What needs to be remembered about the last Sky News bid for the Australia Network

The Australia Network is being criticised as part of the Abbott Government attack on public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Federal Coalition Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is quoted as saying that she is concerned the ABC's $223 million Australia Network is failing to meet its charter obligations and confirming she is reviewing the service's contract and, a former Coalition foreign minister Alexander Downer stating that he found the Australia Network indefensible.  

In mainstream and social media discussions, the possibility has been raised that this attack is payback for what is alleged to have been a past payback against News Corporation when Sky News lost a 2011 government tender for the Australia Network it had been very confident of winning.

However, everyone is forgetting a little history.

In 2010 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) advised the Rudd Government that the ABC was its preferred operator of the Australia Network. However, Treasury and the Dept. of Finance advised that a tender process would be the best option to ensure value for money.

A request for tender was released by DFAT on 4 February 2011. Only two broadcasters responded - the ABC and Australian News Channel Pty Ltd which owns and operates Sky News Australia.

The Secretary of DFAT was the official approver in the Australia Network tender process and, the chair of the Tender Evaluation Board was a former DFAT deputy secretary and ambassador. Approximately seven months later the Communications Minister became the tender approver.

The Gillard Labor Government finally terminated the Australia Network tender process in early November 2011 on legal and departmental advice, after what the Auditor-General has confirmed was confidential tender information was leaked to the Australian media from June 2011 onwards; and in the wake of the five year-long News Corporation U.K. ‘phone hacking’ scandal which resulted in ongoing revelations throughout 2011 and in the U.K. Parliament Leveson Inquiry which began on 14 November.

Australian News Channel was compensated when the tender process was terminated.

Australian News Channel is a joint venture of Nine Digital, a division of Nine Entertainment Co, Seven Media Group and British Sky Broadcasting.

At the time this tender was halted New Corporation owned a 44 per cent share of British Sky Broadcasting through its subsidiary News Limited.

Although these shares were later sold, in 2013 News Corporation (through 21st Century Fox UK Nominees Limited) still retained significant holdings of voting rights in British Sky Broadcasting shares and 21st Century Fox's President & Chief Operating Officer had joined its board of directors.

Rupert Murdoch is Chair and Chief Executive of 20th Century Fox Inc. Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch Family Trust appear to be majority shareholders.

The fact that a major shareholder in a joint venture partner in Sky News was the subject of a U.K. parliamentary inquiry must have factored into decisions resulting from what Prime Minister Abbott is now calling a 'particularly dodgy' tender process.

Given that former senior management and staff of News Corporation (now News Corp) newspapers are still on trial at the Old Bailey in London in 2014 and given the numerous U.S. legal proceedings Murdoch business practices have attracted (20th Century Fox Inc, AGM 2013,Pages 33-37), I would have thought it wise to retain the Australia Network within the ABC and not even consider handing it over to a private broadcasting corporation such as Sky News or to any other joint venture which might be progressed by Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch media's welfare recipient bashing comes undone

Adjudication No. 1568: Margaret Moir/The Advertiser (September 2013)  

Document Type: Complaints

Outcome: Adjudications

Date: 5 Sep 2013

The Press Council has considered a complaint about an article “Welfare fraud costs us $78m” in The Advertiser and the adelaidenow website on 18 January 2013. The words “Single-parent women most likely to cheat” appeared above the headline. The first sentence said “South Australian welfare recipients have ripped off nearly $80 million from Centrelink in the past financial year and most of the fraudsters are women”.

After the article appeared, the Federal Department of Human Services (which had supplied some data for it) told the publication that fraud-related debt in South Australia in the past year had been about $2.5 million, not $78 million. The article was then removed from the website and a “clarification” was published in the newspaper on the following day.

Margaret Moir complained that the $78 million figure in the original article was “grossly inaccurate”. She said the subsequent clarification lacked prominence, especially given the prominence of the original article, the seriousness of the inaccuracy, and the linkage made with sole-parent women.

The publication acknowledged the mistakes but pointed to its action to correct them. It said page 2, where the clarification appeared, is one of the most read pages and is more prominent than page 5, where the original article appeared.

The Council’s Principles require publications to take reasonable steps to ensure that reports are accurate, fair and balanced. The Council has concluded that the inaccuracies arose from a failure to distinguish between the amount of overall debt and the small proportion of that amount which is due to fraud. They were aggravated by the inaccurate estimate of the share of the national debt total which was owed by South Australians. In addition, when stating how much the debt “costs us”, no account was taken of the fact that the department says most of it is being recovered.

The Council acknowledges there was some ambiguity in the way in which the department responded to the newspaper’s original request for information. In addition, two subsequent sentences in the article avoided to some extent the errors described above by saying that “welfare recipients in this state owe $78 million in fraudulently claimed and incorrectly overpaid benefits” and “only $43 million of this money is being recovered” by Centrelink from recipients. But they were not sufficiently clear and prominent to compensate for the serious errors in the headlines and first sentence.

Accordingly, the complaint on the ground of inaccuracy is upheld.

The Council’s Principles also require serious inaccuracies to be corrected promptly and with due prominence in order to neutralise, as far as possible, any damage caused by the original article. The Council concluded the “clarification”, while it may have addressed the Department’s concerns, did not effectively explain the errors for other readers. In addition, it should have been frankly headed as a “correction” and with words such as “welfare fraud” to help attract the attention of people who might have read the original article. It should have been positioned more prominently – for example, in the top half of page 2 (or any other page up to page 5, at the top of which the article itself had appeared). These aspects were especially important because of the link in the headlines between the alleged amount of fraud and the involvement of sole parent women.

Accordingly, the complaint about the “clarification” is upheld. The Council acknowledges, however, that the publication responded promptly when it became aware of the error, both by removing the article from its website and by publishing the “clarification” the following day in a genuine attempt to address the concerns which had been brought to its attention at that time.

Note (not required for publication by the newspaper):

The Council considered the publication’s online response. By swiftly removing the article from its website, it had ensured that the error did not continue. But readers who saw the original article online and did not see the clarification in print would not have been aware of the correction. The Council will consider specific standards for online corrections in order to address this type of problem.

Relevant Council Standards (not required for publication by the newspaper):

This adjudication applies part of General Principle 1: “Publications should take reasonable steps to ensure reports are accurate, fair and balanced.”; General Principle 2: “Where it is established that a serious inaccuracy has been published, a publication should promptly correct the error, giving the correction due prominence”; and Note 2: “The Council interprets ‘due prominence’ as requiring the publication to ensure the retraction, clarification, correction, explanation or apology has the effect, as far as possible, of neutralising any damage arising from the original publication.”

This is the man who is using his media empire in support of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's bid to become Australian Prime Minister..... Part 2

Rupert Murdoch Executive Chairman of News Corporation

The Independent 17 August 2013:

Scotland Yard is investigating News International as a “corporate suspect” over hacking and bribing offences, it can be revealed.

The Independent has learnt the Metropolitan Police has opened an “active investigation” into the corporate liabilities of the UK newspaper group – recently rebranded News UK – which could have serious implications for the ability of its parent company News Corp to operate in the United States. One of Rupert Murdoch’s most senior lawyers has been interviewed under caution on behalf of the company and two other very senior figures have been officially cautioned for corporate offences. John Turnbull, who works on News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee (MSC) which co-ordinates the company’s interactions with the Metropolitan Police, answered formal questions from detectives earlier this year.

The development has caused pandemonium at the upper echelons of the Murdoch media empire. Shortly afterwards, executives in America ordered that the company dramatically scale back its co-operation with the Metropolitan Police.

A News Corp analysis of the effects of a corporate charge, produced in New York, said the consequences could “kill the corporation and 46,000 jobs would be in jeopardy”…..

Reuters 16 August 2013:

However, the source familiar with the matter told Reuters detectives and prosecutors also were actively considering taking action against News Corp as a corporation.

More than a year ago, Sue Akers, the officer who was then leading the police inquiry, sent a letter to MSC Chairman Lord Grabiner to advise him of this, the source said….

Murdoch's minions labour to produce a little undergraduate humour

Excerpt from Sky AM Agenda transcript of interview with Federal Labor Trade Minister Richard Marles, 8 August 2013:

GILBERT: Finally, the Daily Telegraph's front page has Thommo's heroes Craig Thomson and, well, accompanied by Anthony Albanese as Sergeant Schultz and Kevin Rudd as Colonel Klink. This - even though he's on the front page would see this as humorous one, wouldn't they?

MARLES: Well, we can all have a laugh at it and this ranks up there with the Stephen Conroy front page. It gives all of those on the front page something to put in their pool rooms. And, look, it's funny. I think the point to be made here, Kieran, is that they're not editing Honi Soit; this is not a campus newspaper that they're putting together here. This is our largest city's biggest newspaper and so they can have some fun with it. It's perspective journalism; there's no sense now in which this is fair or balanced media. And, of course, it's a free country; they can do what they like. But I think they do need to remember what masthead they're actually editing here.

GILBERT: Okay. Richard Marles, thank you for joining us live from Geelong this morning.

TheFinnigans take Murdoch's measure

Thefinnigans Murdoch's Law #AusVotes pic.twitter.com/HVuAYl2Z92

This is the man who is using his media empire in support of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's bid to become Australian Prime Minister.....

Invading people’s privacy by listening to their voicemail is wrong. Paying police officers for information is wrong. This is why News International is co-operating fully with the police, whose job it is to see that justice is done. [Rupert Murdoch 2011]

"We're talking about payments for news tips from cops: that's been going on a hundred years, absolutely...But why are the police behaving in this way? It’s the biggest inquiry ever over next to nothing. " [Rupert Murdoch 2013]

US media mogul Rupert Murdoch mocks police and the investigation into News of the World telephone hacking.

Video at http://www.channel4.com/news/murdoch-rupert-tape-police-the-sun-journalists

According to Channel 4 3 July 2013:

Throughout the recording, which lasts about 45 minutes, the News Corp boss repeatedly accuses the police of incompetence - of being "unbelievably slow" he says at one point.

At another point, he said of the police that he didn't really trust anything they said.

But if he is contemptuous of the police, he also shows remarkable disdain for the offence they're investigating.

He belittles the corrupt payments issue. And for anyone convicted over it - the message is: he'll be there for them....

One of the clips starts, Channel 4 News understands, with the sound of Murdoch slapping the table.

"What they're doing, what they did to you, and how they treated people at [******], saying 'a couple of you come in for a cup of tea at four in the afternoon''," he says.

"You guys got thrown out of bed by gangs of cops at six in the morning, and I'm just as annoyed as you are."

"It would be nice to hit back when we can", one journalist suggests later in the meeting.

"We will", replies Mr Murdoch. "We will".

Further extracts here and here.

Tom Watson a Member of the House of Commons UK sent this Letter to Senator Rockefeller:

July 4th, 2013

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV

Chairman

United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

Washington

DC 20510-6125

USA

Dear Sir

I am writing to you by virtue of your role as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation and this Committee’s interest in the conduct of News Corporation.  I am also copying this letter to Senator Patrick Leahy in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary which I understand oversees matters relating to the Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act.

I attach to this letter a transcript of a meeting that took place earlier this year in the offices of News International Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation.  The meeting records the exchanges between Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, and employees who had been arrested or were otherwise under investigation by the UK Metropolitan Police.  As you will be aware this police force has been investigating alleged criminal conduct by News International (or its subsidiary News Group Newspapers) employees relating to phone hacking and corrupt payments by journalists to public officials.

The transcript reveals Mr Murdoch’s approach to the alleged criminality within his organisation. It also reveals how his employees claim that they were simply doing what was expected of them and that they had continued a practice of paying public officials that had been going on for decades.  Mr Murdoch’s replies, in my view, demonstrate a significant level of knowledge of the practice and a shocking contempt for the police investigation into it.  Perhaps even more sinister is his confirmation that his organisation will “hit back” at the police because of their investigation.

No doubt you will read the entire transcript and come to your own conclusions.

It has been my view from the outset that the most senior executives within News Corporation should be held responsible and called to account for the wrongdoing of the UK journalists and other employees of its subsidiaries.  It is Rupert Murdoch who is most responsible for the culture in his organisation. We now know more of his attitude towards, and knowledge of, the culture of corruption in his UK newspapers (and, he alleges, across his competitors) and his condemnation of the police’s attempts to route it out.  Having had this revealed, I would encourage the authorities both in the UK and US to ensure that their investigations into News Corporation are not inhibited in going to the very top, notwithstanding the power and influence wielded by Mr Murdoch.

If I can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me.

The Guardian UK 6 July 2013:

DCI Laurence Smith told Exaro News that the police would seek a production order compelling it to disclose the recording if it did not do so voluntarily. It is understood the police have also approached Channel 4, which aired a small part of the recordings.

The development is the clearest indication yet that police in London are ready to examine Murdoch's private disclosures since the tapes emerged on Wednesday night. Murdoch is recorded saying the culture of paying police officers for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely."...

The press law campaign group Hacked Off on Friday urged the Commons culture, media and sport select committee to recall Murdoch, and said he "may have committed contempt of parliament". Evan Harris, the associate director of the group, wrote to the cross-party committee's chairman, John Whittingdale MP, saying: "There is a strong prima facie case that Mr Murdoch may have committed contempt of parliament by misleading your committee over his true response to the police investigations into phone hacking and bribery of public officials....

U.S. citizen and media mogul Rupert Murdoch takes his push for Australian regime change on to Twitter

In the days when Rupert didn't pretend he wasn't about regime change

2. MURDOCK [sic], BY SWINGING HIS NEWSPAPER CHAIN BEHIND THE ALP, PLAYED A SUBSTANTIAL ROLE IN THE LABOR VICTORY OF DECEMBER 1972. HE IS SATISFIED THAT HE TOOK THE CORRECT POSITION AT THAT TIME, SINCE IT WAS ESSENTIAL TO HAVE A CHANGE AFTER 23 YEARS. LIBERAL/COUNTRY LEADERSHIP HAD BECOME INCREASINGLY WEARY INTELLECTUALLY. HOWEVER, MURDOCK IS DISAPPOINTED BY LABOR'S PERFORMANCE. HE EXPECTS TO SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION IN THE NEXT ELECTION.

Full U.S.Embassy cable text here.

Take a look at the News Media (Self regulation) Bill 2013 for yourself

The Daily Telegraph 13 March 2013

 

With various minions within Rupert Murdoch's media empire screamimg about this bill in the most lurid terms, perhaps it's time for ordinary citizens to look at these bills and make up their own minds.

 

The News Media (Self-regulation) Bill 2013 and the News Media (Self-regulation) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2013 together with the Public Interest Media Advocate Bill 2013, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Convergence Review and Other Measures) Bill 2013, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (News Media Diversity) Bill 2013 and the Television Licence Fees Amendment Bill 2013 form a package of measures representing the Australian Government's response to two independent media reviews conducted in 2011 and 2012 - the Convergence Review and the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation. [Explanatory Memorandum]

 

Download the Bill here and the Consequential Amendments here.

Senator Stephen Conroy may be many things, but Stalin he is not

 

"This government will go down in history as the first Australian government outside of wartime to attack freedom of speech by seeking to introduce a regime which effectively institutes government sanctioned journalism," News Limited chief executive Kim Williams said.

 

Yes, without a doubt Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy  Stephen Conroy has a tendency to go too far whenever he looks at regulating areas which fall within his portfolio.

 

One only has to look at his attempts to censor the Internet to see how foolish he can be.

 

However, to equate him with a dictator whose insane policies resulted in the deaths of literally millions is going too far even for Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.

Red Rocks 4 Eva!

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in this full length video takes all press conference questions regarding the never-ending “sexist and vicious" rumours about her spread on the internet by "misogynist nut jobs" and the factually incorrect and defamatory statements made about her in News Limited’s flagship newspaper and serial offender, The Australian.

Pic from Google Images

Less than four months to global doomsday - head for them thar hills!

Now I don’t know who NSW refrigeration mechanic Simon Young is or why he apparently chose Tenterfield for humanity’s last stand in Australia, but I’m willing to bet that he won’t have his $5,000-a-bed bunker finished and stocked before 21st December 2012 - just about when the Apocalypse is supposed to occur.
Being a bit of a natural cynic has me wondering if Simon is not just a piece of advertising fluff News Ltd is using to promote a TV show due to air on the Murdoch Group’s part-owned National Geographic Channel next Thursday evening.

Now before everyone grows all shouty about Eastock v Andrew Bolt & The Herald and Weekly Times Pty Ltd

It wasn’t because of the subject Teh Bolta broached that he fell afoul of the law – it was the inaccurate, misleading, sarcastic, mocking, insulting, offensive, provocative, inflammatory and bad faith way he wrote about it:

30. Finally, in dealing with the formulation of the orders to be made by the Court, I have observed that it is important that nothing in the orders I make should suggest that it is unlawful for a publication to deal with racial identification, including by challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people. I have not found Mr Bolt and the Herald & Weekly Times to have contravened section 18C, simply because the newspaper articles dealt with subject matter of that kind. I have found a contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act because of the manner in which that subject matter was dealt with.

{Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103 (28 September 2011)}

Ouch! That's gotta hurt News Corp

In a press release dated 10^th August 2011 News Corporation announced that from the beginning of the 30th June 2010 up to the Fourth Quarter 2011 it has paid out a grand total of US$165 million dollars in litigation settlement charges – and the litigation river is still in full spate due to Phone-Hackergate U.K.

Combine that amount with the 'forced' closure of British News Of the World which had 27% of the Sunday newspaper market share in May this year and it has to make shareholders unhappy.

Andy's back with his flight feathers clipped

Snapshot from The Herald-Sun on 31st August 2011

The sweet sound of silence as Bolt gunned down

I don't think it is too long a bow to draw between Andrew Bolt eschewing political comment today.....

News Ltd issuing a statement and apologizing across a number of its banner heads.....

Clive Mathieson, editor of The Australian, said in a statement: ”We’re investigating the Prime Minister’s claim of inaccuracies in the story. As the correction points out, we regret that the PM was not given any chance to respond to the allegations. Glenn Milne remains a contributor to The Australian.”

and this yesterday.........

PM a lost cause for warring unions

The Australian - 16 hours ago

THE real import of the alleged brothel creeping scandal surrounding Craig Thomson has been missed. And it is this: key factions and unions within the Labor ...

Milne appears to have drawn on a Bolt blog for some of his 'ínformation'.

North Coast Voices Petering Time  predicted  a rocky road for Bolt in a 25 August post and it seems he was correct.

2011 may well be the year in which this so-called journalist is finally stripped of his Teflon ® coating.

UPDATE:

The disappointment is profound - Bolt promises to be back tomorrow ;-)

UPDATE
Afrer discussions, I now feel free to speak my mind. So I shall. In tomorrow’s column. I apologise for the mysteriousness, but I did not want to act in anger or before matters had been resolved. I had to be fair to my employer and to my readers, and I apologise if you think I’ve had the balance wrong over the past 24 hours.
Thank you to everyone who has rung, emailed or commented on this post, here and on radio.

Andrew shoots his bolt

Andrew Bolt produces a WTF moment over at The Telegraph:

“Meanwhile, the Greens confirm they are indeed the new haven of the fashionable anti-Semite”
Apparently carrying on in a similar vein, the televised Bolt Report is now receiving some flak.
It doesn't take a crystal ball to foretell more court time for Teh Bolta if he keeps on like this.

News Limited needs to get its own house in order before it starts throwing sh*t at Fairfax

In its rush to publish Mark Day's piece criticising Fairfax The Oz overlooked its own imperfections. Not a good look!

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/sale-junks-asset-thet-could-drive-future-of-fairfax/story-e6frg9tf-1226110417155