Submission to Senate Enquiry on Media Diversity in Australia

Submission to Senate enquiry on Media diversity in Australia

Matched Public Funding of Public Interest Journalism

In my experience, as an active campaigner for one of Australia’s major political parties, running for office myself and spending many weekends doorknocking in my local community, I am acutely aware that many of my fellow Australians are caught in the thrall of News Corp’s yellow journalism.

News Corp is a family business with a century long tradition of manipulating events rather than reporting them. Keith Murdoch convinced Billy Hughes to dismiss General John Monash, because of his Jewish ancestry immediately prior to the battle of Hamel. On visiting the front in 1918 Hughes discovered he had been misled, finding the strong support for Monash amongst his senior commanders. More recently Dissatisfaction with this use of editorial power extends to some of the younger Murdochs. James Murdoch has resigned from the board of News Corp because of “disagreements over certain editorial content” reportedly climate change misinformation and giving a platform to climate science deniers. Kathryn and James Murdoch’s spokesman stating, “they are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary.”

News Corp uses its privileged position, owning vast slabs of the Australian media landscape, to act as a de facto political party promoting the personal interests and views of its proprietor. This has delivered political and policy outcomes that benefit Rupert Murdoch’s interests, in areas from communications policy to climate change, that no other group of Australian citizens could hope to achieve.

Having engaged with of my fellow Australians on politics and policy I know that many treat the opinions presented to them by the Murdoch media empire as fact, some literally having been exposed to no other views until people like me, doing retail politics, come knocking on their door.

News Corp should be best seen as its proprietor’s personal propaganda outlet. While Murdoch holds a majority of the fourth estate, it is tough for those of us with different views to have them heard. As a person involved at the grassroots, I think this is antithetical to the fair go traditions of our democracy.

The size of the News Corp empire allows the cross subsidy of lossmaking sections which would be unsustainable for smaller entities. I.e. the profits of say, real estate.com.au can, allow the lossmaking Australian newspaper to be supported whereas AAP fails commercially under the same circumstances. Government policy should be used to prevent media conglomeration by preventing large players from gobbling up minnows and providing additional support for individual journalists or small cooperatives of journalists. Suggested policy changes

· I think there is call for a matched funding arrangement, providing additional top up funding to independent public interest journalism entities supported by individual Australians. In practice, this would be like a journalist’s “Patrion“ where Australians subscribing to the work of journalists could assign them some modest additional public funding.

· The Murdoch empire should be broken up or other steps taken to ensure it presents a diversity of views that more fully reflects the spectrum of Australian values.