Within hours of my post “Murdoch hates Rudd: a reminder”, where I predicted that the Murdoch media would turn even more feral towards the Government as the election nears, this front page from the Daily Telegraph is splashed across the internet:
Tony Abbott was quick to kick it along:
For his part, Opposition Leader Abbott, speaking just minutes later, pointed to our “robust and diverse media culture” and said some would be in his corner, some wouldn’t, and one had to “take the rough with the smooth.”
Was he smirking at the time, I wonder? After all, we all know who’s in his corner. Someone he loves deeply, apparently. Thanks to AIMN reader Kaye Lee, here’s a reminder of how deep that love is:
TONY ABBOTT’S ADDRESS TO THE IPA APRIL 5 2013
“John Howard has said that Rupert Murdoch has been by far Australia’s most influential international businessman; but I would like to go a little further. Along with Sir John Monash, the Commander of the First AIF which saved Paris and helped to win the First World War, and Lord Florey a one-time provost of my old Oxford College, the co-inventor of penicillin that literally saved millions of lives, Rupert Murdoch is probably the Australian who has most shaped the world through the 45 million newspapers that News Corp sells each week and the one billion subscribers to News-linked programming.
Rupert Murdoch has sometimes changed his political allegiance but he’s never changed his fundamental principles. At least since the mid-70’s, those have been greater personal responsibility, smaller government, fewer regulations and support for open societies that don’t build walls against the world.
For our guest of honour, as for anyone deeply steeped in reporting, experience trumps theory and facts trump speculation. His publications have borne his ideals but never his fingerprints. They’ve been skeptical, stoical, curious, adventurous, opinionated yet broad minded. He’s influenced them, but he’s never dictated to them – as I happily discovered myself in 1989 while writing editorials in favour of the pilots who were trying to ground the airline that he then half owned. As a transgression, this turned out to be far less serious than spelling his late great mother, Dame Elisabeth’s name with a ‘z’ rather than with an ‘s’!
Rupert Murdoch is a corporate citizen of many countries, but above all else, he’s one of us. Most especially, tonight, he’s a long-serving director of the IPA, as was his distinguished and celebrated father, Sir Keith.”
Political brown-nosing of the highest order, don’t you think?
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Abbott’s appraisal seems to be in stark contrast to the people who have actually worked for Murdoch.
In 1975 109 journalists from the Australian went on strike because of editorial influence in trying to affect the outcome of the federal election.
‘Murdoch’s overt interference in the 1975 campaign was so bad that reporters on the Australian went on strike in protest and seventy-five of them wrote to their boss calling the newspaper ‘a propaganda sheet’ and saying it had become ‘a laughing stock’ (Wright 1995). ‘You literally could not get a favourable word about Whitlam in the paper. Copy would be cut, lines would be left out,’ one former Australian journalist told Wright’ (1995).
A letter written by News Limited journalists and presented to management outlines clearly some of the concerns they had resulting in their strike action on 8th-10 December 1975, the last week of the election campaign.
“… the deliberate and careless slanting of headlines, seemingly blatant imbalance in news presentation, political censorship and, more occasionally, distortion of copy from senior specialist journalists, the political management of news and features, the stifling of dissident and even palatably impartial opinion in the papers’ columns…”
I think the gloves are off. Completely disturbing front page from the Murdocracy.
If Kevin, September 7, Rudd, wishes to win back Rupert he’d have to dismantle or, at the very least, neuter the NBN.
Hope Kev holds to some principles.
Murdoch is a traitor, he should be jailed for his actions around the world.
Chanels 7 and 9 have joined the onslaught with totally biased political reporting last night and today. Turned them off and will never watch them again.
You are correct bernyl. Channel 7’s news last night was an infomercial for the LNP complete with Jeff Kennett reading from a script. Give me strength. Prime TV, which is allied to 7, is a barracker for the Nationals & ABC24 is also unfair & unbalanced.
Poltifact must be thinking twice about joining up with 7 to provide their services. They are hardly used. 🙁
Reblogged this on lmrh5.
We have been told many times about his uncouth methods, and most of the time people who don’t take much notice of what is going on in the political arena in Australia were taking all the propaganda in, but now I see a different view of the people I know, after that headline “Kick this Mob out”, I’ve seen a turnaround in a lot of people I know, the OTHER MEDIA like this one getting the other side of things to the people, this and other outlets are doing a great job, keep it up, if the rat gets in you may be writing it in hiding !!!! Thanking you ……
Farewell Democracy, the final divide of our beautiful country & the individual behind it is a failed Australian because he is a USA citizen now.
I notice TA has a very expansive add running on 10 2nite. I’m guessing he’ll get lots of freebees from RM. Gunna be hard for Labor to match the money! Basically, we are under foreign siege IMHO!
Loosing control of ‘our’ country me thinks, but then it’s only ever ours when the rich want us to fight to protect it!!!!
A point is that we of the alternative media are often hauled across the coals for failing to achieve some sort of impartiality. Blogmaster Michael Taylor was criticised heavily by a particularly shrill right wing blog because he kicked out a few trolls, and with a great deal of tearing at forelocks and many How Dare You’s, the conclusion from this source was a failure to provide a balanced point of view.
So to all of our right wing lurkers, what’s the excuse for news.com’s failure..whence the balance?
indeed Sir John Monash was a great Australian ‘hero’ yet Sir Keith Murdoch set out to destroy his career.
As a slightly righty semi lurker, I say there is no excuse for that front Page. The tele has well and truly nailed it’s colours to the mast with that effort. I haven’t considered the Daily Smellycrap to be a reputable paper for about 20 years (my dear old mother reads it every day though).
As for balance from the alternative media? If you bag out the MSM for bias and lack of balance, I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect a higher standard from you than those you decry. I see lots of anti Abbott articles but very little critical of Labor. Nothing about Obeid and his mates? Really? Is the corruption in the NSW Labor party that insignificant? Or doesn’t it fit the agenda because there’s a higher cause at stake?
Dagney
Yes in my opinion the allegations of corruption in NSW are irrelevant. There has been an enquiry, the evidence has been referred to the DPP and the ATO, and it is time for the courts to do their stuff regarding the individuals involved. There were many many similar cases during the Howard government.
This election is about climate change and the NBN and the superannuation guarantee and health and education and jobs….not about the actions of a dying breed of corrupt businessmen.
If you want a reminder of just a few of the Coalition’s antics when last in government I suggest you read this including the part where we, the taxpayer, bailed out John Howard’s brother’s company to the tune of 4 million bucks.
http://www.senatorjohnfaulkner.com.au/file.php?file=/news/HQRYPBHXRQ/index.html
Reply to Dagney J, who needs to write anything bad about Labor, it’s every time in our MSM every minute of everyday, this to me is a forum for the people who can see through the mire… Thanking you…….
For evidence of why charters of editorial independence don’t work, look no further than Rupert Murdoch, who undertook a range of commitments to protect the editorial integrity of The Times and The Sunday Times when he wanted to purchase them without interference by UK competition authorities, in the early 1980s. After a secret but well-documented deal with Margaret Thatcher to avoid scrutiny of the acquisition, Murdoch promised independent directors, no editorial interference or instruction and independent approval of staffing changes. Then-Times editor Harold Evans (repeatedly) and Sunday Times editor Frank Giles and later Times editor Andrew Neil have all described in detail how Murdoch ignored the commitments and in some cases was explicit that he would ignore them.
As a UK Commons committee said recently:
“In his autobiography [Evans] wrote that none of the guarantees that Rupert Murdoch gave to safeguard editorial independence ‘are worth the paper they are written on — unless the proprietor shares the spirit of them. If he does, they are merely ornamental; if he does not, they are unworkable … Internal freedom cannot be acquired by external rules’. Andrew Neil, editor of The Sunday Times from 1983 to 1994, agreed: ‘It was a conceit invented … to allow Mr Murdoch to take over these papers in the first place, and it was put in place for that reason. It was not really put in place to protect the independence of the editors’.”
Murdoch so liked this model of promising independence before purchases and then ignoring it afterward that he’s applied it regularly since then, right up to the acquisition of the Dow Jones group. And no one would ever accuse Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers famously unanimously endorsed the attack on Iraq (which Murdoch predicted would lead to oil being $US20 a barrel), of not being a hands-on proprietor.
How can Aussies expect a democratic election when our media produces partisan rubbish like this? I am not pushing a barrow for any party but to take the political debate in this direction is demeaning to our values of fairness and good sportsmanship. Its an insult to the intelligence of Australians to print propaganda for one party or another, and assumes that voters are incapable of understanding the issues or making up their own minds.
The disturbing thing about the conservative position on the News Ltd campaign is to say that ‘at least they are upfront about their bias’.
Since when does our free press give it up for the bias of a disgruntled American mogul.
Man, I gag seeing that new ad from Abbott. How contrived. He mentions getting the economy back in order? How Abbott? What are you cutting?
And the finishing shot of him looking out the plane window smirking while showing “the pamphlet” with Joe Hockey on the cover dreaming of pork.
http://lpa.webcontent.s3.amazonaws.com/realsolutions/LPA%20Policy%20Booklet%20210x210_pages.pdf
Plenty of mention of cuts and funding, but no mention of how it will be funded….from where?
I feel deep shame on behalf of journalists at the Telegraph. If you were a young journalism student, would you aspire to work there?
RM knows his print media is obsolete and will be scrapped to make way for the internet alternative, so he’s sending it crashing to it’s grave fully ablaze. We can only hope he follows it on similarly in no short time.
I wondered Why would LNP replace their Intelligent leader (Malcolm Turnbull) with such a person without any scruples. Person that is totally unacceptable for such position. Well, LNP did NOT replace Malcolm with this Joker, it was Mr Murdoch who did that. In my opinion Malcolm should have quit and save his reputation, as it is he become Bad LIAR just like TONY, and all for Mr Murdoch’s best interest. Australian people and their best interest’s never been considered.
@ Ana Milosevic, I’d like to know more about this. How was Murdoch involved in replacing Malcolm Turnbull with Tony Abbott? I have always wondered about the LNP’s choice of leader too.