The ALP wasn’t where the money was. They were buyers of papers, yes but they weren’t the catalysts of the profits Rupert Murdoch was looking for. They were merely the numbers, the rating, but not the honey pot. The major corporate players in the economy’s sectors, the generational wealthy investors who the  LNP represented were. They could be found in the Private Clubs and associations of Australia. Associations like the IPA, which his father was a founding member and the Melbourne Club. Fake News, PR and influence became Rupert  Murdoch’s core business after the LNP’s underhanded removal of the Whitlam government.

Murdoch simply focused on working for where the cash lay and flowed from. The continued influence for and on behalf of that cabal of owners, shareholders, and non-representative politicians. Meanwhile, news took a back seat. He peaked with the arrival of Fox News in the US in the 80s which focussed on power, and politics via fake news.

“fake news” predates both Clinton and Trump. When I first moved to the US over two decades ago, I recall my total shock at seeing the headlines of print tabloids, always positioned at the centre of major US grocery stores: from unsubstantiated celebrity scandals, to “breaking news” about aliens impregnating human females before returning to their home planet. Even as a newcomer to the country, it was obvious to me that such rubbish was also “fake news”. Sadly, these tabloids were often sold faster than legitimate newspapers, which suggests that the biggest challenge posed by “fake news” is our gullibility and willingness to engage with it. In the modern definition, “fake news” has grown to also include people with opposing opinions, whether these opinions are based on facts, selective facts or utter fiction. Many of us, as journalists, are caught in this impossible labyrinth. No matter what we do to demonstrate the authenticity of our sources, we continue to be haunted by “fake news” allegations. The generational struggle for independent media organisations and journalists has been the constant push to create as much space as possible between them and the whims of politics and p

Source: Lying about Lying: Why we must revisit the Definition of ‘Fake News’ from Iraq to Palestine