The Trade Unions and the Media by Allan Ashbolt

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We are living at a time when the Fraser and intra-mural wrangling, remains ttie government has virtually declared war on the spearhead of democratic action in this unions — class war of a peculiarly vindictive country and the measure by which democratic kind. And in this war, the government is using progress must be judged. Only the union every propaganda weapon, every propaganda movement, with its mass base and outlet it can find. If it succeeds in taming or participatory processes, can contain and terrorising the union movement, then the combat the pervasive power of capital. For boundaries of political democracy will shrink us, as unionists, the problem always starts to negligible proportions. For the union with capital and specifically with ownership movement, despite its backslidings, mistakes and control of the means of production. 20 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 80

There seem to me to be several basic Melbourne Herald had been consummated, questions here: there would now have been only a Big Two (1) who owns the media organisations? (Fairfax and Murdoch), instead of a Big (2) who controls the output in press, radio Three, It's worth noting, too, that the Melbourne Herald survived, mainly because and television? (3) what are the consequences of intervention by the Fairfax group, which for the trade union movement particularly, moved in to acquire a 14.7 percent holding. In and for the cause of social justice generally? the coming ownership war, Fairfax and the (4) what strategy should be adopted to deal Melbourne Herald will probably form an with this whole problem? alliance on one side, with Murdoch and The fundamental pattern of media Packer (who are already partners in Lotto), ownership in Australia is well enough known, on the other side. and is indeed a matter of some notoriety. What must be realised about the Big Three Disregarding a few maverick publications, it's or the Big Four (however you like to reasonable to say that, at present, three characterise the situation) is that each has groups — John Fairfax Ltd of Sydney, The an enormously wide spread of ownership. It's Herald and Weekly Times Ltd of Melbourne wide geographically — the Melbourne Herald and the News Corporation Ltd (the Rupert is in every state except New South Wales and Murdoch group) — own nearly all the print has been in Papua-New Guinea for years; media: the metropolitan dailies, the weeklies, Murdoch's empire stretches beyond Australia the specialist magazines, various sorts of to New Zealand, Britain and the United periodicals, and a fair number of provincial States, and he has recently bought the and suburban newspapers. London Times', the Fairfax group, with its In the 1960s, when the union movement fifty-three wholly-owned or partly-owned first looked at this problem seriously, Sir subsidiaries, takes in the Melbourne Age, the Frank Packer's Consolidated Press was still Macquarie radio network and all-state a force to be reckoned with, but today his flag- franchise for Muzak, the piped music used for carrier, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, is in the pacification purposes in so many offices and hands of Rupert Murdoch. The Packer factories. group, under Sir Frank's son, Kerry (for The ownership is wide, too, in range of ownership in Australia tends to be outlets, covering not only press, radio and concentrated in families), has cut back television, but numerous associated activities. drastically on its newspaper holdings. The Murdoch's company, for instance, is the sole main print products of the Packer group are owner of Festival records; Fairfax and the The Bulletin and The Women's Weekly — Melbourne Herald are in pulp and paper and just let me mention incidentally that, for manufacturing; the Melbourne Herald has nearly twenty years, it also had a half-share in long-standing ties with Hoyts Theatres Ltd, what was purportedly an ABC publication — which has monopolised film distribution and TV Times. But the group's strongest effort exhibition for more than half a century. now goes into television. The media often tend to be thought of in terms of newspapers, and within newspapers, Contraction of ownership of editorial opinion, political analysis and the high-minded imparting of information. But This contraction of ownership over the past the interests of the media owners also ten years is hardly surprising. The economic encompass most aspects of what is commonly push is continually towards monopolisation called entertainment — pop music, films of resources, in order to reduce production (Murdoch has recently launched a film and distribution costs. In the newspaper production company), paperback books, industry there has been an ever-increasing sport (as Kerry Packer has so effectively contraction of ownership since around 1900, demonstrated with his World Series cricket), and if Murdoch's 1979 share raid on the and of course television shows. The media The Trade Unions & the Media 21 companies have become, in fact, multi-media helped to make, the world they are conglomerates. determined to preserve. In that world, it's It's also vital to understand that the media hardly strange that a media magnate is in monopolies are locked into non-media airlines, any more than that non-media business and trade. Fairfax, for instance, is companies like BHP, the jam manufacturers closely connected with the Bank of New Henry Jones Ltd, the Swan Brewery, the Bell South Wales and the AMP Society; and the Group and the National Mutual Life AMP Society is, in turn, a major shareholder Association are in radio and television, as in (if we consider only the television stations), either licence-holders or investors. To convey TCN Sydney, ATV Melbourne, ADS some idea of how crucial the media have Adelaide, TVT Hobart, QTQ Brisbane, BTQ become to the world of monopoly capitalism, Brisbane and TVQ Brisbane. The AMP's I need only list the companies lining up with holding in TVQ Brisbane comes, I might add, the Packer group in a bid for control of the by way of Brambles Industries Ltd, Pioneer projected domestic satellite system: IBM, Concrete Services Ltd, Ampol Petroleum and Conzinc Rio Tinto, the Colonial Sugar Arnett Transport Industries. To take another Refinery, Myer's, Ampol Petroleum, the example, the Murdoch group owns F.S. AMP Society, Thomas Nationwide Falkiner and Sons, the big pastoral company; Transport (Murdoch's partner in Ansett), and last year sold its investment in the Alwest James Hardie Industries, Australian bauxite venture for a surplus of 15 million Consolidated Industries, and the one dollars, bought a half share in Ansett corporation often ignored in considering Transport Industries, and through Ansett, Australia's media giants — Amalgamated picked up a 15 percent holding in Santos Ltd, Wireless of Australasia (AWA). AWA has the South Australian gas and oil producer. been a maker and supplier of electronic equipment since around 1920, and its You may recall that, when Ansett, during powerful presence is still to be found in 16 the reign of the now forgotten Sir Reginald television stations and 12 radio stations, Ansett, was given the licence for a Melbourne metropolitan and provincial, throughout television channel, it prompted the question Australia. For the media industry is merely from curious observers: why is an airline part of the much more massive operator in television? Now that Murdoch is communications industry, dominated by the joint owner of Ansett, one might just as electrical engineering companies like the easily ask: why is a media magnate in airlines? Radio Corporation of America and Bell To which the answer is, in polite capitalist Telephone in the USA, and by AWA, EMI, jargon: he is diversifying his interests. Or to Email and Philips in Australia. put it more realistically, he is extending his financial reach in the cut-throat world of The role of advertising monopoly capitalism. And so far he seems, by The media industry is directly linked to the his own standards, not to be doing too badly: world of monopoly capitalism through the two-airline policy looks like being advertising. One social critic (Humphrey abandoned, in favour of deregulation; and the McQueen: Australia's Media Monopolies, Broadcasting and Television Act has been p. 10) has argued, and I think convincingly, changed, so as to allow him the licence for that the commercial mass media are not "news the ex-Ansett television station in Melbourne, and features backed up by advertising'', but without forcing him to give up Channel 10 in are, on the contrary, ''advertisements which Sydney. carry news, features and entertainment in That is the world, the world of monopoly order to capture audiences for advertisers". capitalism, in which the media organisations Advertisements, we must remember, are the function. That is the world to which the media main revenue support of newspapers and owners belong and from which they derive magazines, the sole revenue support of radio their values. That is the world they have and television. 22 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 80 For me, the typical — almost proto-typical advertising provides the economic and — newspaper is The North Shore Times, one cultural setting, as well as the physical setting, of the products in Rupert Murdoch's for most newspapers and magazines. One of suburban chain. A copy is thrown into my the results is that journalists come very garden once a week, free of charge, because quickly and clearly to recognise the it's financed almost entirely by connection between their earnings and the advertisements. Around 85-90 percent of the paper's advertising revenue. paper is given over to advertisements; the rest In commercial radio and television, where to gossip, municipal council reports, charities the bombardment from ads is intense and and sports results. If you take a benign view of almost unceasing, many commentators, The North Shore Times, it could be said to be interviewers and actors are now directly publishing information on the availability of involved as hucksters in the selling of goods goods and services to consumers on Sydney's and the promotion of big companies. North Shore. But the operative word is Reputedly independent journalists and "consumers". Readers of this paper are interviewers speak openly on behalf of presumed to be not so much readers as corporations like Esso with a product to sell potential units of purchasing power. That's and prestige to maintain. In such on a benign view; on a more critical view, the circumstances, there can be no doubt about purpose of the paper is neither to advance nor who tells whom what to say; and no doubt, even to scrutinise the interests of the either, that the vaunted independence of these community which it professedly serves, but to journalists has been compromised and protect the interests of those traders and diminished. But since the President of the business companies from whom it draws its United States was for some years a television income. spruiker for General Electric, perhaps this The revenue accruing to the Sydney kind of activity has now been sanctified. Morning Herald on an average Saturday is, Another alarming phenomenon is that according to the Assistant General Manager advertising has affected the very style of news, of John Fairfax Ltd in evidence before the drama, musical and talk presentation in both Norris Enquiry, one million dollars. In an radio and television. Programs, including the average week, 55 percent of The Bulletin news, are constructed around so-called consists of advertisements, 45 percent of The advertising breaks, which are not really National Times. On most weekdays the breaks at all. In fact, programs are for the proportion in the Sydney Morning Herald is most part designed to give a continuity of about 50 percent; on Wednesdays somewhat tone, image and pace, so that the advertising higher, on Saturdays, higher still. In almost merges into the news and entertainment. any newspaper or magazine, the display advertising (as distinct from the classified Advertising is what might be called the advertising) surrounds, encases and virtually standard-bearer of the consumer culture, and imprisons the main body of the news. On as such it represents one important form of pages dealing with travel, food, wine and control over media content. In speaking of automobiles, the advertising often relates in control, I'm not referring here to the fact that kind to the type of material in the news most advertising agencies in Australia are columns. Most publications are laid out American-owned. That's another form of around the ads, built around the ads. The control; imperialist control, which I mention craft of sub-editing has declined to the point only in passing. I'm saying rather that, in the where it's now largely a matter of fitting news print media particularly, advertisers help to reports into spaces not taken up with ads. define the market at which a newspaper or Now I'm not suggesting that advertisers magazine is aimed. And market control the news, either by command or by considerations in turn mould the paper's style the expression of wishes, or by explicit threats — for example, the sort of topics that are and vetoes. What I'm saying is that chosen, the level of understanding that is The Trade Unions & the Media 23

assumed, the sophistication or vulgarity of Premier of New South Wales when the licence approach. In defence of monopoly, it's for Lotto is up for grabs. But I will suggest sometimes argued that the various that the proprietors, and the boards which publications within the one organisation they head, decide on the disposition of differ from each other in style. To a small resources, formulate editorial policy in a extent that's true; but in general there's only general way and determine the value an appearance of diversity. The differneces in framework in which a newspaper, magazine style arise primarily from differences in or broadcasting station will operate. And I'll market orientation. Remember, I'm not suggest, too, that the task of the managers, contending that advertisers alone decide on editors and controllers in the middle of the the market for a publication, I'm contending structure is to keep that value framework that advertisers help to define the market. intact and untarnished. It's the middle And definition is a continuing process, managers, representing the interests of the carried out in conjunction with editors and proprietors, recruited to protect those proprietors. interests, who comprise the control points But how, you might ask at this stage, does over journalists and other workers. monopoly ownership bear down on the employees, particularly on the journalists What to write who appear to be responsible for the news content in the media? Well, let's examine for a Of course, I'm aware that journalists often moment the structure, the operational deny that any explicit control exists. A structure, of media organisations. At the top journalist may contend that nobody tells him of the pile stand the owners, few in number, what to write; that nobody gives him orders; immense in wealth and power, intent on and that his editor asks only for consultation. safeguarding their interests. At the bottom Whereas he's usually conforming to a value are the media workers — a heterogeneous framework already impacted in the style, complex of reporters, printers, film directors, policies and objectives of the paper; and he's layout artists, scene designers, floor usually trying, either consciously or managers, film cutters, engineers, script unconsciously, to meet the expectations of his assistants, photographers, technicians and employer. In short, he's concerned with various other operatives. safeguarding and furthering his career in what In the middle, a hierarchy of managers, happens to be a very insecure profession; a editors and controllers hold the workers in profession that lacks the status of law, place. The important factor is not who these medicine or even engineering, a profession people are, but at the top, what they own, at that is tied to the organisational demands of the bottom, what they produce, in the middle the employer, a profession that exists in a whose interests they serve. I might add that, at kind of no-man's-land between academic the bottom, among the workers, the division discipline and story-telling. of labour is quite extreme, thus enabling the For myself, I avoid the word "bias" because middle or executive level to exercise a it infers that bias is applied deliberately, like a considerable degree of control over the technique. And that isn't always the case. product. From our viewpoint, as unionists, Bias is, if anything, built into journalistic the middle level is the key to the struggle. practice, into day-by-day routines. It emerges I won't suggest that the proprietors, either in decisions about what events deserve to be separately or as a cabal, habitually issue covered, in concepts of what constitutes a orders, directions or instructions to the staff news story or a news peg, in beliefs about how down below. I won't suggest that they to write according to conventional news- deliberately set out to brainwash the public — value standards, in convictions about how the except, say, when trying to get rid of a federal public benefit or the public interest might best Labor government as in 1975, or to flatter the be served. In my experience, I would not like 24 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 80

to try counting the number of times accuracy As unionists, we know that the economic has been sacrificed for the sake of a "good" interests of the owners are paramount; and by story or truth for the sake of "public" benefit. economic interests I mean not just the I don't think we can ignore the fact, either, accumulation of profits and investments but that the manipulation of news by sources of the maintenance of what they would regard as influence outside news-gathering institutions social stability, of conditions out of which has become remarkably common during the they can draw both financial power and past half-century. There are, for a start, all ideological authority. These interests those captains of industry, commerce and converge with the interests of the advertisers, finance, along with judges, archbishops, vice- . especially the corporate advertisers, and chancellors and well-heeled conservative shape the career interests, in some cases the politicians who conduct in-club sheer survival interests of the journalists, conversations with proprietors and editors, printers and other workers. and whose views assist in framing what is But there's a continuing tension between sometimes called the conventional wisdom or the owners and the workers, a tension that the prevailing climate of opinion. springs partly from wage quarrels and the Occasionally they'll intervene quite crudely efforts of proprietors to cut down on labour with proprietors and editors to suppress resources, but even more, I think, from the information, kill stories or canvass a creative, investigative, interpretative nature favorable (sometimes unfavorable) of media work. This tension can be quite interpretation of events. destructive — the incidence of cynicism is fairly high among journalists, for instance — Then there are the lobbyists and public but on the constructive side it has also led to relations men who plant stories, fly kites, a significant (though still scattered) resistance pump in rumour and scandal, offer meals and movement within the industry, a resistance overseas trips as bribes, and shower editorial movement aimed at giving reporters and desks with handouts. (The handout is now program-makers more control over what they one of the main supports of journalism.) And do and how they do it. We must never in this account of outside influences we must underrate the courage, honesty and skill of never forget those public servants who offer genuinely conscientious journalists. reporters assistance, guidance and coniid- The ABC and the state ential documents, especially when trying to Nevertheless, the political weighting of the destroy a Labor government. entire media, including the ABC, is very much Indeed, the media are often thought of as a to the right. Words like "impartiality", battleground for competing interests — the "objectivity", "neutrality" and "balance" have interests of those who own the means of little meaning when most information flows production, the interests of those who man from centres of power and authority with the productive machines and processes, the financial and ideological interests to protect. interests of those who buy space and time, the One of our troubles in Australia is that we interests of those who run our governments, have been conditioned to think of politics the interests of those who seek publicity, the within the narrow range of parochial party interests of those who read and view. It makes politics. So long as the Labor Party is allowed a nice pluralistic picture, with all these an occasional hearing in the press or on contending forces arriving at some sort of television, we console ourselves that balance, with truth eventually emerging standards of objectivity have been preserved. triumphant. But as the historian Lord Acton But achieving a balance of space or time once remarked: "Truth always prevails in the between conservative and labor spokesmen is end, but only when it has ceased to be in not the crux of the problem. The crux is how someone's interest to prevent it from doing to alter the historical and social frame in so." which events are reported. The Trade Unions & the Media 25

As for the ABC, which I suggested was as whenever the commercials find profit in what much to the right as any other media has traditionally been an ABC area of organisation, we have to recognise that it is activity, they move in to appropriate it — as not so much a creature of government, has occurred, for example, in so much responsive only to ministerial pressure, as an televised sport, especially Packer cricket. ideological arm of the capitalist state Make no mistake: commercial broadcasting, machinery, disseminating values, ideas, not national broadcasting, is the dominant opinions and attitudes which assume or in mode of production and, in terms of some way illustrate the basic benevolence of resources, represents the dominant power. In our social structure, our political processes, totality, the commercial operators have more our foreign alliances, our economic priorities stations and more access to money. All and our cultural aspirations. Not that the broadcasting in Australia functions, socially ABC should be regarded as a blunt and culturally, in a commercial setting. propaganda instrument; its ideological purpose is woven much more subtly into The ABC and the commercials Australian life. But its essential closeness to the capitalist state has been frankly Between the ABC and the commercial recognised in the ABC submission to the Dix operators, there's a somewhat uneasy alliance Committee of Review, a submission which based on the understanding that the ABC will calls for "corporate underwriting" of (so far as accept the responsibility for high culture and I can gather from the rather murky so-called service programming. It's only when phraseology) costly high culture programs. the ABC steps out of line or out of character, Under this proposal, there would be no hard either by pulling audiences away from the selling of products, only a discreet commercials (as in the early days of 2JJ), or institutional method of advertising — by disturbing the populace with radical perhaps a lead-in title like "This Week In thoughts and-raffish language that agitation Industry — presented by General Motors- begins among newspaper editorialists and Holden", or "The Esso-BHP Play of the media lobbyists against the wasteful Week", or "Utah Mining's Concert Classics", expenditure of taxpayers' money. The or "World Affairs — presented by Imperial commercials resent the intrusion of the ABC Chemical Industries in conjunction with into what they regard as their bailiwick of Conzinc Rio Tinto". One can hardly wait for popular entertainment; they are afraid of the the moment. ABC's occasional (very occasional these days) adventurousness in news and political The ABC is not at present much use to us. commentary; ancf since the advent of the The ABC's central task since its foundation in Fraser government, they have been 1932 has been to provide Australia with high determined that the ABC shall no longer take culture programs, especially in music and the lead in innovative programming. Under drama, and with so-called service programs these conditions, and with commissioners — education, rural, sporting, religious and who reflect the ideological intentions of the migrant programs — in other words, Fraser government (the former chairman, programs which would be rejected by the after all, was for most of his working life, a top commercial electronic media as unprofitable, executive of BHP), it's not at all surprising yet which the capitalist state considers that the ABC should have lately sunk back necessary for social health and welfare. The into political orthodoxy, cultural gentility, ABC has been expected to bring an element of social conformity and intellectual timidity. bourgeois cultural stability to a situation that So the next time an ABC reporter asks you, would otherwise be culturally lopsided and during a strike: "Aren't you holding the public chaotic. The ABC was never a countervailing up to ransom?" or "Isn't this victimisation of power to the commercials; it is a the public?" or "Why do you persist in this supplementary power, almost a prop. And contempt of arbitral procedures?" — don't be 26 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 80

surprised. Although the ABC has always Fairfax Ltd for a loan of the Channel 7 broadcast specialist or minority culture for tower, transmitting equipment and studios? such disparate sections of the community as Or Packer for the loan of Channel 9? Or schoolchildren, farmers, churchgoers, Murdoch for Channel 10? migrants, music-lovers and adult education Moreover, if we were dependent on enthusiasts, it has never considered the advertising to keep a newspaper or television working class, or the trade union movement station going, then we would be just another in particular, as a section of the community. adjunct of monopoly capitalism. And this, I The ABC has seldom made any programs think, is what has happened to the labor which consistently and openly acknowledged movement's radio stations around Australia. the existence of the working class or which However valuable they might be for revenue- examined in a thorough-going way the social raising, and despite the occasional labor- relations of production. Is it any wonder that oriented commentary which is broadcast, young ABC reporters come to you with these stations are trapped in the consumer hoary questions like "Aren't you holding the whirl as much as any conventional station. public up to ransom?" or "Can the nation They follow the predominant programming afford a 35-hour week?" — when they, as patterns of the commercials and have ABC staff, have for years worked a basic 36 effected little change or innovation. I'm not hour 45 minute week, without asking saying that they are incompetently managed; themselves whether the nation could afford it. on the contrary, their efficiency in competing with the commercial outfits is, in a quite Alternative media important sense, compounding our whole This sort of circumstance, where union problem with the media. We can't change leaders get bailed up with loaded questions, ways of thinking among the people at large, might be taken as a model in miniature of our and among journalists in particular, we can't problem. How do we ensure, for example, change the ruling class frame of political that strikes are reported in the context not of reference, by accepting and adhering to the employer interests but of the struggle foi values of capitalist commodity culture. social justice? How do we ensure that union I don't want to end negatively, so let me views are published not just as fragments of propose a modest method of tackling the an interview but as coherent ideas carrying problem that faces us as a movement. The social and historical validity? We could, I ACTU should, I think, form a media- suppose, launch a daily newspaper — monitoring-and-teaching unit which would although according to an estimate by the have these basic tasks: to monitor newspaper, Assistant General Manager of John Fairfax radio and television reporting of political Ltd, the setting up of a newspaper would affairs generally and union affairs in require a capital investment of $50 million. particular; to analyse the content of this But whether 50 million, 5 million or 1 million, coverage in terms of style, approach and the point is that we would have to acquire political weighting; to publish the results on a tremendous financial and technological regular basis and to have the meaning of the resources. That's what ownership is largely results discussed at union meetings; to liaise about — the. ownership of financial and with the Australian Journalists Association in technological resources, material resources, preparing a more comprehensive and more and exploiting those material resources for stringent code of ethics, and in seeking more profit by the use of labour resources. Again, if autonomy for journalists; to work with we applied for a television licence in, say, union members, delegates and officials Sydney — and by some weird miracle got it by towards a closer, more imaginative ousting one of the existing commercial understanding of the difficulties and licensees — how would we gather together challenges facing fellow workers employed by enough financial and technological resources the media; to assist union spokesmen in media in order to run a.station? Would we ask John performance and presentation.