaginable on this society that virtually
no one in public life has dared to speak out against the
growing concentration of ownership of the Australian press. As a consequence Australia
now has a concentration of newspaper ownership unknown anywhere in the
developed world beyond the party-controlled papers of the communist
bloc."
In the USA when he couldn't takeover CNN so he established Fox News a 24-hour conservative-populist
propaganda channel, where right-wing opinion and slanted news, described
in totalitarian fashion as “fair and balanced”, was delivered in a highly
entertaining fashion. Fox amplifies the anxiety and prejudices of conservative America. Fox News is the voice of the Republican America.
“Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us. Now we’re
discovering that we work for Fox.” With Fox News, Murdoch’s two great
passions – media and right-wing politics – have come together in perfect
harmony.
The past decade has seen the unification of his tabloids partly to cut costs but bringing together a single political voice of right-wing provoking columnists who work for him and follow his line.
Today's papers echo the Alarmist cry of Abbott telling us that James Foley's beheading could happen here.
"This is not something that happens elsewhere. It could happen in a country like Australia if we relax our vigilance against terrorism"....Tony Abbott
Abbott is telling Australian Muslims how they should behave to be part of Team Australia rather than listen. When Bolt and Blair make it a regular exercise to incite anti-Islamic attitude to show they don't belong they are inviting radicalisation. Size of an event doesn't matter just as long as it makes front page across Australia. They want a killer punch. Like ISIS they are Murdoch's terror mongers and want to provoke, create a disturbance here. Margaret Thatcher had a very wise policy on
terrorism – that if you really wish to protect citizens, you do so by
discouraging media coverage of it. “Media coverage is the oxygen of
terrorism”, observed Thatcher. If politicians act irresponsibly and feed
media with national security fears, they can actually incite race hate,
violence and extreme acts. Therefore, the only time a government would
play this card is when it is itself under threat and Tony Abbott is feeling just that. Think about it if somebody was murdered here in Melbourne or Sydney in seemingly terrorist act who would stand to gain?
The opposition is however behind the 8 ball as it has no voice. Abbott is trying to neuter the ABC and SBS not because they have a left bias but because they offer multiple views. That alone next to Murdoch's tabloids makes them appear to have an opposition voice. Fairfax attempts to be 60% news and 25% opinion and are also accused of being of the left. However they are in as much as they are providing information and are not just Murdoch's propaganda flier.
