Raven Paradox

Something is drastically wrong with this country.

It has been going south for quite a while, but in the past week, things have been quite insane.

Firstly the board of the ABC - hand picked by John Howard - introduce “guidelines” that will prevent a supposed bias (read:honest opinion) at the national broadcaster.

A couple of days later, Johnny’s crew pass legislation that will all but ensure that there is an entrenched bias in all of the countries commercial media outlets.Still, we can’t entirely blame the government - some mindless ignoramuses gave them the balance of power in the senate…

It might seem a bit paranoid, reactionary or over the top to claim that we are heading toward dangerous territory, that it is almost like we are becoming a communist state as far as views that are dissenting from the government are concerned, but judging by the events of the past week, I don’t think that it is too far removed from the truth.

This article by Errol Simper in The Australian is the most insightful one I have thus far read on the madness that has occurred at the ABC this week and deserves to be reprinted in full here:

Cold War tactics gag the dissenters
A CERTAIN SCRIBE
Errol Simper
October 19, 2006

WE must get rid of this federal Government. The Howard Government must not be returned next year. It is media-irresponsible in the extreme and it has to go. It’s showing dangerous tendencies, echoes from the Cold War Soviet Union.

Changes to the ABC’s editorial guidelines, outlined on Monday, proclaim this Government - in the guise of the ultra-conservatives it has calculatedly appointed to the broadcaster’s board - is unable to stomach dissent, or even reasonable debate. Changes to the cross-media ownership regulations have exactly the same intent: to stymie dissent. Despite all the public babble about regional radio, more regional news and so on, the real intent of the new legislation has always been to allow James Packer’s Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (or associated equity interests) to control John Fairfax’s occasionally left-leaning newspapers. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Illawarra Mercury, The Newcastle Herald and The Australian Financial Review wouldn’t stray too far left under the steady hands already guiding the Nine Network’s Coalition-friendly tiller. So much for increased diversity.

And changes at SBS that encourage the multicultural broadcaster to interrupt programming with commercials are also aimed at limiting media dissent. With corporate domination of its spectrum, little SBS’s tiny voice of protest would rapidly be suffocated.

It’s all very Kremlinesque. The Canberra Kremlin doesn’t, of course, have to worry too much about the Ten network. Its content is about as political as a bar of soap. Seven is slightly different. Its proprietor, Kerry Matthew Stokes, can be unpredictable. His acquisition on Tuesday of a strategic 8.5 per cent stake in West Australian Newspapers indicates Stokes may like to merge Seven with Perth’s The West Australian newspaper. Watch out for Stokes being hurriedly summoned to Canberra.

So far as media policy is concerned, this Government is recklessly irresponsible. It gives no heed whatsoever to the public interest. The Howard administration is consciously trying to turn Australia into a bland, unquestioning society that believes every word that emanates from the ACT Lubyanka. Another target will almost certainly become the federal parliament. There were signs of that during the Senate’s communications committee review of the cross-media alterations. The review was limited to two days; witnesses were limited to 30 minutes.

Dissent! This Government can’t even accept a decent argument.

Remember how there was going to be this long, silent pause in the media fraternity in the immediate aftermath of the cross-media rules being dismantled? Remember how mainstream media assets were mature and not very attractive any more? Well, just read the papers. Did media-naive Communications Minister Helen Coonan really believe that stuff? The headline over Alan Kohler’s column in yesterday’s SMH said it all: “Kerry Packer had his Alan Bond, James Packer has his Helen Coonan.”

Then there’s the ABC’s new editorial policies, outlined at the Sydney Institute by its managing director, Mark Scott. Put simply, Scott wants to overlay ABC activities - including programs such as The Chaser and Media Watch - with an additional layer of Thought Police to ensure total balance and impartiality. Scott spoke of training staff in the virtues of fairness. The corporation mustn’t be “unnecessarily narrow” in its selection of topics. Its journalists must keep “private opinions” out of stories/programs and aim for a product that is “rounded and complete rather than half-baked and half-told”.

The scribe once, briefly - many years ago - worked for the ABC. And in the intervening years he has come to know many ABC journalists and program-makers, some of them fleetingly, some of them very well indeed. The ancient scribe’s memory sometimes fails him nowadays but he can’t think of a single ABC journalist of significance, one who has been around for any considerable period, who requires any such training or re-instruction. The vast majority of ABC journalists the scribe has known have been guided by exactly the same principles most journalists are guided by. You do the best job you can possibly do, given the circumstances, the time at your disposal and your mental capacity. It’s fair to say that, again in the scribe’s experience, ABC journalists are often among the most thoughtful and painstaking. They are often among the most conscience-driven and they frequently display healthy chunks of decency, morality and rectitude. The scribe would suggest to Scott there’s not too much wrong with ABC staff members as they are. To suggest otherwise is fairly adjacent to an outrageous insult.

It is, of course, all a response to the never-ending wails about alleged pro-left ABC bias. Well, the scribe is happy to concede there are many things in this world about which he knows very little. But he does feel faintly qualified to talk about bias allegations. As a columnist for more years than he cares to recall, he can quite confidently tell you a journalist writes or broadcasts something accepted as good only when those reading, watching or listening to it happen to agree with it. Many media consumers don’t even bother to disentangle whether it’s you, a journalist, saying something or whether you’re simply quoting someone. If the someone is saying something a reader-listener doesn’t want to hear or doesn’t agree with, you - the author or broadcaster - will be condemned for a wicked calumny. This is particularly true of politicians.

The argument isn’t so much about what an opponent said. It becomes about why you afforded so much space or airtime to such a disingenuous scoundrel.

You can’t win, particularly if you happen to work for absolutely everybody’s ABC.

It is hardly surprising I suppose given that a biographical look at the Prime Ministers most rabid, rusted on, servile supporter authored by a journalist at the ABC - Chris Masters - was scuttled by the powers that be at the ABC:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/2984

http://abc.net.au/corp/pubs/media/s1674993.htm

One doesn’t need too many brain cells to work out what happened there.

Unfortunately the governments blatant attempt to weed out any criticism of it didn’t end there. The next step, completely bastardising the countries media ownership laws will ensure that a diversity of opinion in this country is even further oppressed.

Matt Price summed it up brilliantly in The Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20613588-601,00.html

Matt Price: Lib pair left holding tin can
THE SKETCH
October 20, 2006
WE’VE all seen the supermarket scene where the cans of, say, tomatoes are heaped high in a pyramid at the end of the aisle.

The innocent-looking little kid, lagging behind his mum’s shopping trolley, stops and takes a single can from the bottom of the pile. As the pyramid collapses, mum looks around and sees the tin in her boy’s hand.

“But I only took one can,” he protests.

In the frenzy of deal-cutting, share-trading and speculation surrounding Australian media companies, John Howard and Helen Coonan are that little kid.

Ludicrously, the Prime Minister and the Communications Minister are trying to delude themselves that the multi-billion-dollar deals suddenly in play have nought to do with the Government’s media reforms.

“It’s a misunderstanding of the situation to say that they are a direct consequence of the current laws,” Howard told ABC radio yesterday.

“They may be anticipatory moves, but I think we have to keep a sense of balance.”

If the PM really believes that, he’s got roughly the same sense of balance as Keith Richards, drunk and climbing a coconut tree after midnight. The Coonan reforms didn’t affect the media frenzy like Donald Rumsfeld didn’t have anything to do with the war in Iraq.

Let’s accept Howard and his minister are genuinely taken aback by the seismic activity in media circles, that they actually believed James Packer when he played down the proposed reforms as all a bit of a yawn.

Very silly, although given the Government’s reliably steadfast protection of the eternally cosseted free-to-air channels, perhaps Howard really believed Packer might be satisfied with the shutting out of competitors, hideously comprehensive anti-siphoning laws and the headstart at digital development contained in the new media laws.

That he wasn’t is a credit to the young mogul’s business nous, but now the Government is left to explain a policy that has suddenly made Australia’s richest man wealthier and potentially more powerful.

“I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the frenzy,” Howard protested.

“If people do transactions on the stock exchanges, they tend to do them to make money. That’s the operation of the capitalist system.”

Thanks for that, PM, but it’s a pity he and Coonan never thought to ask Nationals MP Paul Neville about the effect their new laws might have on the media landscape. He said yesterday: “I thought that there would be a very quick movement in a number of areas and that’s been demonstrated by PBL and by (Kerry) Stokes and I think we’ll see more of those.”

Which, alongside the ramblings of Howard and Coonan, sounds eminently sensible.

Within days of the laws passing, Packer and his mob lined their pockets with a cool $191,000,000 - which will certaily increase. Of course, this is all well and good in a capitalist society and good on them for their good business sense, but this issue is bigger than one man increasing his personal fortune.

Kerry Stokes was the next to act, buying 14.9% of West Australian Newspapers, followed by Rupert Murdoch snaring a 7.5% stake in his largest rival, Fairfax.

With cross media ownership now well and truly alive (not necessarily well) in Australia, the first few days in this scary new world seem to be proving Paul Keating right:

http://www.australianpolitics.com/media/00-06-14keating.shtml

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1740647.htm

It is yet to be seen whether or not his gravest fears are realised but I wouldn’t bet against them.

Technorati Tags: Howard, ABC, Facism, Communism, Cross media ownership, Liberals, Errol Simper, Matt Price, Insanity