Media Diversity

Unsurprisingly The Australian did not publish my letter to the editor below defending Malcolm Turnbull.

Your editorial ‘Malcolm’s excellent adventure’ (The Australian 6 June) contained the most extraordinary claims about the Minister for Communications, namely that he has been something other than a team player as Minister.

A fact used as evidence for the claim is the disloyalty to conservatives displayed in launching Morry Schwartz’s The Saturday Paper. This is the Minister who is proposing to weaken cross media ownership laws in a move widely perceived to favour the interests of News Corp.

The Minister on launching the paper sought to make the case that the current laws are not required to ensure diversity. This is the case he needs to make if reform is to occur.

The Australian has long made the case that it is entitled to be a conservative newspaper. So too are Schwartz’s stable of publications entitled to be ‘left-wing’. The Australian has feasted on a series of NBN stories largely provided by Mr Turnbull’s office

Mr Turnbull might add to his list. Why with friends like The Australian do the Liberals need enemies.


The simple fact is that Mr Turnbull at least recognises the importance of diversity in news coverage, a diversity that is important to the operation of democracy. This piece in On Line Opinion captures the essential elements of that argument. However its conclusion is wrong - the media doesn't need to be "impartial" (which is not the same as accurate or even objective) so long as it is sufficiently diverse in the range of partiality represented.


I have also previously commented that the actual influence of the Murdoch press is probably over-rated. The difficulty is that it is Mr Murdoch himself that wants us all to believe how influential he is.


So on this day as Mr Abbott has dined with the person I think the PM has called Australia's greatest businessman (who has chosen to live in what Mr Abbott calls the world's greatest country) let us hop that the conversation might have been two way. Let us hope that Mr Abbott explained that any change to cross media ownership laws has to be based on preservation of diversity rather than Mr Abbott just turned up to take orders.

Sharing the presses

In the long history of newspapers the relationship between owning a title and owning a press have existed under different models.

The classic model of the original "gazette" was of one person who wrote the stories, typeset them himself and then printed the paper. Ownership of a press was very important. But as presses grew to being large capital investments and had capacity beyond the requirement of just the titles of the owner, capacity on those presses have been sold to others.

For example, Fairfax pays others to print the AFR in states other than Vic and NSW.

Often this is for bespoke rather than competitive titles, and more usually through smaller presses. But declining circulation and shrinking classified volumes means that the large presses of the majors have increasing spare capacity.

It is no surprise, therefore, that News and Fairfax are reported to be close to a deal to share printing presses in Sydney and Melbourne.

While this should be welcomed on technical efficiency grounds it creates a risk of what is known as hold-up. If the deal results in Fairfax being a client of News it creates the possibility that sometime in the future News increases the price it charges Fairfax (unreasonably).

There are solutions to this, either by specifying all future prices in the contract or by empowering an arbiter of future pricing (the latter being exactly what an access regime is). Fairfax should have some protection as the News presses will become a monopoly.

The deal would technically meet the acquisition rules of s50 of the Competition and Consumer Act. As just noted the new business is a monopoly. To gain approval for the deal the Fairfax group could seek to produce a new national title that would increase competition in some markets.

It will be interesting to see how the ACCC eventually responds to any proposal that emerges.

Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est

How not to admit your mistakes

Heaps of coverage of News International (the UK outfit of News Corp, the publishers of both The Times and News of the World) and its apology and compensation scheme over the phone-tapping scandal in the UK.

It takes some work to find it, but the full release makes an interesting read.

The key para reads;

That said, past behaviour at the News of the World in relation to voicemail interception is a matter of genuine regret. It is now apparent that our previous inquiries failed to uncover important evidence and we acknowledge our actions then were not sufficiently robust.

"Genuine regret" is probably the weakest apology that could be made, and it appears the greatest regret is about their investigation of the matter rather than the tapping in the first place.

The release goes on;

News International’s commitment to our readers and pride in our award-winning journalism remains undiminished. We will continue to engage with and challenge those who attempt to restrict our industry’s freedom to undertake responsible investigative reporting in the public interest.

There is no element here of the words one might expect to see. That is "News International's commitment is to the ethical standards of journalism and respect for the law." Instead it is to "praise" their journalists and to suggest that they are up for a fight on any attempt to restrict them.

News Corp globally, and Rupert Murdoch in particular, would be amongst the first to employ the standard right-wing littany that "rights come with responsibilities". But here they argue that their "rights" should not be infringed no matter how irresponsible they have been.

I hope this release gets a good airing on the ABC's Media Watch, or even the original Media Watch run by Gerard Henderson!








Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est