“Extremely investor friendly” is how the latest fossil fuel buyer describes Australia. Along with the twilight of the coal era with its astronomical profits has come the rise of squalid public relations tactics. Zacharias Szumer investigates the case of Liechtenstein-based coal trader Sev.en Global Investments, its billionaire owner Pavel Tykač and Sev.en’s propaganda associates.
It is vital to free ourselves from belief in the systems of white supremacy and imperialism that are inculcated in the educational system and are affirmed and amplified by the media and establishment opinion.
The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II puts the need for political and psychological liberation in high relief. We are encouraged to admire an anachronistic monarchy, and are exhorted to join in mourning an individual and a system that have caused great harm to Black and other oppressed people around the world.
Prominent right-wing commentators are condemning Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) proposed national abortion ban. But their concern isn’t that they oppose threatening doctors with up to five years in prison if they perform an abortion on a patient who has been pregnant for more than 15 weeks. It’s that they know Graham’s bill endangers the GOP’s chances of gaining power and thus having the opportunity to ban abortions.
For decades, propaganda has steered the course of the mass media’s narrative, dominated by the needs of state and corporate power. John Pilger explains that nothing has changed in today’s world.
But the media treated the speech as if it were just another in an endless series of partisan vollies instead of what it was – a declaration by the president of the United States that America must choose between democracy and authoritarianism.
The major networks didn’t broadcast the speech.
Why must we wait until some of America’s ablest journalists are sacked before they are willing and able to tell America the truth?
It is not “partisan” to explain what Trump and his anti-democracy movement are seeking.
It is not “taking sides” to point out that the Trump Republicans are trying to establish an authoritarian government in America.
It is not “violating journalistic standards” to tell the unvarnished truth about what America is facing today.
In fact, a failure to call out the Trump Republicans for what they are – liars, enablers, and accessories to crimes against the constitution – itself violates the most basic canons of journalistic ethics.
“Balanced journalism” does not exist halfway between facts and lies.
With the ABC neutered these past decade and Murdoch media, Ch9 and other mainstream organizations tied to the Government and it’s donors for financial gain political media in this country holds any oppositions to account rather than the Government. Democracy is no longer being served and an autocracy is encouraged to flourish. Grass roots politics brought an end to the slippery slide and has temporarily allowed the nation to catch its breathe.
Revelations about Scott Morrison’s power-grab of five secret ministries raise serious questions about the health of Australian media and in turn, the media’s commitment to contribute to a strong democracy.
The core function of political media is to hold power to account. The fact that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was able to secretly sign himself in as co-minister in the portfolios of health, finance, resources, treasury and home affairs, in collusion with the Governor-General, speaks volumes of journalists’ unwillingness to scrutinise the powerful.
The Murdoch’s claim to be major supporters of “free speech” but only as long as it’s not directed at them it seems. Their company Fox News has never shown it was strongly critical of what occurred that day. In fact they have shown to be major supporters and in no way apologists for what had occurred. Stronger criticism of Fox News was certainly provided by much of American media and in stronger terms but they took no action. Why is Australia the place they are taking their Godzilla like legal stand?
Lachlan Murdoch has threatened online news website Crikey with legal action over an article that suggested he and his media mogul father Rupert Murdoch were responsible for the riots at the US Capitol in January.
I spoke to Israeli television host Guy Zohar on his show “The Other Side” last week to try and understand why the Israeli mainstream is cutting the far right slack, particularly at a time when it is primarily responsible for much of the homegrown antisemitism in the United States.
While we have managed to elect a new government, we are still stuck with the same old media who cannot or will not imagine a non-toxic politics. This will likely not be the last time the Albanese government may have to change its position. Any government must be granted the space in which to reverse bad decisions without enduring toxic criticism from toxic media who are more interested in furthering discord than they are in facilitating positive change.
Israel doesn’t just kill, and incarcerate journalists, poets and authors but applies a censorship regimen to all information, and news disseminated in the State. It tries to control it outside its borders as well.
In 2021, the Israeli military censor barred the publication of 129 articles in the media, and interfered with the content of another 1,313, according to data provided by the censor at the request of +972 Magazine and the Movement for Freedom of Information in Israel. This marks the third year in a row that there has been a decline in the military censor’s activity, which is now at an 11-year low (the entire period for which we have data).
All media outlets in Israel, as well as authors and publishers, are required to submit articles relating to security and foreign relations to the IDF chief military censor for review prior to publication, in line with the “emergency regulations” enacted following Israel’s founding, and which remain in place. These regulations allow the censor to fully or partially redact articles submitted to it, as well as those already published without its review. Media outlets are barred from indicating in any way whether the censor has altered a story.
The decline in the censor’s work is a small consolation when considering that it regularly interferes in the news we read without our knowledge.
In what is a fitting 90th birthday present for the ABC, Qantas has inked a new deal with the public broadcaster for ABC news bulletins to screen on Qantas flights and in airport lounges. The arrangement means Sky News Australia will no longer be screened in the airline’s lounges, a development that will please critics of the divisive pay TV channel.
Is it hypocritical to write an op-ed about my hatred of op-eds and how they are an outdated medium? Probably, but fuck it, hear me out, and I’ll explain why “I hate free speech in the marketplace of ideas.”
Meanwhile, the media attention to the Russian/Ukraine war seems to be in retreat. If that’s the case is the world surrendering to Putin?
Russia says it is waging a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of nationalists threatening Russian-speakers there. Kyiv and Western countries say Russia’s claims are a false pretext for war. Thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed and several million have fled their homes, either for safer parts of Ukraine or to other countries.
The biggest poll of 16,000 has the ALP with a majority of 12 seats and an increased number of Independents
My thought for the day I find it impossible to imagine that the Australian people could be so gullible as to elect for a fourth term a government that has performed so miserably in the first three. Especially when it has amongst its members some of the most devious, suspicious and corrupt men and women, but they could.( John Lord )
The covering up of corruption and scandals by the mainstream media is highlighting the importance of independent journalism more than ever, writes Paul Begley.
Bias exhibited by the Murdoch press is having too much political influence and slowly degrading our democracy, writes Dr Victoria Fielding. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD the fable of the boiling frog? The tale goes like this. If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump straight out. But if it is placed in tepid water and the heat slowly rises, the frog will stay cooking in the water until it is boiled to death. The frog fails to pick the exact moment the water became dangerously hot. This analogy is a great way of understanding how Australian democracy is being boiled in the water of Murdoch media bias. For many years, we have known the once tepidly biased Murdoch media was “dialling up” its bias. News reporting, commentary and opinion at Murdoch outlets were increasingly biased towards conservative ideas and right-wing political campaigning.
We’ve lived with their lies and spin for a decade. Isn’t it time for service of the kind Labor provided with Whitlam, Hawke, and Gillard. Service that moves a Nation forward, The LNP has simply taken us to wars and held us back. Their goal has been to service us at the cost of our living experience feelings of certainty about tomorrow and our savings. Our marrow and childrens futures sucked up for the bottom line figures of their corporate donors and supporters. It’s now a historical footnote witnessed by the number of actual bills passed. Their claim “We can’t rule” because the ALP won’t let us.. WAKE UP AUSTRALIA
Abbott and Credlin flipping carbon pricing into a tax (abetted by the then Labor government that rolled over too easily on the nomenclature) was the core of the weaponisation of climate policy that continues to this day. So every time one of the current generation of Coalition politicians utters the words carbon “tax” and Labor in the same sentence, understand this: they are lying, and worse, they are fully aware they are lying.
Morrison says “screw the evidence” take the bigot’s side on transgender children in sport “its commonsense”. No. it’s his faith! Research on children shows his claim to be “bullshit” and that saying his kids are “blessed” is little more than religious orthodoxy. There is nothing common about it and evidence proves it makes no sense.
The Police, and the AFP have found no evidence that his “Captain’s Pick” Katherine Deve’s family have been physically threatened. Morrison’s insincere apology about disabled kids not being “blessed” mirrors Deve’s equally insincere “I’m sorry I’ll just tone it down”. Neither are sorry. Morrison hasn’t reversed his NDIS cuts and Deves hasn’t stopped advocating transgirls are a massive to girls sports. They need to be judged on their beliefs not just their style of argument. They have been and loudly by a bipartisan majority that have declared them wrong, that children should be allowed to be children.
Morrison’s history in politics has known him to be as devious as a Golum and as cunning as a sewer rat when it comes to dividing and fragmenting communities for a handful of votes. It’s how he won preselection in the first place. Others have sworn stat decs which Morrison calls lies but won’t sue for defamation. He claimed he’d sign a dec countering their claims but then backed down for fear he might be prosecuted fo a false claim.
All of us have implicit stereotypes that guide the way we view the world. Many people will look at a transgender woman’s face or height and think “it’s unfair” if she wants to play in a women’s sport. That is an assumption.
Apparently, it’s better, according to The Age, to have a bunch of irresponsible bullshit artists, self-interested hoons, and money wasters running the nation than a responsible team that still believes in negotiation, compromise, and service in running and not owning this country. The showman is more important than the job at hand. That’s not journalism. That’s not evaluating anything other than personalities,and paying no attention to the job that needs to be done. That’s evaluating the past three years, and asking whether any real changes are required and will be made moving forward. If so, who is better, more reliable, and more trusted to implement them. The clown or the dour leader of a real team who aren;t merely raiding the country to fill their own pockets. We aren’t in need of an overcharged spruiker, entertainer and distraction, we have had one for three years.
There is a path out of the opposition trenches, but the ALP will have to change their strategy to achieve it.
What we don’t care about according to the LNP and MSM.
It seems the most extraordinary story: Seven Coalition MPs on the record “have hit back at criticism of Scott Morrison’s broken promise to deliver a federal ICAC, declaring voters aren’t raising the corruption commission”. It also seems like a story successfully promoted by “Coalition sources”. To paraphrase, “the punters don’t care about integrity in government, so we don’t need to”. As far as excuses go for not delivering the integrity commission promised four years ago, it is pathetically, miserably, depressingly weak, albeit still better than Scott Morrison’s actual excuse: “It’s Labor’s fault.”
Yet again the world is amazed at the degree to which Democracy has been blindsided by the media in Australia. Murdoch, Costello and Stokes leave little room for Democracy. If Morrison wins the ABC will be shut down not just watered down like it has been. Morrison didn’t just “host” the media at that very private function he celebrated and gifted them. Skye & News Corp are sponsoring the First Debate on Wednesday with a panel led by Paul Murray immediately after. Hardly a balanced program for those watching a more than challenging one for Albanese which he has already lost.
We must note the Prime Minister and his Government, beleaguered by poor performance and mismanagement, is still in contention this election because of Australia’s media coverage.
Julia Davis of The Daily Beast flagged this amusing clip of Russia’s Kremlin-backed news trying to make sense of the sinking of their warship. In bizarre fashion, one pundit called for all-out war with Ukraine over the incident (as if their ‘Special Operation’ is nothing), with strikes on Kyiv (which they’ve already done), and with the host stating that Russia is now at war with NATO and that World War III is here. All a bit surreal. One wonders what ordinary Russians make of this foolishness?
It’s no longer “what can we do for you, but what you can do for us in terms of $$$? In the end many of these announced promises will simply go the way of vanashing bubbles even if the LNP government wins. Morrison has been only doing one thing for the past 3 years,and that’s rehearsing the reselling of his massively expensive waste. It’s like a replay of Sunset Boulevarde “Action Lights your on Scotty” with not a voter invited on to his very “on set party” for the crew.
The system under which billions of dollars of grants are handed out to communities across Australia is irretrievably broken. There’s no other conclusion to be drawn from the figures compiled by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that, grant by grant, electorate by electorate, show a community’s ranking on the electoral pendulum dictates its financial support.
“again help our partner ( Trump) to become president “
Soloviev expanded on that point, suggesting that Russia should just go ahead and nuke the US because that is the true nature of the war in Ukraine.
Propagandists on Russian state television told their public audience last week that the time has arrived to sever diplomatic relations with the United States and that the Kremlin is finalizing its “preparations” to interfere with future American elections. The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis reported on Monday that President Joe Biden’s unwavering support for Ukraine has revitalized Moscow’s appetite for manipulating the American electorate. Their objective, one of the individuals revealed, is to “again help our partner,” former President Donald Trump, “to become president.”
After two weeks, two long weeks of fawning Budget coverage, leak after leak, story after story brown-nosing the Coalition, reciting Treasurer Frydenberg’s talking points; after all that free publicity, what do they do? They miss the story. Michael West reports.
What has come into relief with Fierravanti-Wells’s ferocious tirade on Scott Morrison is why so much effort was made in the past 2 weeks to have Anthony Albanese look like a heartless, uncaring bully and thug in the case of Kimberly Kitching even though she made no formal complaint. The debate about Kitching was orchestrated along with the accusations about the “mean girls” as a PR smokescreen for what Morrison knew was laying ahead. Because Fierravanti- Welles’s thoughts and accusations let loose about Morrison were no secret within the Liberal Party machinery and were going to be unstoppable pre-election. It demonstrates just how Trumplike and American the Australian Liberal Party from Abbott to Morrison has become. The Liberal Party dirt brigade has been working overtime.
They like the Republicans claim they are the only Party defending our true religion and faith and Morrison isn’t shy claiming he is the spiritual head of the new politically Christian Liberal Party. His decisions are based on protecting faith and culture and his decisions far superior to any facts put forward by divisive godless experts and scientists. Unfortunately he represents minority interests who claim they are the true defenders of all Australians. This began with John Howard who cosied up with the Exclusive Bretheren and other religious cults
The savage assessment of Scott Morrison by one of his nominal allies is like a bolt of lightning into the debate about whether the Prime Minister deserves another term in power.It electrifies the election campaign when Morrison is trying to make the contest about his leadership and the personality of his opponent, Anthony Albanese.
When Influencers are politically and economically influenced like Vogue they set their standards extremely low. The Murdoch business model is proof.
The Arab News reports that Vogue did an instagram posting about model Gigi Hadid’s pledge to donate her fall earnings to Ukraine and Palestine, but erased the Palestine part. The erasure attracted widespread condemnation from progressives, and Vogue has now amended its Instagram posting to restore the model’s pledge to help Palestinians, as well. Vogue’s erasure of Palestinians from its Instagram notice has been seen as part of a pattern in which Palestine as a subject has been made taboo by pro-Israeli right wing nationalists, who deny Palestinian rights to peoplehood and statehood just as Vladimir Putin denies Ukrainians rights to peoplehood and statehood. The Israeli Right insists that all Palestinian territory actually belongs to Israel and that Palestinians can never be allowed to have their own state.
Once a KGB thug always one, but one isolated, and on steroids who needs treatment not compromise. Poisonings, assassinations, incarcerations will continue if nothing is done. 40 million people could find themselves in a Russian version of Nth Korea or East Germany along with the already 144M Russians already living that experience. Putin is unable to trust anyone so he’s got his finger on the nuclear red button. Who in Russia will do away with him, save the Russian people and the wider universe?
Major international news outlets including the BBC, CNN and Bloomberg will suspend operations in Russia in response to a new law criminalizing news reports that contradict the Kremlin’s version of the war in Ukraine. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law that criminalizes spreading what the government deems to be fake news, The Associated Press reported. Under the new measure, a statement as simple as referring to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war” rather than a “special military operation” could constitute criminal disinformation, according to The New York Times. Punishment could include fines or up to three years’ imprisonment, with 15 years possible if authorities decide a report had “severe consequences.” International news organizations that have announced they would be temporarily suspending operations in Russia include:
Strangely, Mr Frydenberg’s broken promise wasn’t the front page of “The Herald-Sun” in Melbourne today. No, there was a much bigger one. The Independent challenging him for the seat has a secret. She doesn’t like the government and, even worse, she once declared her love for some Labor politicians on Facebook. Now, given that it came out that she was once a member of the Labor Party a few months ago, I wouldn’t have considered this front page news, but I guess that’s why I’m not likely to ever be asked to edit any of the Murdoch propaganda sheets.
I would have presumed that the announcement that Josh doesn’t intend to demonstrate his commitment to recycling by using the same car park policy that he took to the previous election would be an indication that he feels completely safe. However, when the papers feel the need to do a hit job on his opponent and not some Labor person in a marginal electorate, the polling must be closer than I thought.
Ok, well, it’s only a matter of weeks before Morrison has to either call the election or else we’ll all know that it’s on May 21st. Unless he really is intending to have a half-Senate election and hold off the House of Representatives so long that all the newspapers running Clive Palmer’s ads become viable businesses again.
If truth is the first casualty of war, it is also under constant attack in the Morrison-Joyce regime’s love-in with spin enabled by Murdoch and a media oligarchy who help the Coalition demonise China and Russia, “shape the narrative” of foreign affairs, to distract us from its terminal, internal disunity and its own catastrophic incompetence.
Shout? You can hear him in Beijing. Or Kharkiv.
No-one will ever teach Morrison that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. Not that he cares just how awful he is with his harangue of the Opposition Leader for “being a small target”“or just small”?
But it won’t be his reducing of Question Time to howling abuse, that decides this election, nor will it be his despicable treatment of women, particularly his office backgrounding against Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame, although that could play a big part.
It is unlikely that any of Morrison’s chest-beating posturing on foreign affairs, reciting US talking points, will convince anyone that a PM who can’t control his own party is a strong man who will keep the nation safe. Nor will the happy family man fantasy even begin to atone for the leaked texts which reveal how much he is reviled by his party including his deputy PM.
The decider could be the sixteen billion dollar election war chest. Unless, of course, voters worry where the money’s coming from.
Corporate media’s reward and business model investment paycheck is about to arrive. The three-year investment in the quid pro quo arrangement with the L-NP is paying off. The No News, or Marshall McCluhan’s cool news business profit tap has been turned on, and the ABC has been crushed as insurance that real or hot news doesn’t get out.
Government advertising has skyrocketed to an all-time high of $685 million. With the looming election campaign, which promises to be the biggest political spend in Australian history, and a gigantic war chest for pork-barrelling, is it any wonder the corporate media barracks for the Coalition? Callum Foote and Michael West investigate.
The difference between “media” and actual journalism is the root of the misinformation crisis. We’re drowning in content that is increasingly valued only for its potency in the political wars, rather than judged on its factual merits and its choice of targets. That kind of media content strays farther and farther from reality because it’s about entertaining and inflaming rather than educating and informing.
The answer to misinformation, then, is not some censorship regime, and it’s not more intense fan culture around individual media icons so that everything is a self-enriching culture war between cable TV pundits and Spotify hosts.
The answer is an audience that actually values accurate and necessary information, even if it offends their preconceived notions — an audience that runs away from corporate media outlets that force-feed them lies and liars, and runs toward news organizations that report hard truths.
That’s the kind of news organization we’re working to build here. And we know it’s going to take a long time to build a true independent and trustworthy Fourth Estate in the wreckage of a corporate media landscape, where the flames of bullshit smolder and suffocate the discourse.
In an amazing break with protocol, Australian of The Year, Grace Tame did not curtsy and smile at the Prime Minister, leading to outrage from people such as James McGrath and Peter Van Onselen. What’s wrong with her? Morrison manages to smile, even when he’s announcing someone’s death?
After being told he was wrong months ago and after witnessing what was happening elsewhere in the UK, EU and USA Morrison says he was “blindsided”… Not his fault
It’s alarming enough that the Prime Minister believes “admitting” wilful ignorance is a reasonable political strategy. What he’s actually admitting is that he lives in a bubble of protection from global events, medical and scientific research, and any information that does not coincide with the stories he tells himself which must be right, according to his reasoning, because God chose him to tell them.
Hundreds of journalists killed or arrested, rising numbers of female media workers targeted, floods of misinformation and hate speech and ineffectual or hostile governments unable or unwilling to protect the public’s right to know. The 2021 press freedom index released recently by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) makes for grim reading. The report reveals that 488 journalists were detained in 2021 – an increase of 20% compared to the previous year – while a total of 46 were killed and 65 held hostage. Of those detained, 60 were women (33% higher than 2020). As you might expect, it tends to be autocratic regimes with dismal records for freedom of speech and human rights which crop up once again as the worst offenders.
In Australia, for example, coverage of asylum seekers in the conservative, particularly tabloid, media has over the last decade been based too often on the incorrect framing that they are “illegal” and “queue jumpers.” Too rarely is the coverage based on the facts. This media (intended) failure has enabled the government to continue to persecute innocent people who came to us seeking safety.
Culture war “games” have thus turned life and death issues into something too “political” to address (either rationally) or intelligently. The spirit of Schwartz Media, Michael West Media and our other organisations dedicated to holding the powerful to account needs to be embraced by our legacy masthead writers. We need to consider the laws that can be crafted to balance the damage done by Malcolm Turnbull’s 2017 slashing of our media ownership laws. In a moment when the climate and democracy decay form a deadly helix, we cannot afford to have entertainment or agenda masquerading as news.
We need to debate new ways to fund the reliable news utterly critical to the functioning of democracy.
Too much is at stake to allow our news to frame this moment as “business as usual.”
In Australia I follow AIM, IA, Michael West Media all of whom aren’t included in any Morrison Government Media plans to have Big tTech pay.. The Shovel and the The Shot are good for a laugh. There is truth in humor and it often hits the target. These are just a few along with some others listed below.
I follow the mainstream media, but I don’t limit myself to it. And I don’t rely on it to educate the public about bold, progressive ideas that would make America and the world fairer and stronger. I read the Guardian, the American Prospect (which, full disclosure, I helped found thirty years ago), Mother Jones, and The Atlantic. I follow several blogs (Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, for example). I listen to the always thoughtful Democracy Now. And I subscribe to a few newsletters (I hope you like this one and spread word of it). But even with news sources I trust, I still ask myself: how are choices being framed? What’s being left out? What big underlying issues are being assumed away or obscured? When our democracy is under assault from so many directions, I think we need to educate and re-educate ourselves (and our children) about how to learn what’s really going on — how to absorb the news critically. Isn’t this a minimal responsibility of democratic citizenship? What do you think?
What’s really wrong with the mainstream media Robert Reich Robert Reich From favoring the status quo to indulging in false equivalence, the mainstream media engages in subtle, persistent biases.
Top editors and reporters, usually based in New York and Washington, want to be accepted into the circles of the powerful – not only for sources of news but also because such acceptance is psychologically seductive. It confers a degree of success. But once accepted, they can’t help but begin to see the world through the eyes of the powerful.
I follow the mainstream media, but I don’t limit myself to it. And I don’t rely on it to educate the public about bold, progressive ideas that would make America and the world fairer and stronger.
olddogthoughts 