Memes of the Week

@raywilton4

@AndrewPStreet

Meme of the Week

With barefaced lying becoming more commonplace in Murdoch & Nine newspapers, perhaps it's time that Australians consider the Liverpool solution?

The Sun (U.K.) first published in 1965 is owned by News Group Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

For the last 31 years the people of Liverpool in England have boycotted this newspaper because of its barefaced lying about the events of one single day.

In 2016 even some Liverpool taxis carried the boycott message.

The Echo, 19 September 2016

This boycott is said to have markedly affected sales of this newspaper up to the present day.

The boycott is still being regularly reported. 

In November 2019 two academics from Department of Government, London School of Economics & Political Science & Department of Political Science, University of Zurich published a study which suggests the the number of Liverpudlians who did not vote for Brexit was possibly increased in number by the fact that The Sun was not read it that city.

Given how loose-with-the-truth News Corp Australia journalism in particular becomes during election years, perhaps it is time rural and regional communities considered whether they too might like to drive a newspaper such as The Australian or The Daily Telegraph out of their towns and villages.

It is painfully obvious that The Daily Telegraph hopes to step into the print space left vacant after News Corp banished the Clarence Valley's 161 year old The Daily Examiner to a digital website.

I imagine its editor is also hoping to pick up readers in other regional areas along the NSW coast.

BACKGROUND

The Overtake. 19 July 2018:

After the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in overcrowding, the Murdoch-owned newspaper printed pages of false claims that not only blamed Liverpool fans for the disaster, but accused them of urinating on police officers and other fans, beating up officers attempting CPR, and pickpocketing the dead. 

These reports have since all been proven as fabrication. 

The effect that the disaster had on the people of Liverpool is huge, not least for those who attended the match, but also those who lost friends and family. 

The saddest of these is Stephen Whittle, known as the 97th victim of Hillsborough. Whittle had work commitments and therefore sold his matchday ticket to a friend, who tragically died there. 

In 2011 Whittle took his own life, with the coroner citing depression and likely survivor’s guilt caused by the events of Hillsborough. Whittle left £61,000 to the families of those who died at Hillsborough. 

In the aftermath of Hillsborough, the city of Liverpool came together to stand up to the figures of authority who were lying to their faces.....

The truth eventually became official record 27 years after Hillsborough, when a jury exonerated the fans of any wrongdoing, and condemned the police present at the match of unlawful killing by gross negligence. 

However, there is still a way to go before the people of Liverpool will consider justice served, as many of the police officers still await trial, and many who attacked Liverpool supporters, including The Sun and Boris Johnson, have only felt repercussions from the fans themselves....

Communities in Liverpool have truly come together and forced a decline in the newspaper’s readership and therefore local sales figures. It makes a lot of sense that both Liverpool and Everton football clubs have banned The Sun’s reporters from press conferences at their stadiums, but the real power of the people is shown by the actions of national companies. 

The fact that supermarkets such as Tesco, which stopped stocking the paper purely due to a lack of demand rather than any political or moral affiliations, say it isn’t worth selling the paper, shows the power of the city and its people.....


The boycott in Liverpool occasionally extends further than Merseyside, usually with travelling Scousers, and is now reaching further with the use of Twitter through accounts such as Total eclipse of the S*n and people encouraging others to hide copies of The Sun when they see it on sale.

One of Murdoch's minions goes after the ABC & accidentally shoots Sky News, a subsidiary of News Corp

Sometimes even in these dark times the news cycle throws up a quiet giggle.

In the Murdoch-Morrison War on the ABC, Australia's public broadcaster......

First salvo

L'l Scotty Morrison routinely swats away a journalist during a doorstop on 29 June 2020:

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you’ve spoken about the need for tax reform out the back of this crisis. Will you consider taking to the next election either an increase in the GST or a broadening of the base of the GST in order to get rid of and decrease other taxes or is that something you would rule out? 

PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I'm focused on at the moment is the decisions the Government has to make in relation to JobSeeker and JobKeeper and they’re important decisions as we move to the next phase post September. And I've got to say, Andrew, that's where my attention is right now.

JOURNALIST: So it’s something you might consider down the track? 

 PRIME MINISTER: No, Andrew, I'm not going to let you put words in my mouth. I've said what I've said. You know, we're focused on the questions that Australians are most interested in at the moment. And that is, frankly, the next phase beyond JobSeeker and JobKeeper. There is still a lot of work to do there and that's what we're focused on now. 

JOURNALIST: Were you concerned… 

PRIME MINISTER: No, it's not a one on one today, Andrew, there's many other journalists here. I'm happy to give you another one later.

Supporting salvo

News Corp's own NCA Newswire decides this exchange is a perfect opportunity to take another potshot at the ABC:

However there is one small problem with this 'news' report.

Return fire from opposing trenches

And that small problem was at matter of identity:

It would appear that News Corp mixed up Andrew Clennell a political editor over at its own subsidiary, Sky News Australia with an ABC political editor Andrew Probyn.

Thus managing to bring down one of its own media soldiers in a volley of friendly fire.

In future skirmishes perhaps Murdoch's troops could check mugshots before firing off a round - the Andrews are easy to tell apart.

For years mainstream media have used a presence on the Facebook platform as an easy way to extend digital audience reach. What could possibly go wrong?

There are reputedly est. 15 to 16 million Australians with active Facebook accounts and many in the mainstream media avails themselves of the digital audience this represents by maintaining their own Facebook pages on which they publish newspaper articles with an accompanying comment, image and headline.

News Corp and Nine just found out the hard way that having unmoderated Facebook pages is never a wise choice.

In July 2017 then 20 year-old Dylan Voller commenced defamation proceedings against three media companies owned by News Corp and Nine Entertainment.

This is a news article abot the third and most recent judgment rendered in the ongoing legal saga.....

ABC News, 1 June 2020:

Three Australian media outlets have lost an appeal about a key ruling holding them responsible for the alleged defamation on Facebook of former Don Dale Youth Detention Centre detainee Dylan Voller. 

The 23-year-old is suing Fairfax Media — now owned by Nine Entertainment — Nationwide News and Sky News over comments posted by members of the public in response to articles they placed on their Facebook pages. 

Last year, a New South Wales Supreme Court judge ruled the media companies were publishers of the comments — and therefore liable for them — and the media companies appealed. 

The NSW Court of Appeal today dismissed the challenge and said it was clear the relevant Facebook pages were created on the basis users would be invited to post comments. 

Justices John Basten, Anthony Meagher and Carolyn Simpson said the organisations "accepted responsibility for the use of their Facebook facilities for the publication of comments, including defamatory comments".  
"It was the applicants who provided the vehicle for publication to those who availed themselves of it," they wrote in the judgment. 

'Turning a blind eye' no defence 

The judges said it was not uncommon for someone to be held liable for publishing defamatory imputations conveyed by "matter composed by another person". 

They drew parallels to cases where the owners or occupiers of buildings had been taken to court over defamatory statements on noticeboards or scrawled in graffiti. 

The court is yet to tackle the question of whether the material in question was defamatory. 

In his initial decision last year, Justice Stephen Rothman said defendants could not escape consequences of their actions by "turning a blind eye". 

He also ruled the defence of innocent dissemination was not available because the defendants were first or primary distributors. 

Mr Voller's statement of claim alleges he was defamed by imputations including that he had "brutally bashed a Salvation Army Officer", had raped an elderly woman, that he committed a carjacking and that he had bitten off someone's ear. 

The comments were posted between July 2016 and June 2017 on pages run by the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Sky News, The Bolt Report and The Centralian Advocate. 

Mr Voller's treatment at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, which was the subject of an ABC Four Corners investigation in 2016, sparked a royal commission into youth detention facilities.

The judgment in Fairfax Media Publications; Nationwide News Pty Ltd; Australian News Channel Pty Ltd v Voller [2020] NSWCA 102 dismissed the appeal, ordered the applicants pay the respondent’s costs in the appeal proceedings and dismissed the notice of motion of Bauer Media Pty Ltd, Dailymail.com Australia Pty Ltd and Seven West Media Ltd filed on 23 August 2019 (the latter three media companies having sought leave to appear as amici curiae in the proceedings).

News Corp goes digital & withdraws from print media in the NSW Northern Rivers region - with small print 'community' mastheads disappearing entirely

Last year News Corp told its shareholders that: "In addition, the Company has divested and may in the future divest certain assets or businesses that no longer fit with its strategic direction or growth targets."

It seems that such an event came to pass in May 2020, not quite four years after News Corp purchased so many of those print newspapers it is now closing down entirely or reinventing as purely digital news platforms.

Perhaps the clue to this restructuring is in the fact that this multinational media corporation mentioned "loss" or "losses" at least 223 times in its Annual Report 2019.

With News Corp owning 150 print newspapers, at the end May 2019 its readership across all mastheads only appeared to reach a weekly average of est. 7.7 million out of a nation of over 25 million people.

However, the Northern Rivers is the only NSW region being completely restructured - losing five small print 'community' newspapers entirely and six of its print news mastheads becoming digital news platforms only from Monday 29 June 2020.

News Corp Australia, media release, 27 May 2020: 

News Corp Australia announces portfolio changes 

The Executive Chairman of News Corp Australasia, Mr Michael Miller, today announced significant changes to News Corp Australia’s publishing portfolio. 

Mr Miller said that over recent months News Corp had undertaken a comprehensive review of its regional and community newspapers. This review considered the ongoing consumer shift to reading and subscribing to news online, and the acceleration of businesses using digital advertising.  

“COVID-19 has impacted the sustainability of community and regional publishing. Despite the audiences of News Corp’s digital mastheads growing more than 60 per cent as Australians turned to trusted media sources during the peak of the recent COVID-19 lockdowns, print advertising spending which contributes the majority of our revenues, has accelerated its decline,” Mr Miller said. 

“Consequently, to meet these changing trends, we are reshaping News Corp Australia to focus on where consumers and businesses are moving and to strengthen our position as Australia’s leading digital news media company. This will involve employing more digital only journalists and making investments in digital advertising and marketing solutions for our partners.” 

Mr Miller said News Corp’s portfolio review highlighted that many of our print mastheads were challenged, and the double impact of COVID-19 and the tech platforms not remunerating the local publisher whose content they profit from, had, unfortunately, made them unsustainable publications. 

He said the portfolio changes being implemented would mean that from Monday June 29 the bulk of News Corp’s regional and community titles would move to purely digital publishing. 

“More than 375 journalists will be specifically covering regional and community news and information. They will continue to serve, and live in, their local communities with the majority in regional Queensland where we have most of our titles,” Mr Miller said. 

“More than 640,000 Australians, our latest figures show, are currently subscribing to News Corp’s digital news content and subscriptions are growing at an annual rate of 24 per cent. 

“Much of this growth is from local news, where subscribers have more than doubled in the past year. In regional Queensland more than 80,000 people have digital subscriptions and this number has grown by more than 40 per cent this year. 

“I’m confident that these numbers will accelerate through dedicated and constant digital publishing and continuing to serve the local communities whose trust and community commitment the mastheads have developed over decades. 

“Over the past 19 months News has launched 16 new digital only local mastheads. In total we will now publish 92 digital only regional and community mastheads, each offering readers rolling coverage, electronic alerts and newsletters, richer audio and video content and deeper local sport coverage and community debate. 

“At the same time, News Corp’s major mastheads in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide – The Courier-Mail, The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun and The Advertiser – will now become more state focused with increased regional content and will partner with our regional and community local titles in their states to ensure we deliver compelling journalism to Australian consumers regardless of where they live. 

Subscribers wherever they live will now have access to the best of News Corp’s local, regional, state, national and international news, sport, features and columnists.” 

Describing the changes being announced today, Mr Miller said: “These initiatives are significant. They will involve fundamental changes to how we operate our business but they are necessary. Together with senior executive and editorial appointments announced recently, they will enable us to be more effective in driving further success in the growth areas News Corp is excelling in such as digital advertising products, solutions and subscriptions and will embed a more collaborative way of working to maximise our sport and news coverage, hyper local digital subscriptions and the success of our all-important weekend editions.” 

Today’s announcements to News Corp’s publishing portfolio will mean some job roles will change and regretfully, will lead to job losses. Mr Miller said that for those employees impacted by the changes, he wanted to thank them personally for their professionalism, dedication and contribution. 

“They have provided News with invaluable years of service. Their passionate commitment to the communities in which they live and work and their role in ensuring these have been informed and served by trusted local media has been substantial,” he said. 

Commercially, these portfolio changes will make News less complex for its partners to leverage and will build on the innovations it already has in place. 

This includes: 

• News Xtend which is now Australia’s top digital marketing agency for small and medium enterprises; 
• News Connect data platform which ensures businesses reach the right consumer segments wanting to pay for their products and services through its specialist ability to access two billion consumption signals from 12 million Australians; 
• Australia’s number one digital publisher for news, real estate, business, sport and fantasy sport, food, fashion, health and beauty, parenting and women’s lifestyle; 
• Digital powerhouse news.com.au which has increased its audience more than 30 per cent in the past two months to more than 12.2 million monthly users; 
• A leader in audio and video with News’ data now showing award-winning podcast downloads of more than five million monthly and digital video views topping 100 million monthly, up 45 per cent in a year; 
• Monday’s launch of BINGE entertainment streaming service which joins Foxtel and the Kayo sport streaming service as the nation’s premium subscription broadcasters; 
• REA Group which is Australia’s clear leader for real estate digital services and investing in Asia and the United States, through its 20 per cent stake in Move, Inc. 

In conclusion, Mr Miller said: “News Corp remains committed to Australia’s regions and communities and the initiatives we are implementing today represent a detailed, considered strategy to ensure we will better serve our journalism to Australians who live outside its major cities. 

“News Corp and its employees also will retain at their creative core their passion for championing, and advocating for an ever improving Australia. As our country emerges in coming weeks from the lockdown enforced on us by the threat of COVID-19 into a ‘new normal’, we will ensure these values that separate News Corp from other media companies are even stronger than ever.” 

Consequently, News Corp Australia is announcing today that: 

Our major regional titles – The Hobart Mercury, NT News, Cairns Post, Townsville Bulletin, Gold Coast Bulletin, Toowoomba Chronicle and Geelong Advertiser – will continue to publish both in print and digitally. 

The following regional titles will become digital only: Queensland – Mackay Daily Mercury, Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, Gladstone Observer, Bundaberg News Mail, Fraser Coast Chronicle, Gympie Times, Sunshine Coast Daily, Queensland Times, Warwick Daily News, Central and North Burnett Times, Central Queensland News, Chinchilla News, Dalby Herald. Gatton Star, Noosa News, South Burnett Times, Stanthorpe Border Post, Western Star, Western Times, Whitsunday Times, Whitsunday Coast Guardian and Bowen Independent, news from the towns covered by the Atherton Tablelander, Northern Miner, Post Douglas & Mossman Gazette and Burdekin Advocate will continue to appear, as it does currently, under the regional sections of the Cairns Post and Townsville Bulletin; 
NSW – Tweed Daily News, Ballina Advocate, Byron Shire News, Coffs Coast Advocate, Grafton Daily Examiner and Lismore Northern Star; Northern Territory – The Centralian Advocate. 

The bulk of titles in our community groups – NewsLocal in NSW/ACT, Leader in Melbourne, Quest in Brisbane and Messenger in Adelaide – will become digital only. Community print editions were suspended early in April because of the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. 

The community titles to be digital-only news services are: Melbourne Leader titles – Stonnington, Mornington Peninsula, Knox, Whitehorse, Monash, Northern, Whittlesea, Maroondah, Moorabbin, Mordialloc Chelsea, Moreland, Lilydale and Yarra Valley, Frankston, Bayside, Caulfield Port Phillip, Cranbourne, Greater Dandenong, Moonee Valley, Maribyrnong, Wyndham; 

NewsLocal in NSW and ACT – Fairfield Advance, Penrith Press, Macarthur Chronicle, Blacktown Advocate, Canterbury Bankstown Express, Central Coast Express, Hills Shire Times, Hornsby Advocate, Liverpool Leader, Manly Daily, Northern District Times, Parramatta Advertiser, Inner West Courier, Southern Courier, Illawarra Star, Wagga Wagga News, St George Shire Standard, Canberra Star, Newcastle News, Blue Mountains News, Central Sydney, South Coast News; 

Quest in Queensland – Albert and Logan News, Caboolture Herald, Westside News, Pine Rivers Press, Redcliffe and Bayside Herald, South-West News, Wynnum Herald, North Lakes Times, Redlands Community News, Springfield News; 

Messenger in SA – Messenger South Plus; Messenger East Plus, Messenger North, Messenger West, Messenger City, Adelaide Hills and Upper Spencer Gulf. 

Three Sydney community titles, Wentworth Courier, Mosman Daily and North Shore Times, which are distributed in the city’s most affluent suburbs, will resume print editions. 

Some small print newspapers will cease publication, but the local journalism coverage of their area will continue, feeding into the digital masthead for their regional community. The regional titles to cease publication are: Queensland – Buderim Chronicle, Caloundra Weekly, Capricorn Coast Mirror, Coolum News, Nambour Weekly, Ipswich Advertiser, Kawana/Maroochy Weekly, Gold Coast Sun, Hervey Bay Independent, Maryborough Herald, Balonne Beacon, Surat Basin News, Herbert River Express, Innisfail Advocate, Central Telegraph; NSW – Coastal Views, Northern Rivers Echo, Richmond River Express Examiner; Tasmania – Tasmanian Country; Specialist – Big Rigs, Rural Weekly, Seniors. 

Additionally, we will streamline our community titles and will publish local stories under their regional or city-based masthead. The community titles which will cease publication are: Leader titles in Victoria – Manningham, Preston, Diamond Valley, Heidelberg, Sunbury Macedon, Progress and Northcote; NewsLocal in NSW – Rouse Hill Times; Quest in Queensland – Northside Chronicle/Bayside Star, North-West News, South-East Advertiser, Southern Star, Bribie Weekly; and South Australia – Messenger Coast Plus. [my yellow highlighting]

Is News Corp & "The Australian" in contempt of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Ruby Princess?

New South Wales Special Com... by clarencegirl on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/460425328/New-South-Wales-Special-Commission-of-Inquiry-into-the-Ruby-Princess-Remarks-Made-by-Richard-Beasley-SC-8-May-2020

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch yells ‘Jump!’ Frydenberg and Fletcher respond by leaping into battle

“News Corp is an $8.6 billion corporation run from Sixth Avenue in New York. It is controlled by the (American) Murdoch family. Its exploits over seven decades have been as brutal and Darwinian as any media company in history. It has regularly dispensed “we will wipe you out” threats to small and large competitors across the world. Now, we’re told, “international platforms” who have “no commitment to local communities” are responsible for depriving 60 Australian local communities of the news they have depended on for decades. At some point in Australian history, the malevolent abuse of power by the billionaire family who milks its former colony will be exposed.” [Crikey Editor Eric Beecher, News Corp’s abuse of power must be exposed — and stopped, 3 April 2020]

Australian Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg speaking at a joint doorstop interview on 20 April 2020:

Well, good morning. It’s a real pleasure to be here with my friend and colleague, the Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher. It’s time the tech titans were held to account and we had genuine competition, we have a level playing field, we have more transparency and we get payment for original journalistic content. The rise of the digital platforms, and in particular Google and Facebook have delivered real and significant benefits to consumers. But it’s has also been a period of great disruption. And it’s called into question the adequacy of our existing regulatory frameworks and the viability of traditional media outlets. This is why Scott Morrison, when he was Treasurer,= tasked the ACCC to undertake a ground-breaking report, a report that took them 18 months to put together, into the digital platforms. The ACCC led by Rod Sims, produced an outstanding report which made a number of recommendations. Recommendations that the Government has accepted. One of those key areas of focus for the ACCC was to develop a voluntary code between the traditional media businesses and the digital platforms to govern their relationships. Last year, the Government announced that it hoped a voluntary code would be reached by November of this year. Well those negotiations were held and no meaningful progress was made on the most significant component of which the code was to deal with, namely payment for content. And in the words of the ACCC, they did not believe that progress would be made and a deal would be done with a voluntary code. So the Government's taken a decision to move to a mandatory code, with a draft mandatory code to be released by the end of July and to be put together by the ACCC. We hope it will be legislated soon thereafter. We’re very conscious of the challenges we face and that we are dealing with some of the most valuable and powerful companies in the world. In France and in Spain and in other countries where they have tried to bring these tech titans to the table to pay for content they haven't been successful. But we believe this is a battle worth fighting. We believe this is critical for the future viability of our media sector and it's all about competition and creating a level playing field. So together with Minister Fletcher and our colleagues led by the Prime Minister, we will move with the ACCC to put together this mandatory code in the weeks ahead and hopefully it will deliver lasting reform for the sector and importantly, ensure that we have a level playing field into the future…

the ACCC is going to be looking at the method by which the payment for content would occur. There are a number of different options. You can do it on a value option or you can do it on a cost option, meaning that the tech titans would end up paying a fraction of what the cost was for producing that original content every time that they use it. The other alternative is in terms of the value to that particular digital platform that they get from getting eyeballs onto their sites by using that content. So this is to be worked out by the ACCC over the next three months. This is a very significant reform. It’s about holding these tech titans to account. It’s about ensuring genuine competition. It’s about delivering a level playing field. It’s about keeping jobs in journalism, and it’s about ensuring a fair outcome for all….

...these are very profitable platforms so this may eat into their profitability, to the Facebook’s and to the Google’s. But it’s only understandable that they would be paying for that content that they use to get traffic through their websites. You see the way Google and Facebook operate is that they don’t necessarily charge a fee for their service but they attract eyeballs onto their sites and then sell the advertising that goes with it. So this is about ensuring that they are genuinely rewarding and compensating the content that they use….

...but what was clear from the ACCC is that on the key issue of payment for content, there wasn’t a hope that there would be a deal reached between the parties. And the fact that we could not see a light at the end of that tunnel meant that we would move from a voluntary code which was the original intention, to a mandatory code which would be legislated through the Parliament.

One independent media company did not agree with Frydenberg’s assessment of the situation.

Crikey, 23 April 2020:

Earlier this week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher got up and struck a blow for foreign multinational News Corp in its ongoing war with the tech giants that have used innovation and the internet to wreck the Murdochs’ media business model….

...government has recycled demonstrable lies peddled by News Corp about how it is being robbed by Google and Facebook, with the aim of helping prop up News Corp’s failing Australian media businesses….

News Corp charges that when Google (mostly) and Facebook use its headlines and automatically generated “snippets” of News Corp stories on their sites, they are stealing content, and should be made to pay for it via a licence fee that will “reflect the financial benefit digital platforms derive from using snippets”.

It also complains that longer “snippets” deter people from clicking through the attached link to the original story because they get all they need from what’s displayed.

Except the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) digital platforms inquiry found that News Corp’s claims don’t stack up.

Headlines and snippets aren’t theft of content: “generally, digital platforms’ use of article headlines is unlikely to infringe copyright protections in Australia,” the ACCC noted. “Digital platforms reproducing a snippet of a copyright-protected news article does not infringe copyright protections if the snippet does not reproduce a substantial part of the article.”

And the ACCC found that the tech companies, media organisations and consumers all benefit from the use of snippets. Specifically, “media businesses benefit because a snippet provides context and an indication to the user of the value of that content, increasing the likelihood of consumers clicking through”.

Real-world evidence backed this up. “As a result of a German copyright law requiring Google to pay fees to publish snippets from news media websites, Google stopped showing snippets from [media company Axel Springer’s] news articles. Axel Springer noted that the lack of snippets led to a nearly 40% decline in referral traffic from Google Search and an almost 80% decline in referral traffic from the Google News user interface”.

The ACCC also “does not agree that longer snippet lengths necessarily have a negative effect on referral traffic, with users remaining on an aggregator or search platform rather than clicking through to a news media business’s website”. As a result, it did not recommend that a mandatory licence fee be imposed.

Where it did agree with media companies is that they have little bargaining power with Google et al when it comes to the length and composition of snippets. They can block Google from automatically generating snippets, but beyond being able to “opt out”, they have no way of managing them, or maximising click-through.

The ACCC thus proposed the industry-led development of a code of conduct to be agreed between media and tech companies to address this “imbalance of power” and enable media companies to get access to data and negotiate more effectively with the likes of Google.

Such a code of conduct might also cover how revenue is shared “where the digital platform obtains value, directly or indirectly, from content produced by news media”.

How much value do digital platforms obtain from news content? Google doesn’t show any ads on its news feed, and “does not generally sell advertising opportunities next to search queries that are considered by Google as having a ‘news intent’”. In other countries where it has been ordered to pay fees, it has simply stopped carrying snippets if it can’t do so for free. In Spain, it shut down Google News.

Interestingly, the result in Spain — and one echoed elsewhere — was that smaller media sites lost a large volume of traffic while major media sites suffered relatively little loss. 

It would be to News Corp’s considerable advantage if that same result eventuated in Australia, with smaller competitors in an already marginal economic environment suffering a major loss in traffic…..

[my yellow highlighting]

So how is News Corp faring in the NSW Northern Rivers region?

The total resident population of the NSW Northern Rivers region is est. 302,649 people.

News Corp dominates print media in the region and, given that this multinational is losing cross-platform readership in Australia, here are the Northern Rivers region numbers News Corp admits to in July 2019.

TOTAL NEWS CORP MONTHLY AUDIENCE REACH

The Northern Star (Lismore) – newspaper printed Monday to Sauturday – No print reach published, 178.6k digital & 140.4k mobile monthly reach self-reported. Average print readership per issue likely to be around 28,000.

The Daily Examiner (Grafton) – newspaper printed Monday to Saturday – No print reach published, 42.6k digital & 32.5k mobile monthly reach self-reported. Average print readership per issue likely to be less than 10,000.

The Lismore Echo – free weekly community newspaper home delivered – 45,000 monthly reach self-reported.

Ballina Shire Advocate – free weekly community newspaper home delivered – 27,000 monthly reach self-reported.

Richmond River Express-Examiner (Casino region) – weekly community newspaper – 20,000 monthly reach self-reported.

Coastal Views (Lower Clarence Valley) – free weekly community newspaper home deivered – 16,000 monthly reach self-reported.

By contrast non-News Corp news outlets, the free weekly community newspapers the Byron Shire Echo and Clarence Valley Independent self-report a reach of 53,000 & 13,500 per print issue respectively, with the Byron Shire Echo having a self-reported 128.6k monthly digital reach as part of the Echo NetDaily regional news website.

Facebook Inc. agrees to pay News Corp millions annually for news service content

Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter, No 105, December 2019, p.6:

105.2.1 Facebook’s news service

The launch of Facebook’s news service is a “powerful precedent that will echo around editorial departments”, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson has declared (Australian, 28 October 2019). Thomson said it had been a difficult decade for journalism, but Facebook’s service was an important step. He said, “Great journalism will only be sustainable at scale if there is a fundamental change to the digital ecosystem. This announcement is an important step on the road.”

News Corp’s deal with Facebook — which covers the New York Post and Dow Jones publications such as the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Barron’s — will generate licence fees reaching into the double-digit millions of dollars a year, people familiar with the agreement said. “Of itself, it begins to change the terms of trade for quality journalism, both in establishing the principle of payment, and in allowing news organisations a clearer opportunity to generate advertising revenue on their terms,” Thomson said. He has led a global battle against Facebook and Google over issues including opaque algorithms, digital advertising dominance and a failure to pay for journalists’ work.....

Facebook’s news service launched with a test audience of 200,000 US users, but the platform plans to roll it out beyond the US early next year. A date for launch in Australia has not been announced.

Very predictably News Corp rolled out a climate change denier to help buttress the Morrison Government's stubborn contrarian stance

Here is mining company director/shareholder and sometimes owner, as well as consultant to industry, Ian Plimer, joining in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison-Murdoch Coalition's ongoing attempt to deny anthropomorphic global warming and climate change.

In the opening paragraphs of the article Plimer exceeds his previous infantile opposition to the science of climate change. 

The Australian, 22 November 2019, p.12:

Talk of an emergency is ignorant, populist scaremongering

As soon as the words carbon footprint, emissions, pollution, and decarbonisation, climate emergency, extreme weather, unprecedented and extinction are used, I know I am being conned by ignorant activ­ists, populist scaremonger­ing, vote-chasing politicians and rent seekers.

Pollution by plastics, sulphur and nitrogen gases, particulates and chemicals occurs in developing countries. That’s real pollution. The major pollution in advanced economies is the polluting of minds about the role of carbon dioxide. There are no carbon emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black. Such terms are deliberately misleading, as are many claims...... [my yellow highlighting]

As most high school students would be able to tell Mr. Plimer - not that he needs telling as he was university educated and his purpose here is to obfuscate not inform - "Carbon" is shorthand for "Carbon Dioxide Equivalent" or CO2-e. 

These terms covers what are known as "Greenhouse Gases" such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrocarbons.

Again, a high school student would be aware that black carbon is a dangerous air polluting element - mainly produced by the incomplete combustion of oil or coal and the burning of wood. It also contributes to global warming.

However, the reason black carbon has not turned the sky into permanent darkness that Plimer suggests as an outcome is that it has not yet reached saturation levels in the atmosphere.

Though black carbon can lead to very low visibility for prolonged periods as the bushfire smoke over Sydney and rural/regional Australia this month demonstrated and, open-cut coal mining on a weekly basis and city traffic periodically demonstrate throughout the year.

Bushfire smoke over Sydney NSW, 21 November 2019
2GB Image

Bushfire smoke in Clarence Valley NSW, 22 November 2019
NSWRFS Image

Air pollution over coal mine, Hunter Valley NSW, circa 2019
The Singleton Argus Image

Smog in Melbourne Vic, 28 June 2018
ABC News Image

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News Corp columnist's rant runs foul of Australian Press Council standards

Australian Press Council:

Adjudication 1757: Complainant / The Daily Telegraph (June 2019)  

Document Type: Complaints

Outcome: Adjudications

The Press Council considered whether its Standards of Practice were breached by an article published by The Daily Telegraph on 13 September 2017 by The Daily Telegraph headed in print “An identity crisis” and online “WHAT MADNESS CAN JUSTIFY MUTILATING OUR CHILDREN” and a Podcast on 16 April 2018 titled “Ryan T. Anderson joins Miranda Devine live on gender identity”, included as a link in the online article.  

The article referred to a “pernicious social fad for transgenderism in children which has been embraced by an activist subset of the medical profession” and stated that “new laws in Victoria can punish therapists who oppose transitioning children” and “hundreds of children who say they are trapped in the body of the opposite sex are being referred to gender clinics in Australia, with numbers tripling in the past three years at one Sydney clinic.” It included comments by a named University Professor, who it described as “one of the few pediatricians courageous enough to speak out against this fashion for ‘child surgical abuse’”. It quoted the Professor saying that “Prepubertal children have no idea about sexuality and choices of procreation afterwards” and “We’re messing with their limbic system and expecting them to make this great evaluation.”

The article went on to say: “Yet there is no medical evidence to justify the epidemic of transgender kids. No evidence that changing sex will reduce the incidence of self-harm or suicide or lessen the impact of other associated mental states such as depression or autism.” The article concluded: “When they grow up, surely these children have grounds for a class ­action against the hospitals and drug companies which have ­mounted such a monstrous assault on their developing bodies.”

The podcast was referred to as an interview with Ryan T. Anderson to “discuss recent attempts in Australia and the United States to introduce gender theory into anti-bullying programs”. The introduction said: “Children are being given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and having their breasts removed at the age of 14 and 15 with the permission of the Family Court. Yet there is little medical evidence to justify this experimentation on children, no evidence that these hormones are safe to be used on kids, no evidence of any reduction in self-harm or suicide.”

Following a complaint, the Council asked the publication to comment on whether the article and podcast complied with its Standards of Practice. In particular, the Council sought comment on the statement that there is “no evidence” that “cross-sex hormones are safe to be used on kids, no evidence of any reduction in self-harm or suicide” or “that changing sex will reduce the incidence of self-harm or suicide”. The Council referred the publication to a number of articles identified by the complainant, including one entitled “Endocrine Treatment of Transsexual Persons: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline” (2009).

In addition the Council sought comment on whether the article’s statement that “new laws in Victoria can punish therapists who oppose transitioning their children”, given the provisions of the new Victorian Health Complaints Act, and on the descriptions of medical procedures as “mutilation” and “child surgical abuse” and a “monstrous assault on their developing bodies” were a breach of the Council’s Standards.

The publication said the article and the content of the podcast were clearly identified as opinion and the author was entitled to express her opinion concerning the medical practices administered to children and adolescents in gender clinics. It said that in making comments, particularly those concerning there being “no evidence” of the matters referred to, the author relied on interviews with medical experts in the field, widespread reading of the scientific literature and anecdotal evidence of parents and people who regret childhood hormone or surgical interventions, as well as the experiences of a transgender friend of the author. The publication identified a number of medical articles as relevant.

The publication said the Victorian Health Complaints Act is designed to prevent conversion therapy of sexual minorities and to provide for a complaints process about health service provision.

It said the columnist was entitled to express her views on the appropriateness of how sections of the medical profession are treating children who they believe are transgender and to express her view that it is wrong for a child as young as 15 years to be receiving medically unnecessary double mastectomies.

Conclusion

The Council’s Standards of Practice applicable in this matter require that publications take reasonable steps to ensure that factual material is accurate and not misleading and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion (General Principle 1), and presented with reasonable fairness and balance, and that writers’ expressions of opinion are not based on significantly inaccurate factual material or omission of key facts (General Principle 3). If the material is significantly inaccurate or misleading, or unfair or unbalanced, publications must take reasonable steps to provide adequate remedial action or an opportunity for a response to be published (General Principles 2 and 4).  The Standards of Practice also require that publications take reasonable steps to avoid causing or contributing materially to substantial offence, distress or prejudice, or to a substantial risk to health or safety, unless doing so is sufficiently in the public interest (General Principle 6).

The Council notes that the article and the podcast contain expressions of the author’s opinion. However, the Council considers they also contain material presented as facts, including the statement in the article that there is “No evidence that changing sex will reduce the incidence of self-harm or suicide or lessen the impact of other associated mental states such as depression or autism” and in the podcast that there is “no evidence that these hormones are safe to be used on kids, no evidence of any reduction in self-harm or suicide”.  

The Council accepts that it is open to an author to question the appropriateness of particular medical treatments and procedures. There may be conflicting evidence in support of, or opposition to, such treatments which the Council will not be in a position to resolve. However the statements that there was “no evidence” was not qualified in any way, such as asserting that there was no reliable evidence. The Council notes that the publication did not rely on any particular article as supporting a statement that there was “no evidence”. The Council considers that, given the existence of medical guidelines which recommend various treatments and procedures to assist transitioning children and adolescents, the statement that there was “no evidence” was made in such absolute terms that it was inaccurate and misleading.  The Council considers the publication failed to take reasonable steps to ensure these statements were accurate and not misleading. 

Accordingly, the Council finds that the publication breached General Principles 1 and 3 in these respects. This conclusion does not amount to a finding on the appropriateness of the medical treatments available.

As to the new laws in Victoria, the Council considers that the broad term ‘therapists’ could include persons who, if providing a general health service, may fall under the remit of the new Victorian Health Complaints Act and therefore be subject to penalties under the Act. The Council is satisfied on the material available to it that the statement “... new laws in Victoria can punish therapists who oppose transitioning children …” is not inaccurate or misleading. Accordingly, the Council does not consider that General Principles 1 and 3 were breached in this respect.

As the publication was not approached for a correction or right of reply, the Council considers there was no breach of General Principles 2 and 4.

The Council accepts that the columnist’s descriptions of medical procedures as “mutilation”, “child surgical abuse” and a “monstrous assault on their developing bodies” were likely to cause offence and distress amongst those undergoing such treatment and amongst their families, and were also likely to cause or exacerbate prejudice. However, the Council considers there is public interest in vigorous public debate about the issue, even when an argument is expressed in very strong terms, as is the case here. The Council considers that to the extent there was substantial offence, distress and prejudice, it was justified in the public interest. Accordingly, General Principle 6 was not breached. 

Relevant Council Standards (not required for publication)

This Adjudication applies the following General Principles of the Council.

Publications must take reasonable steps to:

General Principle 1 – Ensure that factual material in news reports and elsewhere is accurate and not misleading, and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion.

General Principle 2 – Provide a correction or other adequate remedial action if published material is significantly inaccurate or misleading.

General Principle 3 – Ensure that factual material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance, and that writers’ expressions of opinion are not based on significantly inaccurate factual material or omission of key facts.

General Principle 4 – Ensure that where material refers adversely to a person, a fair opportunity is given for subsequent publication of a reply if that is reasonably necessary to address a possible breach of General Principle 3.

General Principle 6 - Avoid causing or contributing materiality to substantial offence, distress or prejudice, or a substantial risk to health or safety, unless doing so is sufficiently in the public interest.