Category: Media

Media

Further News Corp Bias in Favour of Scott Morrison – » The Australian Independent Media Network

 

Earlier in the week, I published an article about what I perceived to be blatant media bias in favor of the Liberal Party and Scott Morrison during this 2022 Federal Election campaign. It has been brought to my attention by one of my fellow branch members (named Don) that The Courier Mail (CM) appears to only be publishing letters to the editor which are favoring Morrison and the Liberal Party, and normal progressive contributors like him are not having their letters published, even though he has been a regularly published contributor to the CM for many years before the 2022 Federal Election was called. As you may recall from my above-mentioned article, the CM is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia (NCA).

Source: Further News Corp Bias in Favour of Scott Morrison – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Media

Australian climate change policy: What Liberal Party, Labor Party are offering

The climate policies of both major parties fall short, according to experts.

The Age claims it’s not biased. But, if it hasn’t overstated Albanese gaffe for over a week and continued to understate Morrison’s several as simply slips or supported the proposition Albanese,a once Deputy PM and politician for 25 years, is “unknown” and therefore somehow a darker figure to back than warts, and all Morrison they now suggest falsely there’s an equivalency between the ALP and the LNP on Climate. The ALP for a start wouldn’t have had us be unsigned participants in a world agreed emissions target. Australia would today not be regarded as a global pariah on Climate and wouldn’t be threatened with trade sanctions.

To what extent did LNP attitudes bring about ease with which China has now gained a presence in the Pacific?

One only needs to compare Team ALP with Team NLP and one doesn’t need to be a genius to consider which is a Team and the other a discordant self seeking set of individuals who don’t trust each other.

The disconnect is jarring when you look closely. After years of drought, fire and flood – and in the wake of a series of United Nations reports spelling out in terrible detail the catastrophic costs of inaction – Australia’s major political parties are running cold on climate action.

Source: Australian climate change policy: What Liberal Party, Labor Party are offering

Media

Media bias and the public agenda: Gotcha questions examined – » The Australian Independent Media Network

 

Sunday’s episode of ABC Insiders showed viewers exactly what media bias is all about and how, come election time, even some of the most respected journalists can fall into the trap of playing double standards.

Despite some criticism of the Liberal government’s election campaign, more of the discussion focused on gotcha moments than actual policy.

Political Editor for news.com Samantha Maiden began the discussion by declaring that Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese needed to “sharpen up”, having days earlier been unable to provide the exact statistic of people currently unemployed across Australia.

In the same breath, when referring to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Maiden merely stated that he had committed a “blunder” at not knowing the price of bread and milk.

Maiden’s false equivalency between the two failings shows just how the media’s bias against the Labor party has flourished over the years.

Source: Media bias and the public agenda: Gotcha questions examined – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Media

Now is a crucial time for journalists we can trust

With the mainstream media more compliant than ever, there is a need for credibility from our journalists during the election campaigns, writes Paul Begley.

Source: Now is a crucial time for journalists we can trust

Media

Political journalists are framing the election – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The mainstream media is shaping the narrative of the 2022 election into a battle between two leaders. Perhaps one of the more remarkable journalistic observations last week came from ABC’s political editor Andrew Probyn, when he declared on Insiders on Sunday that “Only certain political messages get through”. Probyn appears to be entirely unaware of, or unwilling to admit, the role of his profession in determining which of those messages will “get through”. For example, on Monday, ABC breakfast presenter Patricia Karvalas amplified an article in The Age written by journalist David Crowe, with the headline: ‘Albanese pays a price for gaffe as voters swing back to government.’

Source: Political journalists are framing the election – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Media

The ongoing media fixation on Albo’s ‘gaffe’

Living proof that “free media” in  Capitalism is a myth and what we have is cash for comment MSM melee. Corporate Media at this time have all become the organ grinders’ monkeys and not the organ grinders. Would any of the MSM not dance for those with the money? The money hasn’t been with the ALP or its supporters for decades. So it’s hardly surprising Murdoch, Costello, and Stoke’s business models are there to serve the LNP, IPA, and Clive Palmer and consequently advertise the dark and fake side of news and information because their future bottom lines depend on it. As a result Morrison’s lies gaffes and soap bubble promises are let go to the wicketkeeper and are reported with humour like ” I only missed it by that much”!  Or not calling it a gaffe when Morrison is seen promoting jobs at Rheem a company that’s downsizing 30% of its workforce and sending the work to Vietnam.

AS MOST READERS will probably know, on the first day of the election campaign, Labor Leader Anthony Albanese was asked to specify the unemployment rate and the official cash rate, which are 4% are 0.1% respectively. Albanese did not initially offer a figure for the cash rate and said the unemployment rate might be 5.4% then added he wasn’t sure of that figure. Such a response is unsurprising given that, up until now, we have not expected our politicians to be focused on memorizing figures to such a precise degree.

Source: The ongoing media fixation on Albo’s ‘gaffe’

Media

Paul Bongiorno: Not being Scott Morrison is Albanese’s best shot

Scott Morrison could be looking ahead at political blue sky if voters deliver a hung parliament.

On Sunday it was Scott Morrison’s turn to come up with a “Freudian slip” – you know, the brain explosion that everyone pretends to dismiss while at the same time believing is deeply significant. Three times at his news conference the Prime Minister addressed the assembled media scrum according to the parliamentary protocol of speaking through the chair. He was wriggling around the issue of who will have specific cabinet portfolios after the election, and said “of course, Mr Speaker” all of the portfolios are important. When interrupted, he started to say it again and after the third time pulled himself up, trying to dismiss the gaffe with a smile: “There you go, I’m back in Parliament”.

Source: Paul Bongiorno: Not being Scott Morrison is Albanese’s best shot

Media

“Labor trolls, ‘thugs” and “lobotomised sh*theads” belie a bigger challenge for media elites – Michael West Media

Faziah Ibrahim

Last week, the first week of the election campaign was dominated by Albo’s gaffe. It was a bit of a shocker, to be sure, but hardly deserving of blanket coverage when the Morrison campaign was flat-out pork barrelling with the taxes of ordinary Australians, simply buying votes with somebody else’s money. And what of the straight out lies, that the subsidies for logging companies would bring about 73,000 jobs, or that – having sold the Port of Darwin to the Chinese on a 100 year lease for just $510m – it was a good idea to build another port for $1.5bn with no consulting engineers or financial modellers involved to assure us it was even feasible. ABC has little choice but to listen to what people are saying on social media, not spurn it. Elitism will only ruin their credibility. That means recognising that its corporate media peers are institutionally biased and driven by commercial and political agendas. In other words, they will have to do their own work, ignore the clickbait. It won’t be easy. Who has really been lobotomised here?

Source: “Labor trolls, ‘thugs” and “lobotomised sh*theads” belie a bigger challenge for media elites – Michael West Media

Media

Far-right InfoWars website files for bankruptcy protection | US news | The Guardian

Alex Jones falsely claimed the Sandy Hook shooting in which 20 children and six staff were killed was a hoax.

If you think these A-holes aren’t in it just for the money think again.

Facing multiple defamation lawsuits, the far-right website InfoWars on Sunday voluntarily filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Texas.

Source: Far-right InfoWars website files for bankruptcy protection | US news | The Guardian

Media

Follow the money. Why the old media are on Scott Morrison’s side and want him re-elected as Prime Minister – Kangaroo Court of Australia

Scott Morrison and the government have made sure the old media companies have profited financially in a major way under the coalition government and that largely explains why old media companies are keen to keep Morrison and the coalition in power. By rights Scott Morrison should have no chance at the federal election, which is what the polls say, but if the old media keep on reporting in a biased manner like that have the last 2 days Morrison might scrape over the line.

It’s really only a few of the small independent media journalists and companies that can be trusted to report without fear of favour as the larger ones were compromised long ago by their owner’s financial greed. This has been magnified even further in recent times because of the abuse of Jobkeeper and the News Media Bargaining Code which has allowed the large old media companies to gain a financial advantage with the small media companies being left out.

Source: Follow the money. Why the old media are on Scott Morrison’s side and want him re-elected as Prime Minister – Kangaroo Court of Australia

Media

Election 2022: Anthony Albanese’s unemployment rate gaffe could come at great cost

Scott Morrison, right, is running on his record and warning of the risk of change while Anthony Albanese is promising a better future.

The editorial in The Age concentrates on “the gaffe” and ignores “the deception”!! Like reports paid $167M for delivered but not tabled “The Prayer Room” for one.  Or Tudge’s Taxpayer Payout of almost $$600k to a $1M. When the Minister of Education’s bad behavior in the work place is declared a “private matter and nothing to do with Morrison. It seems The Age believes in the triviality of Morrison’s deceptions more than Albo’s cost nothing mistake. Looks like “cash for comment” to anyone looking at it.

Both leaders have to be on their game. “Albanese was not”.

Source: Election 2022: Anthony Albanese’s unemployment rate gaffe could come at great cost

Media

“Horror story” from fantasy land: Albo’s howler a gift for marketing maestro Morrison – Michael West Media

Scott Morrison, election campaign

John Howards reaction ” So What” Main Stream Media spends a great deal of time allowing him to walk back on a statement that came so naturally to him. A mistake he himself made when PM.

They are madly tut-tutting today, the Coalition’s typing pool. “It was a horror,” lamented Phil Coorey in the AFR. “Unfit to be PM,” shrieked Rupert Murdoch’s most ingratiating windbag Terry McCrann in the Australian, flanked by Judith Sloan who conflated Albanese’s gaffe with the entire “Party’s complete misunderstanding of the jobs figures”. Michael West reports on Albo’s howler and hogwash masquerading as journalism.

Source: “Horror story” from fantasy land: Albo’s howler a gift for marketing maestro Morrison – Michael West Media

Media

Mainstream media still silent on Prayer Room – Michael West Media

One week since prayer room allegations and barely a peep from the mainstream media. It has been a week since the contents of the Sparke Helmore investigation into allegations of misconduct by federal Liberal Party ministers in the Australian Parliament House Prayer Room by YouTube channel FriendlyJordies. Not to mention AFP raids on the whistleblower who helped with the investigation. Sparke Helmore Lawyers, which have received $162 million in contracts from the Morrison government, investigated allegations that Liberal Party MPs brought sex workers into Parliament House.

Source: Mainstream media still silent on Prayer Room – Michael West Media

Media

Scott Morrison clashes with Leonardo Puglisi on 6 News | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has clashed with a teenager in a tense interview ahead of the federal election. Image: 6 News

Is that Bullying him? Nope Nope Nope. Crikey and the ABC aren’t Morrison’s Media are they? We’ll according to PM Morrison aka Trump they are the “Fake News” casters. He’d rid himself of them if he could . Let’s not talk about what they have to say. Let’s not ask the simple question “Is youth lived experience under the LNP  better or worse in the past 10 years?” Let’s not talk about casualized work or regional unemployment. Morrison has certainly promised money to  people who are yet to receive it even after years of waiting. Well, that’s not his fault is it? The promise was made he doesn’t hold the hose and that’s the important thing.

“I don’t think we expected that much pushback however I think we responded well, and it’s not everyday, we do get pushback but not usually from the Prime Minister of Australia,” he said.

Source: Scott Morrison clashes with Leonardo Puglisi on 6 News | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Media

Jordan Shanks, the Parliament prayer room, a police raid and the sounds of silence – Michael West Media

Jordan Shanks, @friendlyjordies, Parliament prayer room

Two days on, deafening silence. Not a word from the corporate media and the national broadcasters. Despite the creeping visions now planted in so many brains, despite the high public interest in this story.Allegations of senior Liberal party figures cavorting in the Parliament prayer room with prostitutes. Allegations sourced directly from a document, an investigation by the government-aligned law firm Sparke Helmore.Yet another raid by the police on a whistleblower. Still silence.The document from the law firm Sparke Helmore was leaked to YouTube investigator Jordan Shanks, aka FriendlyJordies, who published it and produced a compelling Youtube video on the scandal which had clearly been vetted by lawyers.

Source: Jordan Shanks, the Parliament prayer room, a police raid and the sounds of silence – Michael West Media

Media

This far-right website is funneling Russian propaganda into the conservative echo chamber | Media Matters for America

The far-right, conspiracy theorist website The Gateway Pundit has spent the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pumping out the Kremlin’s propaganda materials and narratives.Founded in 2004 by Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit is a voraciously pro-Trump blog that has spread conspiracy theories about everything from the 2018 Parkland school shooting and former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, to the Las Vegas mass shooting and the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Most recently, the blog has served as a promotional platform for Russian propaganda in the month after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Source: This far-right website is funneling Russian propaganda into the conservative echo chamber | Media Matters for America

Conservative Media, Media, Media Bias, media distortion

Sikh Volunteers Australia Drove 34 Hours To Assist Flood-Affected Victims In NSW

Sikh Volunteers Australia preparing food deliveries

Peter Costello’s AGE spent yesterday attempting to smear Dan Andrews for his relationship with the Sikh Community in Victoria. They seemingly tried to suggest that a positive and progressive relationship  was nefarious and suspicious in nature the equivalent of what we have seen done in LNP’s rorts scandals. The Age was acting more as a PR agent in an effort of damage control for the shambles Matthew Guy and the Liberals had found themselves in. However, even Pr agents can be idiots and chose the wrong community and the wrong relationship to focus on even one one dating back to 2018.

But it’s during difficult times like these that Australians bond together to help each other out — and that can be seen by the efforts of Sikh Volunteers Australia, an organisation that aims to reduce distress in the community by providing free food to people in need. Sikh Volunteers Australia preparing food deliveries

Source: Sikh Volunteers Australia Drove 34 Hours To Assist Flood-Affected Victims In NSW

Media

How the Premier’s local bottle shop owner claimed he won $30 million of projects

Danial Andrews and Luckee Kohli on the campaign trail in 2018.

Amazing how a ” positive, progressive action” conducted in 2018 can

1) Make it to the Front Page of CH9’s The AGE in 2022 and be declared “corrupt”.

2) How a Good progressive action can be twisted and  turned on its head as if it were the equivalent of a LNP regressive vote-buying rort. Remind ourselves what the Sikh community has done for Victoria during Covid, the bush fires, and other emergencies and they have done it for nothing

3) The Age CH9 however is giving wind to a disgruntled female politician who happens to be Indian and is now claiming “bullying” by her party for having been dropped by the ALP. In a case of push back she has teamed with Adam Somyarek a proved to be corrupt politician also sanctioned by the ALP and facing legal action.

4) The Age is acting as a PR agency maintaing an equivalence exists with LNP rorts and that the ALP are acting as thugs in a State regarded as the most progressive in the country. Their bias is obvious.

Meanwhile, there’s a War going on in Europe, Covid is out of control yet Peter Costello’s Ch9 is running a point guard defensive distraction against Daniel Andrews why? Because Matthew Guy’s Liberals are falling apart at the seams in front of us. This is a flagrant example of a pathetic attempt at damage control. It’s not news but Mainstream private media acting as agents for the LNP in view of an advertising return come November and it’s another example of why we need to SAVE THE ABC.

Source: How the Premier’s local bottle shop owner claimed he won $30 million of projects

Media

Fighting Putin with Putinism

The tragic irony is that these measures mirror the authoritarian steps taken both during and before this war by Putin, who is quite rightly viewed in the West as a dangerous autocrat contemptuous of basic freedoms. Long before this war, Putin had the very kind of tech censorship regime that Western politicians and commentators demand more and more for their own societies, where the government pressures tech companies or circumvents them to remove or discourage online speech it doesn’t like. Since it began, the Russian government has passed a variety of laws against what it calls “false information” about the war and disseminating “fake” details about its forces’ actions. It’s banned, blocked, and shut down independent news outlets that contradict official talking points, banned Instagram, and barred access to foreign media outlets for their “deliberate and systematic circulation of materials containing false information.” And of course, it has paid TikTok influencers to spread its preferred narrative about the invasion.

Source: Fighting Putin with Putinism

Media

Guardian defence story forgets to disclose weapons links – Michael West Media

PR people like to crow they write most of the newspapers. Problem is, they’re correct, but now it’s think tanks too.

Guardian Australia’s analysis today by Katharine Murphy: “Rising US isolationism means Australia must become more resilient and autonomous, think-tank warns” was based on a research paper by the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre (USSC).

The story by did not reveal that while also being funded by the United States Department of State and the Australian government, the think tank also receives funding from weapon makers Northrop Grumman Australia and Thales.

Duncan Lewis, the former director-general of ASIO, has also been appointed as a non-resident fellow. On the board is Dr Brendan Nelson, president of Boeing Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific. Mick Mulvaney, the former chief of staff in the Trump administration, is also a non-resident fellow.

As reported by the uni’s student newspaper Honi Soit the University of Sydney’s Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson also acts as the chairman of Thales Australia, the local arm of French global weapons manufacturer Thales Group.

 

Source: Guardian defence story forgets to disclose weapons links – Michael West Media

Media

Scott Morrison finally apologises for delays in getting photographers to flood-ravaged communities | The Shovel

In an emotional mea culpa today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has admitted he got it wrong on the Government’s response to the devastating east-coast floods and should have had photographers on site much sooner.

Source: Scott Morrison finally apologises for delays in getting photographers to flood-ravaged communities | The Shovel

Media

Mainstream media targets Independent candidate spending

Sky News and The Guardian, in their coverage of this topic, also incorrectly referred to Independent candidates as “Climate 200” candidates. Whilst there is certainly nothing negative about receiving financial support from Climate 200, they are not a political party. If the mainstream media is going to label candidates receiving funding from Climate 200 as “Climate 200” candidates, they should start referring to Liberal and Labor candidates as Ampol or Santos candidates for fairness and consistency. At least there are no strings attached to donations from Climate 200.

Source: Mainstream media targets Independent candidate spending

Media

Far-right figures are justifying Russia’s war in Ukraine – and in some cases, even repeating Russian propaganda | Media Matters for America

If charges can be issued on the basis of false advertising of  products why aren’t they issued on buyer’s receipt of propaganda instead of paid for News? After all, you’re buying a product that’s fake by subscribing to an offer of News, and getting misinformation instead. Worse, in reality, you’re in fact the product, the worm, duped, scammed, tricked to become a rating’s bait to simply on-sell or catch a bigger fish.

Those facts have not stopped far-right media figures and fringe outlets from furthering Russia’s disinformation campaign, defending the invasion, and declaring Ukraine to be a “client state of the US.”

Source: Far-right figures are justifying Russia’s war in Ukraine – and in some cases, even repeating Russian propaganda | Media Matters for America

Media

Conservative media’s love for Putin continues even after his invasion of Ukraine | Media Matters for America

The face of Russia's Vladimir Putin shaded in red on a red and black background with "Fox News" repeated four times

However, here in Australia Crikey’s political editor focuses on left-wing’s John Pilger as if he were Putin’s major supporter. There is something odd about Keene’s personal animus against Pilger whose body of work will go down in journalistic history. It’s Keene who seems to be lost and can’t see the forest for a tree. Keene is. somehow in a moment of madness, suggesting Pilger has jumped the gutter and landed in the Conservative’s media camp. I see his Crikey article as one man’s self-serving, personal vendetta of which he won’t be so proud of in in his work’s body in years to come. However when Keene is long forgotten people will still be reading and watching Pilger.

Conservative media have been praising Russian dictator Vladimir Putin since the Obama administration, and that behavior has continued even after Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. American right-wing media coverage of Putin has been so over-the-top that Russian state-backed media have used some of it for their own propaganda.

Source: Conservative media’s love for Putin continues even after his invasion of Ukraine | Media Matters for America

Media

How the War in Ukraine Is Being Covered (Up) on Russian TV

Murdoch Media and the GOP are helping

Visceral images of the Russian attack on Ukraine are missing from Russian TV, and the Kremlin is trying to convince the public the chaos it sees on social media has been staged.

Source: How the War in Ukraine Is Being Covered (Up) on Russian TV

Media

Right-wing media rewrite history and claim Russia’s invasion never would have happened under Trump | Media Matters for America

image of Trump shadowed by smaller images of Russia

When the world of fact-free corporatized opinion is allowed to dominate and be sold as News, chaos rains. Individuals, subs and ratings have become the product with which corporate media competes and where the wealth lies the playing ground. News no longer is what’s needed to attract the flow of $$$. If you want News I’m afraid you will need to look elsewhere. So it’s time the corporate media’s product be renamed or charged for selling false product. It’s not News as we once knew it. Unfortunately in Australia the L-NP focuses on neutering the ABC the nations only major News seller and public auditor of government policies and actions and will continue to do so. The ALP accepts the role of the ABC moreso than the L-NP in our Democracy. To audit, inform and force governments of all persuasions to explain and justify themselves. A role the L-NP, the privileged and powerful interests the market to whom the L-NP cater want canceled.

Following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, right-wing media glossed over former President Donald Trump’s history of withholding aid and repeating Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talking points to claim the invasion never would have happened under Trump’s administration.

Source: Right-wing media rewrite history and claim Russia’s invasion never would have happened under Trump | Media Matters for America

Media

Dud UK-based media index lauds News Corp and bashes ABC, SBS and IA

Lauding News Corp???

UK based GDI Index proves itself to be useless, almost conspiratorial as News Corp is. It’s based in the UK where Rupert Murdoch’s media behemoth was proved by Tory government inquiry to be totally corrupt. Where the world saw Rupert Murdoch do an Alan Bond and feign old age and dementia to stay out of jail. He had to close The News of the World and was allowed to keep his lisence. So fled to America to continue what he does best there, PR for the wealthy and powerful, misinformation his product. Currently, he’s spreading it for Russia’s Vladamir Putin. Fox News is even being celebrated by Putin’s State Media. I guess the UK based GDI is too.

The efforts of a self-appointed ratings agency that surveyed Independent Australia and 33 other Australian outlets have shown how you need to be careful in the tricky world of publishing. A report by the group called Global Disinformation Index (GDI) declared that the News Corp publications – Courier Mail, Sydney Telegraph and Herald Sun – were less likely to spread disinformation than Independent Australia.

Source: Dud UK-based media index lauds News Corp and bashes ABC, SBS and IA

Media

Trump Keeps Going With His Big Lie: Putin Invaded Ukraine Because Of ‘Rigged Election’ | HuffPost Latest News

MURDOCH’S FOX NEWS SUPPORTS PUTIN! MORRISON SPENDS LNP MONEY ADVERTISING WITH MURDOCH! ACTS TOUGH BANS 25 RUSSIANS, 5 BANKS AND LEAVES RUSSION APOLOGIST & PR AGENT MURDOCH ALONE TO RAKE IN THE $$$

More than a year after he left office, Donald Trump continues to be obsessed with his loss to President Joe Biden, pushing the lie that the election was rigged against him. And on Wednesday night, the former president’s delusions were on full display on Fox News, when he traced Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine back to the 2020 presidential election. Advertisement “He sees the weakness and stupidity of this administration,” Trump said of the Russian president. “As an American, I am angry and saddened. It happened because of a rigged election.” Trump doesn’t seem all that sad. He couldn’t help but express admiration for Putin in a speech Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “I mean, he’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.” Trump also said that “never in a million years” would such an invasion have happened during his presidency. He couldn’t help but boast of Putin, “I know him very well.” His comments Wednesday are similar to ones he made in a radio interview Tuesday, when he again called the Russian leader “smart.”

Source: Trump Keeps Going With His Big Lie: Putin Invaded Ukraine Because Of ‘Rigged Election’ | HuffPost Latest News

Media

Australian Bureau of Statistics report on Covid deaths misrepresented by rightwing media | Australian Bureau of Statistics | The Guardian

A medical worker in the Royal Melbourne hospital intensive care unit

Fake News, Murdoch Media and 2GB create it, and sell it with no consideration of the Facts.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics last week released a new report on Covid mortality in Australia. The data is important – it exposes the inequality in how the pandemic is affecting Australians, with deaths higher among people from lower socioeconomic areas, and shockingly high death rates for people born outside Australia. Experts told Guardian Australia a key reason for this is Australia’s reliance on migrants to undertake essential, insecure work and a failure of government to engage migrant communities early in pandemic planning. These are issues rarely heard about from politicians and some media outlets during the pandemic, despite the trends being clear since at least August 2020.

However, rightwing radio hosts and columnists saw something different in the figures – support for an ongoing narrative that lockdowns and other interventions represented an “overreaction” or were the result of a “scare campaign”.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics report on Covid deaths misrepresented by rightwing media | Australian Bureau of Statistics | The Guardian

Media

Media propaganda a scourge on democracy

What do news reports about Grace Tame’s bong, Jenny Morrison’s 60 Minutes fluff piece and Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s China scare campaign have in common?

Source: Media propaganda a scourge on democracy

Media

Grace Tame hits out at media for ‘unnecessary shaming stunt’

If the context were slightly different, and had the photo been slightly different it would have been  called out as male apes  hooting and “slut shaming”. The schoolyard thugs “getting even” with the girls they simply can’t abide by because they don’t know their place in their male dominated culture. They applied the same to Julia Gillard sniggering at her “looks” and the clothes she wore. Yes, the media are exactly what they claim not to be, genderist, and biased. Murdoch once created the “page 3 girl”. Yes, he stopped but didn’t really change the misogynist culture. But, then propaganda is really his business and all the Mainstream are afterall doing it for Scotty.

Grace Tame has written an open letter calling out the media for publishing an old photograph of her with a bong which she labelled an “unnecessary shaming stunt”. “To every media outlet who sought to discredit me by publishing THAT photo,” the former Australian of the Year began the lengthy sequence of posts on Twitter. “Although my humour and strength remain intact, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t let me down.” Ms Tame said her status as a prominent campaigner for victims of sexual assault should have made media outlets think twice before publishing the snapshot. “Not just as an individual, but more so as an advocate of the survivor community,” she continued.

Source: Grace Tame hits out at media for ‘unnecessary shaming stunt’

Media

‘Nothing More Grotesque Than a Media Pushing for War,’ Says Edward Snowden

us troops

The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill similarly notes that “the talking heads on cable news are almost drooling over the prospect of a ratings-boosting war.”

“With talk of war in Ukraine rising to a fever pitch, U.S. media outlets are once again beating the drums.”

Source: ‘Nothing More Grotesque Than a Media Pushing for War,’ Says Edward Snowden

Media

We know who Trump is already – Columbia Journalism Review

it’s easy, here, to miss the forest for the trees. Only a handful of Congressional Republicans have meaningfully embraced the proper, zero-tolerance standard for Trump’s election lies; last week, the Republican National Committee censured two of them while declaring the events of January 6 “legitimate political discourse.” The trend is clear. Hearing one minute that Trump is stronger than ever and the next that he is getting weaker risks obscuring it.

Source: We know who Trump is already – Columbia Journalism Review

Media

Media outlets should cover Trump as the threat to the American republic that he is | Media Matters for America

screen grab

 

Outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and the AP are failing in a basic civic obligation after Trump pushed January 6 pardons, called for more demonstrations, and said Pence should have “overturned the election”

Source: Media outlets should cover Trump as the threat to the American republic that he is | Media Matters for America

Media

Fact-based journalists under fire

Imagine It’s what News Corp claims to do and all it’s “journalists” “informed commentators” like Andrew Bolt claim to do when calling journalist’s like Maria Ressa “hacks” and award chasers. They tell Australians they are delivering a rational analysis of the facts.

As misuse of communication technology rises, fact-based journalism to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda is under even more attack, writes Lee Duffield.

PUBLIC ADDRESSES late in 2021 by Maria Ressa – the Philippines journalist accepting the Nobel Peace Prize – and by Wanning Sun, a Sydney China scholar, displayed opposite experiences and understanding of the abrogation of media rights. Maria Ressa is self-consciously the journalists’ journalist as she declared at Oslo, on 10 December: “I stand before you, a representative of every journalist around the world who is forced to sacrifice so much to hold the line, to stay true to our values and mission: to bring you the truth and hold power to account.”

Source: Fact-based journalists under fire

Media

Coalition slumps in first poll of 2022 as voters lose confidence in Morrison’s handling of pandemic

Peter Costello’s Ch9 seemed to have selected a poll that reports differently to others why is that? Because Resolve show a softer verion of the results and less damning of the LNP  and therefore a less seemingly negative image of Morrison’s actual CV.

In the first national poll of the new year, a Resolve survey for the Nine newspapers, Labor had 35% of the primary vote (up three percentage points since November), the Coalition 34% (down five), the Greens 11% (steady), One Nation 3% (steady) and independents 11% (up two). This is the first time since Resolve began doing its monthly surveys last April that Labor has been ahead of the Coalition on primary votes. In late 2021, Resolve showed better results for the Coalition than other polls conducted at about the same time.

Source: Coalition slumps in first poll of 2022 as voters lose confidence in Morrison’s handling of pandemic

Media

DirecTV to Drop One America News Following Call from Media Matters | Media Matters for America

Silhouettes of raised hands clutching ballots, with a warped OAN logo in the background

 

“DirecTV made the responsible decision to drop OAN. OAN is a cauldron of misinformation and extremism. “DirecTV made a negligent mistake in 2021 when they remained silent about how OAN’s industrial scale attacks on the election and stoking of the embers that helped fuel the January 6 insurrection could impact carriage renewal. “OAN had almost a full unchecked year to undermine our democracy — and our country suffered for it.” “Just as DirecTV’s silence in 2021 mattered, their decision to drop OAN in 2022 matters too. DirecTV has been functionally propping up OAN for years. Without DirecTV, OAN would certainly not exist in its current form and possibly not at all.” “Now that OAN’s anchor distributor has dropped them, Verizon FiOS (OAN’s second major distributor) should follow suit. And certainly no other cable provider should pick them up.”

Source: DirecTV to Drop One America News Following Call from Media Matters | Media Matters for America

Media

BREAKING NEWS ON DJOKOVIC!! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

In breaking news, there is no decision on Novak Djokovic. No, that’s it. That was the lead story in most news bulletins tonight. They could have added that there’d been no decision about a range of things like the integrity commission, the religious discrimination bill, the election date, the purchase of water bombers for bushfires, the resignation of a minister… But there’s only one story about nothing you can do per bulletin…

Source: BREAKING NEWS ON DJOKOVIC!! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Media

‘We simply did not win the election for the presidency’: GOP senator says no evidence for Trump claims | The Independent

<p>Former President Donald Trump spread false claims about his 2020 election defeat </p>

They said that about Hitler and Trump let’s not forget insisted he was a German immigrant simply because he was concieved he claimed in the fatherland.

A Republican senator who broke publicly with former President Donald Trump amid the latter’s false claims about the 2020 election worked on Sunday to reiterate that the former president lost to Joe Biden fairly. As the nation focused its attention on the one-year anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol, senator Mike Rounds joined ABC’s This Week to dismiss the falsehoods that Mr Trump and his loyalists within the GOP continue to spread about his defeat. “We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency,” Mr Rounds said on Sunday.

Source: ‘We simply did not win the election for the presidency’: GOP senator says no evidence for Trump claims | The Independent

Media

Salon’s 2021 spicy take awards | Salon.com

Kyrsten Sinema, Ron DeSantis, Amy Coney Barret, Donald Trump and Chris Christie (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

theme emerging. The theme, pitifully but inevitably, was endless variations of the claim that Republicans aren’t as sinister, or frightening, or fascistic as the hotheaded #Resistance or “woke mob” make them out to be.

Source: Salon’s 2021 spicy take awards | Salon.com

Australian Media, Conservative Media, Corporate Media, Government by Media, Media, Media Bias, Media Control

From taming ‘Big Tech’ to News Corp’s climate shift: The media moves that mattered this year

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg will not give up his attempt for a public hearing into the way the ABC handles complaints.

The Abbott/ Morrison Government had made a pact with the IPA and NewsCorp to rid  Australia of ABC News. Abbott backed into a corner knowing the ABC was Australia’s most trusted media source found that direct task too difficult so he banned the government MPs from going on the ABC. Morrison did almost the same. The government has become a regular fixture on Sky News and 2GB their “cash for comment” propaganda arms . Even granting Murdoch a free unexplained $30M.  Australia has never seen a concerted effort like we have in the past 8 years to turn Australian media into American with Australia’s Sky News a model of Fox News, without MSM diversity. Consolidation of our MSM into 3 privatized corporate arms run by Peter Costello, Kerry Stokes, and with Murdoch controlling the largest has seen our media metamorph into the Conservative Cyclops donor at the behest of the LNP, and the want of the IPA posing as a”think tank” but acting as the LNP’s mega- donor/lobbyist and even grooming politicians of the future.

Their aim to rid Australia of any organization designed to keep the bastards honest and Democracy the political system of choice for this country which demands the existence of at least two major parties both of which are prepared to lose an election but rule for all Australians. Unfortunately only one party today is prepared for that role and it isn’t the current government.

The year ended with the resignation of ABC news boss Gaven Morris and a public sledge by ABC chair Ita Buttrose, who accused the (LNP) government of political interference.

With a federal election around the corner, it is going to be a very busy and a very interesting 2022 for the public broadcaster.

The ABC’s year from hell

 

Source: From taming ‘Big Tech’ to News Corp’s climate shift: The media moves that mattered this year

Media

Neoliberal principles guide journalism in Australia

I was under the impression that no matter which government was in power the ABC’s charter was to critically test the truth and validity of what they claimed to be doing against what they were actually doing. Basically, fact-checking, for and on behalf of the electorate, not simply the mouth piece of the government. Abbot’s promise to both Murdoch and the IPA was to rid us of the ABC. The LNP seems to refuse and accept this. Rather, claiming any revelation not supporting what it is they are doing, is in opposition and therefore biased. As a consequence, they prefer to work with the private. A media which they feel they can control with promises of “cash for comment” in exchange for what it is they want. Now that is biased.

Journalists have the power to frame reality for audiences, because they set the standards for what is considered “good”, “bad”, “normal” or “controversial”.

Source: Neoliberal principles guide journalism in Australia

Media

Paul Bongiorno: Liberals reworking ‘Kill Bill’ strategy for Anthony Albanese

Bongiorno Albanese

Morrison on a photoshoot to Bathurst shot himself. Yes, you can fool people some of the time but we are witnessing a man playing with the same gun we did before the last election but shooting himself. The question will he be sacked for a 3rd time as he was by NZ and the Aus Tourist Boards? In Morrison’s case “Ego” is s dirty word.

Mr Morrison rightly picked last time enough voters, particularly in Queensland and Western Australia, had grave reservations about Mr Shorten and his agenda and were reassured by the hastily confected “daggy dad” from suburbia who had replaced Malcolm Turnbull. One of the Liberals’ most experienced campaign strategists believes the past three years have dramatically changed the equation. Mr Morrison is no longer largely unknown and free to define himself in staged picture opportunities that are contradicted by the reality of his performance as Prime Minister.

Source: Paul Bongiorno: Liberals reworking ‘Kill Bill’ strategy for Anthony Albanese

Media

Fox Pushes For Rittenhouse To Sue Biden, Media, For Defamation | Crooks and Liars

Fox Pushes For Rittenhouse To Sue Biden, Media, For Defamation

Murdoch and the IPA want to rid us of the ABC because it interrupts their business model and the LNP want to be the tool that Americanises Australia. Rids us of the ABC, Introduces Voter suppression laws, dilutes Universal Franchisement, reforms and relaxes our gun laws, and really wants to rid us of compulsory voting. Every body knows you don’t rig elections by adding extra votes they’re rigged by vote reduction and the voter ID laws proposed are there to do that in a election process that has never seen widespread fraud. The LNP simply want the indigeneous, migrant, aged, homeless and marginalised filtered because they are the most likely not to vote for them.

The next biggest crime against democracy in America was passing a law that allowed corporations to be regarded as persons but not convicted as such.They could act openly as political entities and openly fund those they support. Coupled with Capitalist Corporate Consolidation of the 4th Estate. Cash for comment” is now largely in control of America’s opinion echosystem. Murdoch Media is the largest practitioner and does it in plain sight. Rupert Murdoch learned and finessed it in 70s Australia and applied it against Whitlam.

Payola was banned in the American music industry in 1960s. Without a trusted Independent Public Broadcaster, America was ripe to suffer the biases of those who can pay. Generally concentrated at the top it flowed at election time. However, with the rise of billionaires and trillion dollar wealth and that corporations are legally regarded as persons, it’s now constant and permanent investment in their bottom line. A cycle of mutual support unable to be offered by Democrats. Yes, Democracy has been knobbled. The constant messaging is there to attract that flow of money when it counts. We saw Trump using it and turn to the internet a tent shows for the smaller dollars fed not into the Republican coffers but his own and he used it loudly and proudly without censure. His Presidency was one constant campaigning a constant rating exercise dangling sticks or dollars to the media.  Money rarely is a 2 way street when messaging counts, particularly if it gushes from the top down like oil polluting the once democratic experiment America.

The pundits on Fox “news” seem to have a bad case of selective amnesia if they really believe Rittenhouse has grounds to sue for being called a white supremacist. The network has been running one segment after another similar to the one above, and articles on their website such as this one ever since Rittenhouse was acquitted: Rittenhouse could have potential defamation case against Biden over White supremacist tweet, expert says. Missing from any of their commentary… the fact that Rittenhouse was caught palling around with white supremacists at a Kenosha County tavern and photographed flashing the white power sign while posing with them. Somehow that little tidbit never manages to make its way into the hyperbolic commentary on Fox, insisting that Rittenhouse has been smeared by Biden, CNN and MSNBC, and as Cheri Jacobus noted on Twitter:

Fox Pushes For Rittenhouse To Sue Biden, Media, For Defamation | Crooks and Liars

Media

Right-wing commentators turning journalism into public relations

Last week, Peta Credlin was awarded a journalism award. That’s right. The partisan and unashamedly biased ex-Chief of Staff to hard-right former Prime Minister Tony Abbott won a Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism in the category of Long-Form Current Affairs Reporting.

Source: Right-wing commentators turning journalism into public relations

Media

Fightin’ Joe Biden Wins big, on Jobs, Covid, the Dow and Infrastructure, but Corporate News downplays Successes

Biden isn’t scattered or weak or a do-nothing. His will be the most domestically transformative presidency perhaps since that of Johnson, just on the basis of what he has already accomplished. This is why I suggest we call him Fighting Joe, to combat the unfair image conveyed by the corporate news organizations that miss Trump.

Source: Fightin’ Joe Biden Wins big, on Jobs, Covid, the Dow and Infrastructure, but Corporate News downplays Successes

Media

Tucker Carlson’s revisionist January 6 series is fascist propaganda | Media Matters for America

Tucker Carlson Originals / Patriot Purge

Goebbels divides America

Tucker Carlson’s revisionist January 6 series is fascist propaganda | Media Matters for America

Media

Independent media: a fight for its survival – » The Australian Independent Media Network

This government is intent on changing the “principle” of the unbiased and independant nature of the ABC, UNHRC, Our Media, The Public Service, Education and Judicial Systems, fundamentally all our cultural institutions by placing the favored persons to head them. Their intent is to totally change the nature and the meaning of ” The Separation Powers” as intended and written into our Constitution. It won’t be long before they will be arguing against Compulsory Voting and the appointed management of our election processes. Their each and every step has been edging towards countering the notion of any bipartisan representative Democratic system. Their intent replacing it with a One-party State modeled on the current  Republican Plan in America which is edging to and learning from what Hungary has successfully achieved. Is it just a coincidence Freydenberg has Hungarian roots one wonders?

Amendments to the Federal Treasurer’s media bargaining code will be tabled in the New Year. In a nutshell, if passed, it will mean that in Australia, Facebook and Google can only publish articles from the Murdoch media, Kerry Stokes media, and Fairfax/Channel 9. Basically, it will ensure that the voices of independent (or dissenting) media is muffled in the lead-up to the next election. Approximately 30 online media sites and rural newspapers have joined together to fight this. There are a number of steps we need to take, with the first being an e-Petition submitted to the Parliament of Australia: Petition EN3530 – Designate Google & Facebook to support public interest journalism, as shown below:

Source: Independent media: a fight for its survival – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Media, Media Madness

Fox News spreads misinformation about Wall Street Journal report showing Facebook coddled Breitbart News | Media Matters for America

Facebook Fox News

Despite reportedly being part of a media consortium behind the Facebook Papers, the project analyzing a trove of documents released by whistleblower Francis Haugen, Fox News is spreading a false narrative about the project’s findings to its audience – even misleading about a news article on Facebook in its sister publication The Wall Street Journal. Fox is still claiming that Facebook discriminates against conservatives, when in fact the platform is dominated by right-wing content, and the company has gone out of its way to coddle right-wing actors spreading misinformation. Fox News’ coverage of the company’s internal document has predictably become just another extension of the right-wing playbook in which they claim anti-conservative bias on part of tech companies even though the facts do not support it.

Source: Fox News spreads misinformation about Wall Street Journal report showing Facebook coddled Breitbart News | Media Matters for America

Media

Management by Metrics Is Upending Newsrooms and Killing Journalism

In the last 8 years the LNP began with Abbott’s “No cuts to the ABC”, blatantly lied to our face, have taken $1bn dollars from it’s budget, restructured its board, and poisoned the fundamental charter on which it was constituted.  An Independent and public owned body to hold governments accountable. The ABC was never meant to be “balanced” but meant to be vigilant, critically questioning, and holding light on whether the government was performing for and of the people. The LNP killed the canary.

Designed to discipline workers into producing clickable and profitable content, newsroom analytics are radically changing the nature of media work — and hastening journalism’s ugly decline.

Leftist critics have been quick to indict corporate media, but less adept at articulating a new kind of media system, one that’s truly democratized under public ownership. This disconnect is surprising, given how the Left historically has seen the press as a crucial terrain for struggle. Social movements have long relied on various types of journalism, even within mainstream corporate media, to advance progressive causes. Reliable journalism and a functional news media system are vital components of any effort for progressive social change, from fighting fascism to halting climate change.

Source: Management by Metrics Is Upending Newsrooms and Killing Journalism