NewsCorp Continues To Suffocate Australia’s Media Diversity, And It Still Sucks
A new report found “the biggest losers in a country lacking media diversity are everyday people”.
A new report investigating Australia’s media diversity problem has revealed that, lo-and-behold, NewsCorp continues to throttle the market.
It comes as former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull dubbed NewsCorp the country’s “most powerful political actor” in a senate public hearing this morning.
In November last year, former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spearheaded a petition for a media royal commission that garnered over 500,000 signatures — the largest e-petition in Australia’s parliamentary history.
“A vibrant and diverse media sector is a profoundly important part of any healthy democracy,” the report states.
“However, here in Australia, the integrity and independence of our media is under sustained attack.”
what's not to love about today's senate media diversity inquiry panel? pic.twitter.com/1phHEAuVEc
— Pinky🐾 (@pinkybarks) April 12, 2021
‘Who Controls Our Media?’ was released by political activist movement GetUp! today and was co-authored by Associate Professor of Communication Benedetta Brevini and PhD candidate Michael Ward.
The report examines how media ownership concentration sets the public agenda, prioritises profits over factual reporting, and quashes the range of perspectives we hear from.
NewsCorp Australia owns nearly 60 percent of metro and national print media and swallows 40 percent of total television revenue.
When it comes to radio, the three main players, NewsCorp, Nine and Southern Cross Media hold 95 percent of metro licenses.
By mid-2024 however, the ABC will have had $1 billion slashed from its operating budget since 2014.
“The level of concentration has been increasing to an untenable level,” Brevini told Junkee. “I cannot think of any other liberal democracy in the world with almost 60 percent of the newspaper market controlled by one company.”
“With this level of dominance, we have at least 70 years of media scholarship that has shown that a media company can control the policy agenda and especially the communication policy agenda, thus altering the function of democracy.”
Bullying only works if one gives into the bullies.
Why do they all give in to Murdoch – every single time??
Particularly now that there are so many other options to reach audiences ie voters #mediadiversityinquiry #auspol
— 📣💧Denise Shrivell #Independentsday is coming (@deniseshrivell) April 11, 2021
We’ve already seen how media monopolies can puppeteer government priorities and decisions in favour of their own economic benefit. NewsCorp under the steady hand of the Murdoch family has influenced elections here and abroad, misrepresented women in power, and split public opinion on the climate crisis.
The report wrote that “the scale of NewsCorp’s climate misinformation has hindered climate policy, encouraged negative sentiments towards climate action, and actively driven a political wedge into our public debate.”
“This would not have been possible in a more diverse media landscape, where the excessive power of corporations like NewsCorp is diluted to make way for a media sector that not only holds government to account, but itself too.”
In addition to climate denial, including over the 2019/20 summer bushfire period, NewsCorp is continually pulled up on racial insensitivity.
The report discusses COVID-19 coverage where their mastheads sported headlines like ‘CHINA VIRUS’, ‘PANDAMONIUM’ and ‘CHINA KIDS STAY HOME’.
“I don’t see Australians as apathetic or uncaring about the media. The following of the bushfire emergency and then Covid demonstrates the important role they see the media playing,” report co-author Michael Ward said to Junkee.
“The problem is not one of uncaring acceptance — it is a structural problem where people have few choices and little power in getting a more diverse media. The power is expressed through the parliament and media regulation.”
Then there’s the myriad of NewsCorp columnists including Peter Gleeson, who archaically used the words “Aborigine” and “negroes” in a piece about the Black Lives Matter movement last year.
In Andrew Bolt’s column today about Meghan Markle not going to Prince Phillip’s funeral, Bolt said that the Duke of Edinburgh being called ‘Phil the Greek’ was worse than Markle’s experiences of racism within the Royal Family and in the media.
It’s believed that racism in newspaper opinion pieces wont stop if the media sector lacks diversity, and the articles are predominantly penned by white people, according to the Guardian.
Over the past week Andrew Bolt had defamed about seven people of colour in his columns. I think this reflects a desperate desire to be a victim and create a case, but it’s unlikely to happen because the inequity between his targets and News Corp make it very unappealing.
— Osman Faruqi (@oz_f) April 11, 2021
When push comes to shove, Brevini and Ward write that “the biggest losers in a country lacking media diversity are everyday people”.
The Senate Environment and Communications References Committee will report their findings on media diversity, reliability and independence in early August.