While the liberals ( Democrats) do not dismiss all media as being too conservative, they argue that big corporations’ concentration of media ownership limits the breadth of opinion and promotes conservative views, such as promoting a smaller federal government.
There’s always a vacuum without rules things could simply get worse when evil steps out of the room. Why is that? Because the Privatisation of media was never in the interests of the common good. Variety is and unless there are Statuary Independent Media Present consolidated mass media is the enemy of Democracy.
Joe Rogan, Steve Bannon, and Charlie Kirk are ready to rot the brains of GOP voters even more
Murdoch’s employees, like Andrew Bolt, are scared to walk the streets of their own hometowns. His wife lost the plot when their eldest son was outed in the press for working at the IPA. Their daughter was sent overseas. Does anyone even know where or what their youngest is doing? Yet Bolt used his home as his office and condemned his family to the psychological stresses of his paranoias.
Lachlan Murdoch has solved that issue. As Head of Fox News and News Corp New York he runs his office from Sydney and lives here and not in the USA. Andrew Bolt gives the impression he hates Australia and even fled elsewhere to holiday. His preferred destination is Holland. He fled from Malvern to the conservative Mornington Peninsula but I’m sure he’s still uncomfortable. He’d rather be running his mouth offshore living on a barge in Amsterdam. His never-photographed wife Sally and kids would rather have had a less secret existence. So why did Andrew Bolt put his family under such a psychological hammer? His ego and counterfeit syndrome of being found out who he truly is demand he remain disingenuous and the Murdochs pander to personalities like Bolt who are merely invisible ghosts behind a curtain.
What can we now expect from Rupert Murdoch’s successor, his son Lachlan? Don’t hold your breath waiting for Murdock 2.0 to take his family media colossus down a path any less plutocratic. Lachlan doesn’t have much E. W. Scripps in him. Back in 2019, he spent $150 million on an 11-acre estate in L.A. At that time, Lachlan’s new home rated as the second-most expensive U.S. mansion ever purchased.
Source: Not All Media Titans Were as Dastardly as Rupert Murdoch | The Smirking Chimp
By educating the public properly on the dangers posed by White supremacists, the mainstream media holds the power to diminish the neo-Nazi threat, writes Tom Tanuki.
Winning and Losing isn’t the case here. What we are witnessing is Steve Bannon’s strategy of “flooding the zone with shit” for the purpose of fragmentation, division, and destruction of people’s lives and not serving, everyone a loser. Despite all the incontrovertible facts at the center of this “Our” story, no matter how clear a case the Yes23 makes, it will be highly likely that no single version of the truth according to the pollsters is ever going to be accepted.
We’re in an age of manufactured nihilism.
The issue for many people isn’t exactly a denial of truth as such. It’s more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable.
It’s “manufactured” and a consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was perfectly distilled by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. “The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon reportedly said in 2018. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
The No campaign doing just that and with x 10 the money being spent than by Yes23
Bannon articulated the zone-flooding philosophy well, but he did not invent it. In our time, it was pioneered by Vladimir Putin in post-Soviet Russia. Putin uses the media to engineer a fog of disinformation, producing just enough distrust to ensure that the public can never mobilize around a coherent narrative.(Vox 2020)
The cliché about disunity being death in politics sure doesn’t apply to the No campaign. It’s all over the place, and it’s winning.
Source: ” The… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
That these aspirations seem to be naive simply serves to illustrate how low our common expectations have sunk. But unless we begin to look at the coverage of news and current events as being a core and important issue, and take steps to stop our current slide into partisan nonsense, then our Australian media environment may very soon become as hopelessly gridlocked and fractured as in the US.
This is why the current discussions regarding curbing the instances of misinformation and disinformation in our media are both necessary and should be applauded by all Aussies, regardless of their political bent. But these regulatory measures can only be viewed as a starting point. There is a need to move to decentralise our media and unwind the massive monopolies that currently exist. The good health of our democracy depends on cultivating a healthy press environment.
The stakes are high. Big Brother is not just a scary tale. Nineteen-eighty-four is not in our rear-view mirror. Just as in America, very soon parts of our media may also become so utterly detached from reality, that half our population will begin agitating for renovations to our law, in accord with a brand new and improved his
Should we be surprised that mainstream media are searching for payola, the cash flow as influencers and not informers yet able to label their product as “news”? That Cash flow comes from a diverse but very specific minority holding the concentration of money in our market whose interests don’t even align with their audience. Why did The Age and SMH spend their time tarnishing John Farnham with “fake news” while polishing “Poor Alan Joyce’s brilliant career “? They had Michael Dwyer deflect the criticism directed at Lisa Visentin who started the suggestion Farnham hadn’t gifted his rights to his song. While whitewashing any negative facts directed at QUANTAS’s Alan Joyce. Poor Alan was being “forced out” of his job not that he was “running for cover”
Much of the Voice Referendum ‘No’ campaign is based on lies and misinformation, spread by a complicit mainstream media, writes Col Jennings.
Source: Mainstream media helping to spread Voice ‘No’ campaign lies
The Age and SMH haven’t apologized for the misinformation they published in the article by Lisa Visentin 4 days ago which started the shitstorm about whether or not John Farnham was paid or not. Instead, they have come back with a poorly attempted deflection of “It’s Complicated” by Michael Dwyer.
It isn’t complicated Vinsentin maintained ” Farnham has allowed his 1986 hit to be used in a commercial, having agreed to license it for an undisclosed sum to Yes campaign outfit Uluru Dialogue.” That’s fake and Farnham and his management have denied it. So what was published by Visentin wasn’t verified and it was made up pure and simple. However, to date, neither she, Dwyer, or anyone at Ch9 has actually said sorry John or sorry Tim. Rather, they have tried to duck the issue and thrown a dead moggie on the table in the true political style of “never say sorry” just deflecting and distracting and trying to move on in hope that the 24/7 media cycle will make it disappear. Will they get away with it? John Farnham and his management have clearly stated that they have gifted their rights to the Voice gratis and like Aboriginal Australians deserve to be listened to. Their Voice matters.
If we’re talking about the words and notes on the page, You’re The Voice doesn’t in fact belong to Farnham. So was it entirely a gift?
Source: Voice to parliament: Did John Farnham gift ‘You’re The Voice’ to Yes campaign?
In 2018, Steve Bannon observed that: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
And they have
Source: We have the media we want – » The Australian Independent Media Network
THE HOST of ABC TV’s Kitchen Cabinet, Annabel Crabb, took to Twitter/X at the weekend to denounce what she perceives as an ‘orgy of outrage’ from users at the appearance of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on her show.
Source: Turning politicians into celebrities won’t excuse their crimes
CONSPIRACY? “Nothing to see here, F@#K off!!
The Opposition and Right-wing media have collaborated on a scheme to turn people away from voting ‘Yes’ to the Voice Referendum.
Source: VIDEO: The Uluru Statement Right-wing conspiracy theory
According to Shane Dowling, he has received legal threats from Linda Reynolds’s solicitors.
Senator Linda Reynolds has sent me a legal threat from her lawyers, as per below, after I emailed them some questions regarding false evidence that Linda Reynolds has admitted giving under oath in the rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann in the ACT Supreme Court.
Media Capitalism is where the ratings are the product for sale anything else is merely a tool in the manufacture of the rating numbers. The “camp followers” are the numbers attempting to follow and replicate the biggest Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News
As president, Trump was fully enmeshed in the alternate reality spun by his TV propagandists. He would spend hours a day watching right-wing cable news channels and sent nearly 1,300 tweets in response to Fox News and Fox Business alone from September 2018 to the end of his presidency. Trump treated Fox hosts as members of his kitchen cabinet, enacting policy based on what he saw on their shows and seeking their counsel in private. People would go on his favorite channels seeking to influence his administration’s decision-making, at times snaring government contracts or presidential clemency because he happened to be watching.
We know for a fact that AI will, unless edited, be far more balanced than it is now with the current stable of journalists at News Corp. If this is fact Murdoch won’t be supported by the same cash flow market as he is now? Consequently seems to me his profitability will go into even further decline. Can you imagine an AI-published Herald Sun or The Australian without Bolt or Sheridan? Murdoch would need to sack AI to keep Harvey Norman and QANTAS advertising. Sky News without Dean or Credlin? This seems more a Rupert Ruse or to give Llachlan less chance to fuck things up as he always has. This is a case of reality mimicking art and the TV series Succession
This article was not written by AI, but Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation hopes in the future many will be.
Source: News Corp eyes huge AI potential, ‘fatal’ consequences
In both the Yemen and Ukraine conflicts, the U.S. has spent tens of billions of dollars – more than US$75 billion in humanitarian, financial and military assistance to Ukraine and over $54 billion in military support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between 2015 and 2021 alone.
What’s different is that the U.S. is essentially on opposite sides in these conflicts when it comes to its relationship to those inflicting the most civilian casualties. Washington officials have made open and direct declarations about the inhumanity of atrocities in Ukraine while avoiding inquiry and condemnation of those in Yemen. Our research suggests that such messaging may be supported by the news media.The Conversation
The cone of silence
Pakistan has imposed a media blackout over the deposed prime minister and thousands of new political prisoners incarcerated in appalling conditions. Condemnation in the U.K. and U.S. has been non-existent.
When a complainant in a rape trial makes public her opinion describing the way she was treated by police The Age reports it as “an attack”. When the description refers to the way the police investigators behaved it appears as if “they were doing their job”. Despite the fact that even the chief investigator disagreed with his team. Does anybody else see the inherent bias against Brittany in this report called “news”?
Brittany Higgins has launched an attack against the attitudes of the police who investigated her rape claim, saying they were disgraced by their own conduct, rather than the accusations of the ex-ACT chief prosecutor.
Source: Shane Drumgold: Brittany Higgins attacks conduct of ACT police who investigated Bruce Lehrmann
Bruce Lehrmann has at least 2 other alleged rape victims, but he has not sued them for defamation or sued the media who have published reports about their alleged rapes by Bruce Lehrmann.
The articles are still freely available on the internet, and will likely be there forever, which is very telling given that Bruce Lehrmann is currently suing the media for claiming he raped Brittany Higgins. In fact, the ABC have reported all 3 alleged rapes, but Lehrmann is only suing them for one alleged rape which makes no sense unless the other 2 rapes are true.
Media China Baiting is promoting LNP’s Fear Factor. To smother the attention on Dutton
The mainstream media has once more tried to generate alarm about the presence of two relatively innocuous Chinese electronic spy ships in international waters during the latest biennial Talisman Sabre military exercise spread across the Australian mainland and offshore oceans. It involves 30,000 troops from 13 countries. Although the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi had publicly assured his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese that his country would attend, India did not turn up.
Murdoch’s The Australian Political Editor Greg Sheridan actively participates in Fascist politics. He doesn’t just report it.
Senior Australian “conservative” figures continue to attend conferences backed by illiberal Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) hosted its 2023 London Summit in late June, featuring Alexander Downer and Greg Sheridan as two of the five speakers. Australians must focus on connections between our Right and Hungarian fascistic politics.
For a preview of where Sky News is heading, it’s easy to check the direction of the Murdoch format pacesetter, Fox News.
Crikey’s Bernard Keane this week detailed the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s uselessness.
On average, it takes more than nine months for ACMA to finalise an investigation on the rare occasions it attempts them.
“The recent occasion in which the ACMA did inquire into Sky News – for blatant climate denialism on Outsiders – saw the regulator commence an investigation in June 2022 about broadcasts in late 2021. It was completed in December 2022 and was not released until April this year,” reports Mr Keane.
“So, in the event that the ACMA can bring itself to investigate Sky News’ lies about the Voice, don’t expect any findings until at least late 2024, when it might finally produce a report saying it had ordered the organisation to provide more training to its presenters.”
And remember that the Murdochs’ local broadcasting venture is still catching up with the Fox News model, still looking for a local Greg Gutfeld.
Source: Michael Pascoe: ‘Insult conservatism’ – yes, Murdoch can go lower
“Innocent until proven guilty”. The LNP and media gave her the opportunity to do a Stuart Robert, resign, and deflect the blame away from them. However, we still have a principle to uphold “The Separation of Powers” in this country. The ALP, unlike the LNP, accept that.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed off on Kathryn Campbell’s termination on June 21, 2022, the day before he announced she was off to serve in a plum $892K per annum job in Defence’s AUKUS team. The big question is why? Rex Patrick reveals the FOIs.
Source: Yes to Kathryn Campbell’s plum job Prime Minister, but why? – Michael West
Yes, Peter Costello’s The AGE puts Massola’s by-line on the front page that the “Yes Vote is Unlikely to win” as “News”, rather than Opinion, setting the mood for the No Campaign
So, yes; some individual First Nations peoples are against the Voice, and for widely differing reasons, but the vast majority – currently 83 per cent – are for it. Eighty-three per cent that’s a lot of voices. I hope the rest of us can hear them.
Source: Voice to parliament: Peter Dutton’s divisive language must not derail Australia’s 1967 moment
The latest example of media bias and a lack of journalistic integrity in Australia follows Dan Andrews’ decision to cancel the Commonwealth Games, writes Belinda Jones.
Fordham is a real “dickhead”, Our PM goes on 2GB, unlike LNP’s Tony Abbott, Dutton and Morrison who spent time boycotting the people’s ABC to be abused not by a “news and information” station but the voice of right-wing radio.
Fordham was ready to kick the shit out of our PM for standing up for the universal human right of Indigenous Australians to be recognized for who and what they are in this country’s history and to turn our shame around and change what we have been doing to them without respect for 240 years. Fordham is simply a self-serving racist prick who offered listeners nothing but a cheerleader for the shameless.
Fordham and his ilk are the ones “risking” constitutional recognition, playing games with the referendum while insisting they have Indigenous Australians’ interests at heart. Are we really expected to believe Fordham is “worried about this failing”, as he continues to put forward bad-faith arguments against the Voice?
Source: Risking it | The Monthly
The latest facts on business turnover from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) refute the Government’s critics, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: Contrary to Coalition claims, business is booming across Australia
Tucker Carlson hosted a Christian presidential forum but instead of promoting Christian values, he promoted Kremlin talking points about Ukraine.
Source: How Tucker Carlson Turned A Presidential Forum Into Putin TV | Crooks and Liars
We’ve proven the market is there, and that it needs to be monopolistic to succeed, and that if we leave it to the marketplace it will become so enshittened as to become a net negative instead of a net good. It all points to the core premise of social media—subscription-based multicasting—as something the government needs to regulate as a core economic and social good. The billionaires all had their chance, and they turned it all to shit so that they could buy slightly bigger yachts. Screw ’em.
Source: The Case For Social Media Socialism | Crooks and Liars
Chris Hedges: Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange and Slit Their Own Throats The failure by journalists to mount a campaign to free Julian Assange, or expose the vicious smear campaign against him, is one more catastrophic and self-defeating blunder by the news media.
Source: Chris Hedges: Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange and Slit Their Own Throats – scheerpost.com
Official TV usually ignores inconvenient news – during the 1991 coup attempt it showed a tape of Swan Lake. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s action was different
Murdoch actually saw a godless China as an opportunity China saw him as a danger and as an aggressive takeover attempt. Stupid he might have been on their side where the money is his sign from God’s gift.
How bad is this? Australia ranks 3rd behind the state-owned print media of China and Egypt, as the most highly concentrated media in private hands. Corporate monopolies dominate the economy, and global gambling syndicates monopolise Australian sport. Both fit comfortably with the nation’s monopolised media.
Source: Atheophobia – the Myopia of Monopolised Media – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Apparently, it was Amanda Stoker who came forward and followed through with her threat about David Van… Nothing more because I don’t want a letter from his lawyer because I have enough to read and won’t get round to that reading it until another testament of the Bible is written…
This is due to my concerns that the absence of media diversity and the resulting concentration of power are leading to a lack of accountability and eroding public trust in the fourth estate.
Source: Time to right wrongs with much-needed media reform – Pearls and Irritations
They keep saying “Nine & Murdoch”. Why not Costello and Murdoch?
The Nine and Murdoch media declared war was coming this morning, a “full-scale IR war” by business against the government’s “Same Job, Same Pay” labor hire laws. What’s the scam?
The scam is they are not even laws, not even a draft at this point, rather a proposal. But that did not stop this coalition of lobby groups – which don’t even pay tax, which are predominantly financed by foreign shareholders, and which cheered on the waste of $40bn in JobKeeper hand-outs for their members – from playing the victim. Not a single business man or woman has been heard from yet, but “Business” vows the war will not stop!
Source: Business “declares war on PM” over … umm … what? – Michael West
This seems more a PR advertorial praising Coles for declaring it will stop raping the environment “from now on”. Poor Coles they weren’t t at fault it was their REDcycle program, and they did it for years until caught out. Is Coles applying for sainthood here? By making this a heroic-sounding “public vow” using the media and abusing us as fools? Robert-Smith should have taken the hint and got Kerry Stokes to publicly declare that he too like Coles now promises he’ll never be a war crim again.
Supermarket giant Coles has partnered with an environmental group in a bid to tackle the challenge of plastic waste and recycling months after the collapse of its REDcycle program.
The FBI has reopened an investigation into Australian journalist Julian Assange, according to front-page reporting from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Source: FBI Reopens Julian Assange Case, Despite Australian Pressure
The ABC and NewsCorp are locked in a co-dependent abusive relationship. As Dr Martin Hirst writes, part of the problem is the revolving door between their respective newsrooms.
When News Corp sponsors a conference for the Arms Industry and Dutton is a featured guest speaker how can we expect our mainstream media to “focus on peace”? Did anyone see this reported in the mainstream?
The fact that Australia is sleepwalking towards a catastrophic war against China has received very welcome and responsible coverage in Pearls and Irritations and other non-mainstream media. The head-in-the-sand stance adopted by much of the mainstream media stands in stark contrast. The most recent example of the latter was a 15-page supplement in The Canberra Times (CT) on 17 May – ‘Our Next Steps’, on the Defence Strategic Review. It was a most shameful collection of war-mongering articles and images.
Source: Mainstream media need to focus on peace – Pearls and Irritations
Costello’s headline in the Age attacks Dan with an “If and could” article on Air BnBs. Nothing, in reality, to be seen other than an opportunity to boost the LNP by useful scaremongering. How did mainland Australia become so ALP when 80%+ of our mainstream media concentration is the world’s most Blue? The answer it’s the least trusted. Long Live Independents and the ABC
Capping the number of nights Victorian landlords can list their properties on Airbnb, imposing a “tourist tax” and empowering councils to charge owners higher rates are among the options on the table.
Source: Melbourne house prices: Labor MPs weigh Airbnb crackdown to tackle rental crisis
Peter Costello’s Ch9, Murdoch’s News Corp, and Kerry Stokes… That 80%+ Oh, yes a very wounded ABC
Australians are particularly vulnerable to propaganda because the country has the most concentrated media ownership in the Western world, dominated by Nine Entertainment and the Murdoch-owned News Corp.
Source: Caitlin Johnstone: 60 Minutes Australia Churning Out War-with-China Propaganda
“Sometimes we just need to take time out, sometimes our souls are hurting, and so it is for me,” Grant said, as tears welled in his eyes. “I’m not walking away for a while because of racism – we get that far too often. I’m not walking away because of social media hatred. I need a break from the media. I feel like I’m part of the problem. And I need to ask myself how or if we can do it better.”
Source: Stan Grant farewells ABC’s Q+A, delivers powerful speech
The Los Angeles Press Club recently announced the finalists for its 65th annual Southern California Journalism Awards naming ScheerPost staff and contributors as finalists in nine categories.
Source: ScheerPost Finalist in Nine SoCal Journalism Award Categories – scheerpost.com
This Editorial Opinion is a Ch9 is free election Ad not a subscription piece for paying readers
On any other day on any other topic if you want to read Peter Costello’s AGE you need to subscribe and if you don’t you won’t get delivery, and your locked out of the digital version of what it declares is a “News Paper”. However strangely enough not this editorial “opinion piece” or better said propaganda piece written by Parnell Palme McGuinness. Parnell is a PR Liberal Party hack who can be found writing for Murdoch’s Australian and in this case The Age preaching to everyone without any need to subscribe to vote “No” and that’s no accident. That’s the clear and loud mainstream media that calls itself News in this country over 66% controlled by the elite and powerhouse conservatives of this country doing to Indigenous Australians what has been done to them for the past 240 shameful years. The only colonial country on the planet that still declares that the Indigenous First Nations people need no recognition, treaty or voice.
Parnell Palme McGuinness is managing director strategy and policy at award-winning campaigns firm Agenda C. The company was engaged to work for a Liberal Party MP during the federal election. She has also worked for the German Greens.
Source: Voice to parliament: Now is a good time for the Yes campaign to panic
Is this news or “blackmail” trying to get the government to subsidize an already failing coal-fired power station. Any subsidy today should be a foot on the accelerator of renewables.
The Fossil Fuel Industry is promoting this media and it comes across as extortion particularly when already obsolete power plants are promoted as necessary because “renewables can’t do the job”. This sort of negative fearmongering argument was never posited when coal-fired stations were being built way back when we were still lighting candles and burning wood.
“Then we might think that we’re fine, we might let Eraring go, thinking the worst case scenario hasn’t happened, therefore it can’t happen.” Eraring, located south of Newcastle, is Australia’s largest coal-fired power station and biggest single emitter of greenhouse gases.
Source: Could ‘unreliable’ be the new normal for energy users? – Michael West
The fact is very few Australians know who Andrew Bolt is let alone read or listen to this puppet rants. He is simply a worker a talking head who climbed the News Corp seniority ladder as a dutiful ass-licker. A cog in Murdoch’s Corporate media empire that’s been poisoning Australia’s political and social discourse since the 70s when Rupert had his vision. That news or facts no longer mattered and he wasn’t in the business of providing it. He was in the business of controlling it, creating it for profit in the service of those that could pay. Ratings are his priority and selling them. Unfortunately in Australia that meant factless, and partisan social and political discourse for money.
Having constructive debates, rather than resorting to name-calling, is the way forward for a healthy political and social climate, writes Patrick Lukins.
Nowhere Else to go. He actually explains what it is he does with the English language when claiming he speaks the truth
Carlson’s lawsuit and announcement sound an awful lot like someone else we know, the so-called “demonic destroyer” himself: Donald Trump. Filing angry lawsuits claiming that everyone is lying about everything and then taking to a social media platform to keep the brand alive until the next move is right out of old number 45’s playbook. Trump, however, always had his next chapter planned out from the moment he launched his pathetic little cult channel. He knew he was going to run for president again. Tucker Carlson has said he has no intention of doing that and he’s run out of real television networks so all he really has left is something like this.
Source: Tucker Carlson’s Takeover and the Dramatic Decline of Twitter | The Smirking Chimp
Mainstream media coverage of the Voice to Parliament debate has highlighted the problem of bias and manipulation leaving an unfair media playing field. Dr Victoria Fielding reports.
Lidia Thorpe sets the bar with independent media’s Tom Tanuki, given mainstream press can’t be trusted enough to tell her side of the story.
Source: Beyond the media hype: Tom Tanuki talks to Lidia Thorpe
“I read it in the Rolling Stone” song By Chip Taylor. Feelings could be applied to Tucker Carlson ” Dogone I said it now I regret it because I read it”
According to Rolling Stone, Grossberg filed a lawsuit against the ousted host last month alleging both he and Fox News “fostered a workplace climate of misogyny and toxicity during her tenure at the company.”
olddogthoughts 
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