Media Watch

Tonight (11 September 2017) the ABC’s Media Watch program contained a section in which presenter (Paul Barry) attacked Dick Smith’s views on population and specifically Dick Smith’s complaints about the ABC’s refusal to cover the issue of Australia’s rampant population growth. Yet for much of the time he did not defend the ABC. He did not answer points Dick Smith makes at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-tv-news-current-affairs-bias-growth/or that William Lines and I have made at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-bias-chapter-overloading-australia/ about ABC bias. Instead, Paul Barry seemed more interested in attacking Dick Smith. [Mark O'Connor is a well known Australian poet and co-author with Bill Lines of Overloading Australia.]

Abandoning the standards Barry and Media Watch normally hold other journalists to, Barry made no attempt to deal with the relevant issues. He did not, for instance, attempt to argue that the amount of space that ABC TV news programs devote to Australia’s extraordinary rate of population growth (we are growing at a rate that would be high even in the Third World) is in proportion with this issue’s importance. Much less did Barry offer evidence or statistics to show that the ABC gives fair or equal space to critics of these very high population growth rates or of the very high immigration rates that drive this growth.

He made no attempt to compare the space and time given to population with that given to other major drivers of contemporary history’s problems, such as “the economy”, or climate change. Nor did he answer the points so powerfully made by Ross Gittins and others about the need to stop pretending that high immigration is any clear benefit to Australia. See for instance https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/bob-brown-laura-tingle-and-ross-gittins-back-dick-smith/

Instead Barry launched an ad hominem attack on Dick Smith, presenting him as an attention seeker. Perhaps Barry thought attack was the ABC’s best method of defence.

He claimed Dick was unreasonably aggrieved at not having his point of view represented on ABC’s program The Drum (where a group of population growth advocates was recently lined up to belittle Dick’s case, with some making misleading statements about him supporting Pauline Hanson). See https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/abc-drum-counters-immigration-bias-claim-bias/ Yet if they did not want Dick on their panel, why did they not ask Ross Gittins or Bob Carr or Tim Flannery or Ian Lowe etc etc ? Why only pro-growth panellists?

Barry cannot plead ignorance on this subject. The failure of ABC TV news programs to give appropriate space to the case against our government’s policies of pursuing high population growth has been repeatedly brought to his attention at Media Watch, and he has always refused to cover the issue.

If this refusal to deal with an issue that goes to the heart of Media Watch’s charter (as indeed of the ABC’s) was not based on a careful examination of the case, then it was irresponsible. But if it was based on a careful examination which showed that the ABC’s coverage had not in fact been too small and was not unbalanced, then Barry would tonight have been able to produce hard evidence and statistics to disprove Dick Smith’s criticisms. He would not have needed ad hominem attacks, or puns on Dick’s name.

The nearest Barry came to a defence of the ABC was in pointing out that back in 2010 (that’s 7 whole years ago, Paul, and for an issue that its crucial to a dozen news items every week!) the ABC did run a documentary on population called (indeed) Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle followed by a debate on Q&A.

But Barry failed to mention that at the last minute Q&A insisted that their panel would not contain any clear critics of Australia’s rapid-population-growth policies, thus once again disenfranchising the majority of Australians from the debate. Instead there would be a “sub-panel” (which did contain Tim Flannery) who would be allowed to make a brief statement each but not take place in the subsequent debate. (I think I have remembered this correctly. I do remember that it all seemed bizarre at the time. Media Watch did not, of course, comment back then upon this oddity.)

So instead of a normal Q&A debate, we were treated to an interchange of views between types like Tony Shepherd and John Elliott, whose line was that population growth is needed for business: end of story. For “contrast” these were put in discussion with an utterly pro-growth mayor who wanted us to know about the heart-pangs that he and (he claimed) the fellow citizens of his town suffered daily at being only the second biggest town in their state! (At least that’s what I can remember from 7 years ago. It was certainly not a fair or balanced debate, if a debate at all).

Barry might have found a better example if he had mentioned that back in January 2010, as described on p. 162 of my and William Lines’s book Overloading Australia, the ABC’s 7.30 Report allowed Matt Peacock to make a series of 4 segments on the deep disquiet felt by many scientists and social commentators at Australia’s rate of population growth. But to use this example Barry would have had to explain why the ABC has never since allowed Peacock or others to revisit that issue in similar depth. In fact since then many of those whom Peacock found willing to speak out in 2010 have fallen silent, realising that there is little chance of getting a fair hearing.

I think we have the right to be angry about this. ABC TV news has never provided adequate or balanced coverage of Australia’s population debate; and now that Dick Smith has had the courage to put it on the spot, it is flailing around and trying to defend itself with ad hominem attacks.

Mark O’Connor

Subsequent to Dick Smith's complaints to the ABC about bias towards the growth lobby on the subject of population, on 11 September 2017, Paul Barry, of ABC Media Watch, launched what many thought was a personal attack on Smith, in lieu of dealing fairly with the vital issues at hand. Dr John Coulter (former Senator and leader of the Democrats) wrote the following complaint to Media Watch, where he protests at the treatment of Dick Smith by Media Watch and documents a number of instances of pro-population-growth bias in the ABC. You can also read some a few comments published by Media Watch on this issue here: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4732374.htm.

Dear Media Watch,
[11 September 2017]

I was quite shocked by your program last evening re coverage of Dick Smith’s attempts to get ‘growth’ both population and economic on to the ABC’s agenda. Unlike your usual, more dispassionate reports you seemed to be more intent on disparaging Dick Smith rather than dealing with the importance of his claims as to the overarching importance of both aspects of growth as the drivers of our unsustainable trajectory and the fact, yes fact, that the ABC has excluded these things from its main-stream news items.

I wrote to you about this back in March and received an acknowledgement but nothing more. Below is some of the content of that letter.

But to bring this right up to date, just this morning there was extensive coverage of the problems with the supply of electricity into the mid-term future. But not a single mention of the fact that Federal Government policy is to add an additional one million people, all needing electricity every five years into the indefinite future.

Is this really an irrelevant ‘fact’? Is it not an important ‘fact’ to bring into this discussion? In every other sphere of public discussion both supply and demand are considered the basic elements of economics 101. Yet in the provision of electricity services, affordable housing, education, hospitals and medical services, roads and transport, etc etc the demand side caused by deliberate population growth through immigration is excluded by the ABC.

On the economic growth side the ABC repeatedly provides data on the growth of GDP but with few exceptions fails to provide the figures on per capita GDP growth which is much much smaller because of the very high level of immigration. Nor does it mention that included in the GDP figures are large amounts spent on attempts to keep infrastructure up to providing for the expanding population. None of these costs, which are added to GDP, improve the lot of existing Australians. It’s not surprising that very many Australians feel they are going backwards – because they are. Or that the Productivity Commission found only marginal economic benefits from immigration and much of that benefit going to the recently arrived.

None of this is to indicate racism. This is purely to do with numbers and how best to build an environmentally sustainable Australia in an environmentally sustainable world. Note that the Global Footprint Network has recently released its figures which show that Australians have the highest per capita environmental impact in the world. We would need 5.2 Earths if all were to live like Australians. Yet all our political parties seek to increase both population and per capita consumption. And the ABC uses language in its coverage of these things as, for example, South Australia ‘falling behind.

These footprint figures link Australians to the rest of the world and how best we can assist other nations to find their own unique path to a sustainable future. With 80+ million refugees and displaced persons in the world and with fertility rates in many middle-east and sub-Saharan Africa very high it seems self-evident that Australia could do much more by way of foreign aid, especially slanting that aid toward family planning, contraception and raising the standard of health of women. Yet Australia has cut its foreign aid program and the ABC has not picked up on the central role of foreign aid to assist women in the ways mentioned. Indeed a number of programs from Sally Sara and others have ignored the central role of high fertility in worsening the plight of people from Yemen to South Sudan. I am associated with an organisation called Population Media Centre which operates in over 50 countries and which concentrates specifically on raising the health of women. It uses long running radio soapies to raise awareness. I have several times urged programs such as Foreign Correspondent and Sally Sara specifically to make a program about the exciting and successful work of PMC in Ethiopia for example, but to no avail.

Below is some or all of the letter I wrote to you back in March:

9th March [2017] letter to media watch.

For example, last week in Saturday Extra a long interview regarding the plight of refugees in Sudan failed to even mention population growth as a driver of this and similar distressing situations across much of the world, especially the middle east and throughout Africa. Population growth is clearly going to make the present look like a picnic compared with the inevitable future. By not dealing with population and implying that the real need is for short-term aid rather than family planning, contraception availability, education and a rise in the standard of living and equality of women, such programs will make the future worse than it needs to be. In short, such programs will increase the totality of human suffering.

See the 2 minute video from the UN on the plight across the Sahel at http://oasisinitiative.berkeley.edu/news/ [Embedded below.]

This item on Saturday Extra was not isolated. A week earlier on a different program a similar account from another refugee camp in Africa failed to mention population growth as a factor.
12th November 2016, "What keeps me at wake at night."

This program on water began with the statement that water was a limited resource but that demand was increasing. It identified the limits on water supply as underpinning several of the areas in turmoil in the middle east, especially Syria. It touched on the appalling conditions in Yemen, specifically dealing with declining water per capita but again failed to mention the very high fertility rate in Yemen or any of the other middle east countries which appear on the nightly ABC TV news showing very large numbers of children but with never a comment on the size of the population or the fact that the high fertility rate will exacerbate the water shortage per capita. It is not a water shortage but a longage of people. This is the point that the ABC repeatedly misses. The standard analysis by ABC journalists as to what ails many of the middle-east countries is presented in political and religious conflict terms; never does it point to the underlying drivers: too many people trying to derive resources, including water and food, from a finite environment.

Last evening (27th March) on Lateline Jeremy Fernandez interviewed HRH Haya Bint al Hussein of Jordan who is in Australia in her role as assisting international refugees and speaking with Australia's Foreign Minister. Princess Haya made the remarkable claim that the world produces three times as much food as needed. This went unchallenged. She was not asked a single question about the very high fertility rates in middle eastern countries and how this was impacting (what is usually called the shortage of food and water but is really) the longage of people. Note that almost every news item that covers the middle eastern refugee situation speaks of families of 4, 6 and 8 children and every video clip shows a preponderance of children. There is no shortage of evidence. She was not asked a single question on family planning or use of contraception.

This morning (28th March) Fran Kelly also interviewed the princess and again there was a complete absence of any questions about the very high fertility rates in Middle east countries, what her charities might be doing about this, about Trump's change to foreign aid specifically with respect to family planning clinics providing abortion advice or services and whether she would be asking the Australian Foreign Minister for additional foreign aid to counter this deficit. Women's standing in Jordan was touched on but only with respect to the number of women in significant positions in government and society.

28th March ABC RN Drive with Patricia Karvelas.
Interview with three interviewees on housing affordability. First comment by first interviewee was that it was a matter of both supply and demand and there was a gap. Karvelas did not pick up on the demand side throughout the interview. She identified ‘the elephant in the room’ as negative gearing but failed to identify that 60% of demand is being fed by high immigration and that many have identified this as a very significant factor in housing affordability. The first interviewer mentioned immigration in his closing remarks but no one picked up on this remark of this factor.

24th March. Stan Grant interviewed Dick Smith in a setting of a Sydney market on the evening Link program on ABC TV.
This part of the program was said to be about population and Australia’s immigration intake. However the context set by Stan Grant was that the size of a sustainable population can be determined by public opinion and Stan kept asking leading questions of those in the market suggesting that any reduction in immigration would be detrimental to their business. Stan could not be more wrong in his assumption. Finding a sustainable population size for Australia is no more a matter of public opinion than finding the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be allowed without invoking climate change, or the number of sheep that can be kept permanently in a paddock without overgrazing. These are all matters in which there is good and essential science underpinning consideration of these matters but Stan consistently talked over Dick and did not allow him to advance any of them.
31st March. The Drum. A segment on population that contained no person or mention of environmental sustainability in relation to population growth. Thus, claims that we need population growth, that it was inevitable, that growth was wonderful, that it benefited the economy, that government could do nothing to limit population growth, that Japan was shrinking and we don’t want to go down that path were all left to stand as truth whereas every single on of these claims can be refuted with supported evidence. The selection of such a panel without an alternative voice shows bias.

6th , 7th , 10th April. Three sessions on RN on almost successive days dealing with aspects of housing affordability but none mentioning population growth or immigration.

6th April. Interview with respect to the role of transport development as a way of alleviating the problem of housing affordability (Marion Tell). This was based around a talk by Phillip Lowe, Reserve Bank Governor. Lowe had mentioned population as a driver of housing unaffordability but this was not taken up by Fran Kelly. Together with the other programs not mentioning population growth and immigration this seems a quite deliberate omission.

7th April. Interview with MP, Sarah Henderson who claimed that improving rail links to regional centres would improve housing affordability. No questions asked about population growth or immigration intake.

10th April. Interview with Saul Eslake about use of superannuation as a way of boosting housing supply but again no mention of population growth of the size of the immigration intake.

17th April. Patricia Karvelas interviewing Matt Canavan. Long interview on a number of matters but touching on housing affordability. Canavan mentions population increase and how it is causing problems in Sydney and Melbourne but then provides a solution in opening up more regional centres especially in north Queensland. Patricia does not suggest that perhaps the problem might be the increase in population caused largely by high immigration over which the Federal Government has control.

Finally a search across the ABC from September 2016 to today (19th April, 2017) failed to find a single ABC reference to population increase/ immigration and housing affordability. Indeed there is not a single reference to any impact on any aspect of infrastructure failure and the increase in population being driven by very high immigration.

"Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown are in a position to change the political, social and cultural landscape in Australia once and for all. They find themselves in the unique position of having the community support they need to stop the parliamentary puppet masters dictating parliamentary policy. They find themselves in the position to uproot the few stunted perennials that blight political, social and cultural debate in this community and let a thousand flowers bloom by passing parliamentary legislation that forces media monopolies to limit their media holdings to 10% of the privately owned media outlets in a community. They are also in a position to pass parliamentary legislation that alters the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s guidelines so that a variety of opinions, not just the major political parties’ opinions, are brought to the fore in Australia in the publicly funded media sphere." Joe Toscano Anarchist Age Weekly, Number 940, 18th July – 24th July 2011 So, what's stopping them from doing the right thing by Australia?"Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown are in a position to change the political, social and cultural landscape in Australia once and for all. They find themselves in the unique position of having the community support they need to stop the parliamentary puppet masters dictating parliamentary policy. They find themselves in the position to uproot the few stunted perennials that blight political, social and cultural debate in this community and let a thousand flowers bloom by passing parliamentary legislation that forces media monopolies to limit their media holdings to 10% of the privately owned media outlets in a community. They are also in a position to pass parliamentary legislation that alters the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s guidelines so that a variety of opinions, not just the major political parties’ opinions, are brought to the fore in Australia in the publicly funded media sphere." Joe Toscano Anarchist Age Weekly, Number 940, 18th July – 24th July 2011 So, what's stopping them from doing the right thing by Australia?

Ed. Sheila Newman: This article is based on my transcription from Joe Toscano's seminal podcast about the Australian media and government, to which I have added headings. I have removed some 'you knows' and small repetitions and elisions for clarity. Any mistakes in transcription are my own. You can listen to the original by podcast anytime. It is actually an hour long. The transcribed part is just the media inquiry part.

Power, Wealth, Parliament and the Mass Media - Joe Toscano:

"It's about power and wealth. What's the point in having all the power in the world if you don't have the wealth to make the decisions you've made a reality? And that's what we have in a parliamentary democracy. We go through the ritual every four years to elect representatives to make decisions fo us. Unfortunately what the representatives can and cannot do is determined by the parliamentary puppetmasters. That's all sections of society that owns the means of production, distribution, communication and exchange.

Now it's quite interesting how the Gillard government, facing oblivion at the next election by media sharks who are tearing pieces off its lifeless carcass, can continue wallowing in its own blood until what little credibility it enjoys is completely gone. Or it can bite back.

And those regular listeners in the Anarchist World this week will know that for some time I have been pushing the idea of holding a Royal Commission into the role the Murdoch Empire plays in this country. A royal commission into how the Murdoch media empire actually subverts the will of the people by subverting parliament.

Proposed Inquiry: What Gillard wants and what the Greens want

And I have noticed that now that Ms Gillard's little tête a tête with the Murdoch senior editors has kind of come asunder that she is once again looking at the possibility of holding a media inquiry - a general, nice, little, media inquiry that looks at privacy issues. Yes, you may as well pack it up, put it back in the drawer and forget about it.

Now I notice that, obviously the Greens, who have been one of the major victims of the Murdoch monopoly in this country - I mean, before every election we have huge headlines about the drug addicts running the Greens - how they'are going to subvert the country. You know, it just goes on day in day out. They [the Greens] would like something a little bit wider. They would like a media inquiry into the ownership.

Are newspapers growing too irrelevant to pose much of a threat?

Now people say to me, "Why worry about newspapers, Joe, they're irrelevant."

I'm afraid they're not. Newspapers are not irrelevant in this country. And when you've got some major capital cities with only one
newspaper, and that's a Murdoch newspaper, and you've got other capital cities where you've got two newspapers, it's not irrelevant.

Because, although there may be a decreasing number of people actually reading newspapers, there are more people reading the same papers on the Net. And, more importantly, what newspapers do is they actually set the political agenda for the day. Because, if you think television and radio set the political agenda, they don't.

Television and radio are very, very, very understaffed pieces of technology and they take their running every day from what's printed in the newspapers that morning. And if you want to know what's going to be on you local radio stations that morning or television station that day and that evening, just pick up a newspaper and you will see that, as far as political commentary is concerned, and social and cultural commentary is concerned, that 95% of commentary that occurs on television and radio is directly purloined from the major issues raised by newspapers, and the same major issues are then aised in parliament at the state and federal level. So newspapers still play, although there may be fewer people actually buying the oadsheets and the tabloids, it still plays a significant role in setting the social and political agenda in this country.

So, faced with that dilemma, when one player owns 70% of the newspapers, you can actually see the significant impact it actually has on peoples' thinking and the way issues are approached. And the thing about the Murdoch empire is, as far as I'm concerned, is it's a cancer on civil society. Because it is so huge, all-encompassing, all-powerful. And anybody who thinks holding an inquiry into privacy issues in the media, or even holding a parliamentary inquiry, into media ownership in this country is going to break the back of this monster, they should think again.

We need a royal commission

What we need, and what the Liberal and the Labor Party and the cross-benchers and the Greens should be discussing and negotiating on, is holding a royal commission into the impact that the Murdoch empire has on debate, has on discussion, has on political decisions in this country. Now, you'll see over the next few weeks, the media crying about the fact[2] that there's some Clayton's media inquiry's been set up into privacy issues in the media.

Well, the reality is they're the first ones who jump up and down about holding inquiries into this and into that. I mean, it's about time
the fourth estate [3] was dissected and we had the opportunity to ensure that a thousand voices are able to be heard in this country. Not the same, stunted, old, pathetic arguments, which we hear day in and day out, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Arguments, you know, which support capitalism as the be-all and end-all of economic activity. Activities which media outlets, which actually promote division within this country, which act as a cheer squad for that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication, which continues to act as the parliamentary puppetmasters in this country.

I mean, facing political oblivion if the government continues to square dance with the parliamentary puppetmasters, it is time that they turned off the music, isn't it? Isn't it time that they turned off the music and launched a direct legislative assault on the corporate world?

Corporate world really unpopular with Australians

If there is one group that's more unpopular than the Gillard government, it's the corporate world. Australians are beginning to realise the abysmal state of public health, public education, is due to the domination of the economy by a shrinking number of powerful corporations.

Any government, any political movement that is willing to wrest power back from the parliamentary puppetmasters, especially one that currently has a snowflake's chance in hell of being reelected, if it continues on its current political projectory, will earn the respect of an electorate that is becoming increasingly tired of seeing its institutions and its children's future sacrificed on Mammon's altar. And that's what it's about. That's the bottom line that we all forget! That's what the fourth estate is about! It's about creating profits built on other peoples' suffering. It's about creating ever-increasing profits, irrespective of the human, social and environmental costs.

And when you have the fourth estate singing the praises of the corporate world because they are owned by the very same people that dominate economic and political activity in this country, you begin to realise why there is such a lack of debate in this country about any issue, except the very superficial issues that have no bearing on the power of that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication is able to exercise.

Obviously we have 'stop presses' and 'exposees' on things which are of little importance to most people, but when it comes to actually looking at the foundations of the society, when it comes to actually questioning the assumptions this society is based on, when it comes to the idea of tackling the major problems that we face as individuals, and as communities within this country, well then, there is no debate, there is no discussion, and those people who put their heads above the parapet and attempt to raise issues that go beyond issues that are currently broached, find themselves being shunned, or worse still, being lampooned, or, worse still, being branded as 'un-Australian', 'terrorists'.

Let's create the momentum to break down the media plutocracy

So, media inquries ... forget about an inquiry!

Let's have a royal commission. Let's watch them squirm. Let's see what happens. Let's create the momentum to break down the media monopolies that exist in this country, whether they'are Murdoch or Fairfax or any other media monopoly that exists in this country. Let's break them down. Let's have legislation passed through parliament that ensures that no one group of people, or an individual, can own more than 10% of the media outlets in one city. And then, maybe we will see those thousand flowers bloom in that stony garden that needs to be fertilised by a range of ideas.

Now, let's move on to the ABC. Because, we've concentrated on the media today, and the reason I've concentrated on the media is very simple, because the thing about living in a technologically savvy society is everybody is exposed to the same set of opinions minute by minute by minute by minute by minute. And we're told in this country that we have the private corporations running the media, well the government gelded the ABC.

The ABC has become a commercial clone

And people say to me, "Well, Joe, what are you complaining about? I mean, forget about it. The ABC gives us an alternative viewpoint."

The ABC is there to do these things but people have forgotten what happened to the ABC during the Howard era, what happened to the ABC during the Hawke/Keating era. They've forgotten that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has basically become a commercial clone.

Obviously there are a number of programs which continue to exist - not for very long - which provide alanced analysis. But as far as the majority of the information, debate, analysis programs which occur in the government-gelded ABC you find that most of them you can actually find in the commercial setting.

Now, I know this is old news, but you may find it a bit interesting, because I want to draw an analogy here. I remember in 1999 when I had a weekly spot on ABC local radio that examined the week's news from a radical perspective, it didn't take long for the presenter to be asked to get a conservative voice on the half-hour segment. Within two months of one of the most conservative politicians in this country, the former Senator Julia McGorren had been appointed to cross swords with your's truly. The segment, and the presenter, who conducted an overnight show on-air for the ABC for over a decade was also taken off-air. This is during the Howard era. She was never offered an on-air position again and continues to work in the dungeons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation because she wasn't on a short-term contract.

Lucky her!

Australia's Arts Community

It's no surprise that the Arts community now finds itself in the very same position. The Hoard Government succeeded in destroying the independence of the ABC by ensuring senior managers were appointed that reflected its world view. And the Howard Government openly stacked the ABC Board with some of the most conservative and reactionary figures in Australia, including Mr Windshuttle.

These changes transformed the ABC from a source that provided independent information analysis to an entertainment-focused organisation that needs to focus on ratings. It's all about entertainment. If we want entertainment, there are a million areas we can look for entertainment.

Why did Rudd and Gillard leave Howard's appointees in place?

The Gillard and Rudd Government found themselves in a difficult position because they left all of Howard's appointments in their jobs when elected. They left them all. And that's the tragedy of the 2007 Rudd victory, that all the senior bureaucrats, whether it's the department of immigration and refugees as we are seeing now, whether it was the taxation department, whether it was Human Services, whether it was the ABC. Everyone of those political appointments which were made during the decade that Howard was in powe were left in positions of authority. Left in positions of authority!

So, instead of cleaning out the ABC's Augean stable, they left everything in place. It's one thing having your hands on the levers of
government, it's another thing being forced to use the coordinates of a bureaucracy appointed y Howard and his cronies to steer the ship.

And that's the dilemma! Although the government may have a different agenda, as fa as the senior political appointments that were made by the Howard Regime, they continue to set the coordinates that determine government policy. It's no accident the Gillard Government is faced with a neverending litany of disasters, despite overseeing the 'best economy in the western capitalist world'. I mean, leaving your political enemies in positions of power when you own a position to exercise power is a recipe for disaster. And this is what we've seen in the ABC - although the government changed, senior political appointments, both on the board and the managerial area, didn't change. They continued to push the conservative reactionary agenda. And what we are seeing is even the arts programs are now coming under the axe. We are seeing the ABC lose what little independence it has.

Hardly any local content produced by the ABC

No wonder the ABC has been transformed into a commercial clone that has put people on short-term contracts, turned the ABC into an entertainment-focused organisation that actually relies on outside contracts to provide content - even local content. There is hardly any local content being produced at the ABC. It is produced by privately-owned outside companies that are given contracts to provide content.

And the few ABC in-house programs that have managed to survive over the past two decades are now on the chopping block, because the ABC has been transformed into a paper tiger, into an entertainment-focused organisation that Removes from its programming line-up any program that doesn't meet its board and managers' one-dimensional conservative social and political agenda. And that's the key.

So if you have a private corporate media which acts as a cheer-squad for its owners, promoting corporatisation, deregulation,
globalisation, the corporate sector, and you have a government-gelded ABC, where do people obtain independent analysis and information?

Not everybody has the time to spend hours and hours and hours surfing the net. People like their information in little packages. And what we find is the same, seedy, reactionaries continue to dominate the political agenda in this country - to dominate the social agenda in this country, to dominate the cultural agenda in this country - while the rest of us are expected, you know, to gratefully accept the crumbs that are occasionally pushed our way to stop people from protesting about what's actually happening, not only within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but within a corporate-controlled media network which sets the political, social and cultural agenda in this country."

NOTES

[1] Joe Toscano speaks for the Anarchist society and each week, on his show at 3CR he demystifies anarchist principles with this useful definition: "Anarchist society is a voluntary non-hierarchical society which is ased on political and social structures which are based on direct democratic principles. The people involved in decision strong>make that decision and then elect or appoint delegates to coordinate decisions at local, regional and national levels of society. Wealth is held in common and used for the common good."

[2]See, for instance, what passes for intellectual commentary in the Australian Financial Review (owned by Fairfax)in the editorial for the weekend of 17-18 December 2011. The editorial suggests that the basis of the inquiry is exclusively political with the Greens and the Government trying to neutralise criticism. "Any attempt to rein in freedom of the press should be vigorously resisted. Politicians have many avenues to redress perceived bias, not least through Parliament, the wider media and websites. Instead the government would have been far wiser to invest its limited political energy and capital in an inquiry into the much more pressing national economic issue of lagging productivity." Yes, well, if we tried to have an inquiry into how Australia's production is kept uncompetitive on the world market due to the cost of land, as boosted by the Murdoch and Fairfax owned property dot coms and their media-generated mass immigration fueled-demand, those papers would use every weapon they had to suppress, distort and punish debate. They suppress, distort and punish all other debates except the most destructive and puerile. That is why we need to break the media monopoly, so that we can actually have a free media rather than a corporatised commercial media which promotes its own investments against the common interest.

For a good example of suppressing, distorting and punishing debate, see ABC's Media Watch Episode 31, 12 September 2011. Media Watch generally goes after rabbits when it could take down elephants (metaphorically speaking) but this episode was very relevant to central problems of media interference, for corporate commercial reasons, in public debate:

Here is the transcript of Episode 31, 12 September 2011

Biting the hand that feeds

Over in the commercial media, times are tough. Especially in newspapers.

Here's an excerpt from an email sent out by a News Ltd executive in Western Australia.

"Last Sunday we published an article in our real estate section that failed Journalism 101 ... As the Managing Director of The Sunday Times I unreservedly apologise for the article.

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, The Sunday Times, 24th August, 2011"

Goodness! The managing director, no less - it's usually the editor who worries about editorial content. Managing directors of newspapers worry about money. And usually, that means advertisers.

And to whom was this grovel addressed to?

"To our valued real estate clients

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, The Sunday Times, 24th August, 2011"

That's right. Real estate agents. Who, thanks to those endless house for sale ads, account for a sizeable chunk of the Sunday Times's revenue ...

Not to mention what they contribute to realestate.com.au, by far the leading property website in Australia, which is 60% owned by News Ltd.

So what was this abysmal journalism that Mr Scott was apologising for? It was a double-page spread in the Sunday Times's

"Weekend Property

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

"Home Alone

It can cost more than $20,000 to sell your home through a real estate agent. We speak to two vendors who decided to go it alone.

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

No! Without an agent? And look at them ... They're positively beaming ...

"Being able to talk directly with the buyers ensured queries could be answered quickly and efficiently

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

"We saved about $17,000 and put in about 19 hours work in five weeks.

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

Well, you can imagine how the Sunday Times's 'valued real estate clients' reacted to that piece.

Actually, you don't have to imagine it, because we can show you.

It was kicked off by investment property specialist Mark Hay, with an email addressed to pretty much every real estate agent west of the Nullarbor. It was, as they say, heavy with irony ...

"Fellow Colleagues,
For those of you who use the Murdoch-backed Sunday Times you will have no doubt noted the huge push they gave us as agents in their wonderful article on page four and five this weekend!

— Mark Hay, Investment property specialist, 23rd August, 2011"

Mr Hay didn't mess about.

"Can I encourage you to boycott the paper in light of this, or better still this is a perfect reason why we as agents should build our own web site to challenge realestate.com.au and the others who keep putting the squeeze on us. Anyone interested?

— Mark Hay, Investment property specialist, 23rd August, 2011"

Lots of people were ...

"I am interested in a change from this

David Whiteman
Ray White

— David Whiteman, Ray White, 24th August, 2011"

"It is heartening to see ... the discussion around creating a new industry owned and controlled website.

Geoff Baldwin
RE/MAX W.A.

— Geoff Baldwin, RE/MAX WA, 25th August, 2011"

"The Davey Group would be behind a move to advertise through REIWA.com only.

Andrew Davey

— Andrew Davey, Davey Group, 24th August, 2011"

Mark Hay was over the moon ...

"Wow, the response has been overwhelming! ... By far the huge majority confirm we should crank up REIWA ...

— Mark Hay, Investment property specialist, 24th August, 2011"

REIWA is the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, which has long had its own property ad website ...

"Feature Properties for sale

— reiwa.com.au"

And has recently teamed up with the Sunday Times's rival, The West Australian, to produce

"WestRealEstate.com.au

— WestRealEstate.com.au"

The West is spruiking its new website for all its worth ...

"WestReal Estate

This exciting new site is offering vendors a free listing when their agent is a current REIWA subscriber ...

— The West Australian, 25th August, 2011"

No wonder the Managing Director of the Sunday Times was freaking out at the thought of all those 'valued real estate clients' jumping ship. Hence his crawling email ...

"I give you my personal guarantee that The Sunday Times will work hard to restore our relationship to the mutual good health and prosperity that we have achieved together over many years.

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, 24th August, 2011"

The problem was, wrote Jason Scott, that the Home Alone piece was unbalanced, because it ...

"... did not contain any response from agents or real estate industry groups and nor did it look at vendors who had tried to sell their houses privately who had then appointed an agent and got the right result.

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, 24th August, 2011"

Well, that's true. And it was a bit of a puff job for one particular do-it-yourself consultancy.

But some of the offended agents weren't going to be fobbed off with a private apology.

Glenn Buckley of Think Pink Realty - yes, that's its name - wrote back to Mr Scott, in a nice pink font ...

"Your apology is noted. However, what is clearly required here is a full rebuttle (sic) in this weeks issue of your newspaper...

— Glenn Buckley, Think Pink Realty, 24th August, 2011"

Well, he didn't get that. But what he did get, in that Sunday's Weekend Property, was a full, double page puff job for real estate agents ...

"Agent wanted

Why are agents worth the money? Following last week's article on private selling, we look at the other side ...

— Sunday Times, Weekend Property, 28th August, 2011"

Three happy clients, and no fewer than seven deeply sincere real estate agents. And why was that published, we asked the acting editor ... well, naturally,

"To balance the one-sided feature that appeared on August 21.

— Bill Rule, Deputy Editor, Sunday Times, 2nd September, 2011"

Balance. The essence of sound journalism. No mention of that other principle of newspaper management: safeguarding editorial from advertiser pressure.

[3]The term, "the fourth estate refers to the media and mass media. It comes from the French Revolution, where the first estate was the nobles, the second estate was the clergy and the third estate was the common people.