It was wrong for Kim Williams to suggest last night that News Limited is not censored already. Rupert Murdoch censors it daily, by either direct intervention or prescribed ideological tendency. He makes sure no polls, for instance, pitting Bob Carr against Abbott are published. He favours anti-Slipper over anti-Ashby news. He minimises proofs of climate change and copiously publishes dissenters. He made all 200 of his papers except the Wellington Times propose a war on Iraq in 2003. He believes, and so do his papers, that George Bush was a better President than Barack Obama. He alleged that Hazaras on boats were the Taliban.
And Kim says News’s ‘freedom’ is threatened by government intervention, when there would be much more freedom, if the government stepped in to mitigate Murdoch’s customary lies, than there is now, when those lies prevail every morningin sebpventy oercent of tge oapers of Australia.
Murdoch has about 48,000 employees who cannot speak up without his permission unless they, coincidentally, agree with him, which all pretend to do. Much as most North Koreans agree on every topic with the hereditary monarch of the day. Much as Pravda for twenty-five years agreed with Stalin, whatever he said or did.
How can this be freedom of the press?
How can it?
I ask poor Kim to answer this question urgently.
What is he talking about?
Has he lost his mind?
Name:
How we ever let Murdoch get all this power is beyond me.The little shit of a human being has to be put in his place, He has been manipulating society to serve his base interests far to long. Trouble is he has become too powerful and has lackeys in the liberal party who require his support and are too weak to stand up to him for the betterment of the country. He is a scourge on society much like Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and company. These types will wrought in hell with Stan Zemanki and co.
It was at least twenty years ago but i think you will find that Mr Keating had a lot to do with News Ltds newspaper dominance. A few puff pieces on an egomaniac will go a long way.
Today there is this ridiculous story that because refugees are daring to ask for our help at a rate of 10 extra per day we cannot fill our voluntary special humanitarian program which in law is nothing more than a hoax.
The Murdoch mob simply want the right to say what they like with no consequences.
Sounds like his papers in the UK. Given the trouble he’s made politically and with our unwritten constitution, it beats me why he’s still walking about. But then, any administration with the gumption to put a hit on him would have the gumption to tackle lots more of our problems.
Being a News Corp journo must be like having Stockholm syndrome - you end up sympathizing with your captor; Murdoch. Kim Il Williams has certainly drunk the Kool-Aid.
Former editor of the Herald Sun, Bruce Guthrie, got it right when he said stories are written in the context of “what would Rupert think.”
I think we need to be suspicious of anyone named Kim.
The North Korean connection, you know.
Beazley excluded. And Kim Craig.
“lies prevail every morningin sebpventy oercent of tge oapers of Australia.”
Bob your ability to write about the Svengali Murdoch and his evil grasp on the press is about as accurate as your ability to structure a legible sentence.
I’ll put my money on Kim Williams in the high court taking on Gillard and her Green minions trying to muzzle the free press - any day.
The rest of you can dream on in your lobsided wretched fantasies.
“Acodcirng to a rearesch at an enilgsh unsveriity, it doesn’t matter in what order the leettrs in a word are, the only imrptoant thing is that first and last letter is at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it witohut prlobem. This is becuase we do not read every letter by iteslf but the word as a whole. Chereio.”
The unreadable Phillip Adams has been a long term employee of News Corp.
Bob hates it when anyone points this out. This will probably get me banned - again.
I welcome the proposed challenge by News Corp in the High Court. It will, once and for all, determine to what extent we have the RIGHT to free speech and freedom of the press and then (I fully expect) the realisation will come that the only way to preserve it is to have a stand-alone amendment to the constitution mandating it.
The Americans have had hundreds of years of legal precedent so that it is ready for us to have a similarly worded amendment:-
“No Parliament shall make any law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”
M Ryutin,
I think your suggestion is reasonably nobly intended but I fear misguided. I’d rather have a system where freedom is presumed than the limits thereof specifically codified. As soon as you start telling people what their freedoms are then you infer what they’re not free to do and that to me is the wrong way to approach the whole question of freedom.
As for freedom of the press Murdoch is free to print it and I’m free to line my bird cage with it. I am however cautious to avoid using the editorials as the birds show a tendency to peck one another’s eyes out if they’re on open view.
When you say “As for freedom of the press Murdoch is free to print it and I’m free to line my bird cage with it”,I couldn’t agree more.
However, you misinterpret the effect of what I propose, because it is precisely to PREVENT the possibility of politically-driven limits to feedom of speech and freedom of the press that this clause should be in our constitution. Then you will be really free to buy or not buy Murdoch publications just as you are now.
No I get what you mean I just think that freedom implies…, well freedom really. You don’t have to make a law to make the press free.
But in fairness to your point the law you’d introduce much like the US version isn’t a bad one if it would act to also ensure we don’t have sedition laws, laws forcing journalists to reveal sources or internet filters then I really wouldn’t be that unhappy with it.
As I said, the USA has done the legal arguments. Sedition aside, everything else is completely covered.
As for sedition what is the problem? The Good Faith section (80.3) covers everything I need and the press is also protected.
“(f) publishes in good faith a report or commentary about a matter of public interest”.
I couldn’t think of a single person who would object to it.
But it would not solve one fundamental problem: there is no such thing as freedom of speech in any form of mass media.
That reply was to M Ryutin
I invite you to look at the American media, which with the added advantage of a defamation exception for law suits by ‘public figures’ has a greatly diversified media.
New media is killing old media and the narrative is unable to be controlled by the few. Established old media groups know it, fear it and they, along with politicians (internet filters anyone?) don’t know how to control it.
Old media will continue to play a structural role of vital importance.
I am drawn more to the issue of constitutional reform on the whole, which there is very little appetite for. “If it ain’t broke”.
At any rate there are bigger constitutional fish to fry.
Does anyone watch Jon Stewart or Colbert? How can a nation of 20 million produce a show of such outstanding quality, such as the Micallef show, yet a nation more than 10x our size churns out the same bland one size fits all deeply offensive to the senses tripe day in day out? If American media content stands as testament to the value of enshrining a bill of rights, I reckon keep it.
I was watching the film “Hero” (2002) last night. 10x better than (Downfall).
Yes but much as I more or less I think you could be getting a bill of rights confused with a basic protection of freedom of speech.
Your point about American media seems confused at least from the perspective of one who thinks Stewart and Colbert are great (though far from actually MSM). And the other day I realised that another poster here was Micallef so obviously I’m prescient and can afford to forgo all news sources outside of the ABC.
Seriously when it comes to media I’ve seen Chinese propaganda and some days I struggle to draw distinctions between that and our own daily mainstream news.
As for comparing Hero, a Jet Li film albeit a very good one with Downfall; well that’s as they say in the classics a bit like dancing about architecture. sometimes two genres are just that different that it wouldn’t be fair to make direct comparisons. But I think you can say that I enjoy dancing though I frequently overlook poorly designed buildings.
Overlook Hero at your own peril. I should have made a more poetic point that drew upon the film Kung Fu Hustle and the musical instrument, the “guqin”, something to do with the appropriation of text re; Poe and bad c&w tune, the theme of deep blue oceans, Jim Morrison, the crystal ship and it’s appropriation into a piano piece revealing some ..artful component which I had previously overlooked. (but I didn’t)
Don’t confuse confused communication as an indication of confused perspectives. What is apt? What will promote discussion?
The ABC has the business model everyone wants. I had just a thought on the value to be acquired in allowing the ABC to collect advertising revenue. It doesn’t seem to have affected the SBS in any major way.
What does it matter when ASIO is about to commandeer your computer and keep a record of all telecommunications activity of every citizen for two years?
All hail Micallef. The ABC is the centre of my universe. I would fight to keep it that way.
You would think anonymity would aid in the battle against argumentum ad hominem.
There is no thought, just complex arrangements of words that carry meaning. Is there are no thoughts, then surely we should scrap ideas and move towards hypothesis. HYP-O-Thesis! (surely the product of Higgs Boson).
There is a cartoon or something, on the tip of my tongue with a character that dumbfoundedly repeats the same word over and over again as he/she walks off in disbelief, I cannot place it, but they are saying “downfall? Downfall? Downfall?” with a slightly different positioning of the brow with each repetition.
Hero is as fine as any comparable film, and Downfall is also as fine as any comparable film. I just don’t think they’re comparable with one another.
I don’t think that grand ASIO scheme will get off the ground. If mooted by politicians it would be the bane of ASIO because who’s going be able to go through all that data, and if they fail to do so and there’s a terror attack then they’ll be blamed. It would also have damaging legal implications for things as simple as commercial confidentiality. So I just don’t think that it can happen.
I think they call what most of us are today psuedonymous we use pseudonyms but we own what we say.
Micallef I enjoy without being as effusive about as some obviously are, but I guess I do watch a lot of ABC so I know what you mean about it being “where you live”. No ads though please! I’ll pay my however many cents to be without.
I agree William. I am a republican by sentiment, but the fact is that Elizabeth II has been the most perfect of constitutional monarchs. What more could one ask of a Head of State?
I will repeat that : What more could one ask of a Head of State?
If George VII (yes that’s right) proves to be less successful we can look at it again - and quickly if we need to.
Mark Arbib & Karl Bitar. Rugby League. Western Sydney. Electioneering.
I will not be drawn dear Doug any further, I resist it. This Ellisism!
Emersonism: Using music from the pop genre as a vehicle to deploy political arguments.
Can you have a head of state without endowing them with any kind of mandate? What kind of role would an Australian head of state play? Perhaps a mouthpiece/compass of political/moral virtues? What is leadership?
Can we say the debate over constitutional reform lacks imagination?
Perhaps there are those who fear we will be left but with a layer of soil, right up shit creek.
HR talks of architecture, the royal family is but an extravagantly designed Olympic venue, let us call them a bird cage, trapped in a futile dance to attract subjects or dance partners or in other words entice people into a propagandist relationship of null practicality. It is a warped freak show, a brand, an entity I refuse to serve or bow to nor sit in, or swill about in, as a wet sloth might a warm bath. I refuse the entire notion or royalty. It leaves me itchy.
Furthermore I refuse to participate in a discussion relating to NEWS LTD that does not mention or consider in anyway the great Ita Buttrose.
HR=HG*
I forgot to mention none of the above stops Britons lining the Thames in their thousands to crane necks and view boat parades through soggy cardboard periscopes in the pouring rain.
We are however, not Britain.
Yes well this may be a moot point until her Maj shuffles off, but I actually do wish Australians would give more thought to what might occur is the mood takes them to kick the next George and his pet rottweiler to the kerb.
In my view the Queen isn’t a constitutional problem. She may be a symbol of apron strings we’d do better to cut, but the role of the GG is the business that I don’t like.
I simply take the view that we should arrange things so that the idea of a head of state is subordinate to that of representative government. Once that can be achieved then I imagine that the rest is all about how we make over our image. It’s not unimportant, in fact it may be more so, but unlike the machinations of who can do what and to whom in the game of politics it won’t be argued nearly as much.
I am his Majesty’s dog at La Perouse,
as to my namesake’s identity;
I haven’t a clue.
Media diversity is not synonymous with freedom of expression.
Where, in the mainsteam US media is there real freedom of speech in practice and not mere principle?
On Fox? CNN? NBC? NYT? WSJ?
Do members of the press gallery have it?
Helen Thomas and I would like to know.
That response was to M Ryutin.
Would I rather:
(a) Work for Rupert Murdoch and be free to quit at any time
or
(b) Exist in North Korea
Could I please have ten seconds of thinking music?
(c) Work for Rupe in North Korea.
(d) get the flick for posing stupid bloody questions.
Murdoch and his papers are certainly selective about the kinds of info they publish, but should we go any further than current laws against defamation and etc?
Say the ALP introduce some laws to better control the press and ‘even up the balance’ as it were. You might think that’s a great idea, but what happens when the Coalition wins government? I’d rather not endanger press freedom like that, thanks. Print whatever you want, and if it’s defamatory/untrue/etc then you should feel the full force of the law.
Pierre Burton one of the grat political commentaters said you should only believe 10% of what you read. Unfortunately the majority of the electorate are apathetic and naive and believe if it is printed it is basicly true. Both major parties pandered to Murdoch over the years making him very powerful.Hence the chance of affortable balanced media competion is beyond reach. The politicians are to blame for this and the education system is a close second for our dilemma