APN Australian Regional Media to remain with APN News & Media if demerger goes ahead but Murdoch circling regional mastheads

At the moment it appears that Australian east coast regional newspapers owned by APN News & Media will remain with APN if the proposed NZME demerger goes ahead.

The same applies if talks between Fairfax Media and APN result in a merger between NZME and Fairfax Media New Zealand.

However, these 100 regional newspapers and websites in Queensland and NSW  are still up for sale and the possibility that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp will be the eventual owner of some or all of that stable remains.

The Australian, 9 March 2016:

News Corp, publisher of The Australian, is believed to be circling the regional community newspapers owned by APN News and Media, which called on Credit Suisse to ­divest the portfolio.

News Corp already owns a network of 111 local mastheads, some of which are believed to be highly lucrative, and sources said the company was taking “a good look” at the APN offering.

The company declined to comment yesterday.

News already holds a stake of almost 15 per cent in the company and counts APN’s former boss ­Michael Miller as its executive chairman. It is understood News had been approached by APN to look at the portfolio. Ciaran Davis was recently named as APN’s new chief executive…..

Sources have suggested that some of the publications would be closed if a buyer could not be found. However, deal-makers yesterday said the newspapers were a good acquisition prospect for an acquirer at the right price that could capitalise on synergies and cash flow.

The news comes with the expectation of increasing deal activity in the media sector, with companies already lining up advisers in anticipation of new laws being passed that will relax restrictions on how many viewers any one television broadcaster can access nationally.

Australian Federal Election 2016: spot Amanda Vanstone's attempts at political deception in The Age newspaper

This was former Liberal Senator for South Australia and former minister in the Howard Government, Amanda Vanstone writing in The Age on 9 May 2016 in an article titled Turnbull or Shorten? The choice seems clear:

Let’s break that down a little.

Schooling

Yes, Malcolm Turnbull went to a public primary school at Vaucluse in Sydney’s affluent Eastern Suburbs for about three years and, yes he went to Sydney Grammar School from the age of eight with the assistance of a scholarship for at least part of that period. He graduated from university during the years when undergraduate and post-graduate tertiary education was free of course fees in Australia. He was the child of divorced parents. All this is on the public record.

Bill Shorten went to a local Catholic primary school before attending Xavier College’s junior & senior schools in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne – his mother taught at Xavier and presumably there was some degree of discount on his school fees. So yes, he also had a private education in affluent suburbs. He graduated from university during the years when tertiary education was free of course fees and undertook a post-graduate degree during a period when course fees were re-instituted. His parents divorced when he was about 20 years of age. All of which is also on the public record.

Wealth

Malcolm Turnbull inherited assets worth an est. $2 million from his hotel-broker father before he turned 29 years of age according to one of his biographers Paddy Manning and, he and his wife independently and jointly went on to garner considerably greater wealth which was last estimated to be in the vicinity of $200 million. His last Statement of Registrable Interests lists a veritable slew of financial investments and an expensive property portfolio shared between he and his wife. It is not known if he inherited any money from his mother.

It is not known to the writer if Bill Shorten inherited any money to speak of from his dry-dock manager father or his mother, however his last Statement of Registrable Interests lists very little in assets held by either he or his wife beyond their mortgaged family home.

What essentially separates these two men are the differences in their personal and political philosophies and the wide gap between their different levels of personal wealth.

Although this is something Amanda Vanstone is trying hard to distort in this federal election campaign and something The Age appears to be so indifferent to that its editor is not reigning in her excesses.  

Australian Federal Election 2016: can the Turnbull Government afford to aggravate aged pensioners in an election year budget?

Meme found on Twitter*

With less than a month to the release of the 2016-17 federal budget papers the Guvmin Gazette begins to use the tired old ploy of pointing a finger at the working poor, unemployed, single parents, aged and disability pensioners.

Using the journalist’s own calculation of the number of persons “wholly dependent” on Centrelink and Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs cash transfers reveals an unimpressive 27.8% of the 16,405,465 citizens the Australian Electoral Commission calculated were eligible to vote on 31 December 2015 and, even if one reworks the journalists numbers based on citizens who had actually registered to vote by the end of December, the percentage only rises to a still unimpressive 29.2%.

Because there is no clickbait story in those percentages, the final percentage figure is boosted by adding numbers allegedly representing both public sector employees and low paid private sector workers. This enabled the newspaper to erroneously headline the article as One in two voters is fully reliant on public welfare.

Excerpts from that article in The Australian on 16 April 2016:

Nearly half of voters in the looming federal election will rely ­entirely on government payments for their incomes, confront­ing Scott Morrison with a demographic and political powder keg as he frames a May 3 budget ­relying on spending restraint to rein in the deficit.

Analysis by The Weekend Australian has revealed that more than 44 per cent of voters, almost 6.4 million people, are ­either public sector employees (1.89 million) or wholly dependent on federal government pensions, allowances and parenting payments (4.48 million). The figure grows further when private sector workers who receive more in welfare than they pay in tax are added.

The Coalition holds seven of the 10 most welfare-dependent seats in the nation while Labor holds three……

The figures have emerged as Patrick McClure, whose review of the welfare system for the Abbott government called for drastic simplification of 75 federal payments and supplements, said about three quarters of his review had still not yet been taken up.

The extent of reliance on ­government payments for voters’ incomes has emerged as the ­Coalition and Labor are locked in a political battle over the Treasurer’s insistence that the government will rely on spending restraint and expanding the economy rather than lifting the overall tax burden to cut the deficit.

Ratings agency Moody’s raised the stakes ahead of the budget, ­declaring this week that the failure of the political system to ­deliver genuine spending restraint suggested the government had to consider tax increases to close the deficit gap. Mr Morrison stood firm yesterday, maintaining his position that “the government is not looking to increase the tax burden on the economy’’…..

The Nationals appear to be the most vulnerable to a crackdown on welfare and government spending.

The Weekend Australian’s analysis of social security by federal electorate shows the junior Coalition partner holds half of the 10 most welfare-dependent seats (which even excludes family tax benefit payments, which can be held concurrently with other payments). The 10 seats have between 40,000 and 50,000 wholly welfare dependent voters out of a total electorate of about 105,000 voters. Another three are held by Labor and two by the Liberals.

Those relying on government payments in Nationals seats tend to receive age and disability pensions while Labor seats are disproportionately home to family tax benefit recipients. Liberal seats tend to have a higher proportion of holders of the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (a benefit for older Australians not eligible for the Age Pension). The unemployed (receiving Newstart or Youth Allowance (Other) recipients) are relatively evenly spread.....

What the article also doesn’t say is that average social assistance in cash transfers is much wider than the categories stated and government money received by individuals with their own incorporated business income comes in at est. $73 per week per person, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

On the NSW Far North Coast the largest single group of persons eligible to vote and receiving federal government cash transfers in June 2015 were aged pensioners.

Broken down by federal electorate** the numbers are:

Cowper (Nationals seat) – 23,261 persons

Page (Nationals seat) – 22,512 persons

Richmond (Labor seat) – 21,238 persons

TOTAL – 67,011 persons.

Australia-wide the total number of aged pensioners as of June 2015 was 2,486,195 individuals – of which an estimated 646,000 are currently receiving a part-pension.

All of these people have relatives and a significant number would be full or part-time carers of their older family member.

The Australian is right in one respect – that’s a demographic and political powder keg facing both the Prime Minister and Treasurer in an election year.

However, backgrounding the Murdoch media with ideology-based statistical spin is not going to impress voters after that particular strategy was worked to death during the Abbott leadership years.

Footnote

* It is possible (based on the American experience) that around 5% of Australian online users 65 years of age and over use Twitter.

** In the NSW Northern Rivers region aged pensioners (potentially eligible to vote in June 2015) by local government area (LGA):

Ballina LGA – 6,636 persons

Byron LGA  – 3,059 persons

Clarence Valley LGA – 9,341 persons (9,304 of these individuals living in Grafton City & region, Maclean, Yamba and Iluka)

Kyogle LGA  – 1,357 persons

Lismore LGA – 5,389 persons

Richmond Valley LGA – 3,778 persons

Tweed LGA – 16,229 persons

TOTAL – 40,400 persons.

Then Australian Attorney-General George Brandis in March 2015: "Media organisations are not the target of this law. The targets of this law are criminals and paedophiles and terrorists"*

The Australian federal police have admitted they sought access to a Guardian reporter’s metadata without a warrant in an attempt to hunt down his sources.

It is the first time the AFP has confirmed seeking access to a journalist’s metadata in a particular case.

The admission came to light when the AFP told the privacy commissioner it had sought “subscriber checks” and email records relating to the Guardian Australia journalist Paul Farrell, and the correspondence was sent to Farrell by the office of the Australian information commissioner……

The AFP’s submission said: “You will see that exemptions have been claimed under s47E(d) and s37(2)(b) on some folios. These exemptions primarily relate to e-mail and other subscriber checks relating to Mr Farrell, and examination of meta data associated with some electronic files.”  [The Guardian, 14 April 2016]

At 11.35am AEST on 17 April 2014 The Guardian published journalist Paul Farrell’s article Australian ship went far deeper into Indonesian waters than disclosed with this map:

And this observation:

The redacted version of the classified report, obtained by the Australian Associated Press under freedom of information laws, said: “Entry to Indonesian waters was inadvertent, arising from miscalculation of the maritime boundaries, in that the calculation did not take into account archipelagic baselines.”

Crucially, the report adds: “Territorial seas declared by foreign nations are generally not depicted on Australian hydrographic charts.”

But the digital map from the vessel casts doubt on these findings, and clearly shows the Australian ship crossing the red line that marks the point of Indonesia’s baselines and entering its waters past the headlands near Pelabuhan Ratu bay. Indonesia’s territorial seas are 12 nautical miles further out from where the baselines are marked in red. It is not known whether the digital mapping device was operational at the time the Ocean Protector entered Indonesian waters.

If he wasn’t a blip on the Australian Federal Police radar before the publication date of that article, Paul Farrell was from then on.

However, it is unclear if the initial request to investigate this journalist came from the then Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, his department or some other individual or agency.

Although what appears to be Folio 3 of an est. 200 pages in Case No.5610147 seems to suggest that Customs (now called Border Force) may have been the complainant of record by May 2014 and the media finger points to the head of Australian Customs and Border Protection Services, Michael Pezzullo.

On 12 Febraury2016 Farrell stated of this investigation:

The files are made up of operational centre meeting minutes, file notes, interview records and a plan for an investigation the AFP undertook into one of my stories. Most concerning is what appears to be a list of suspects the AFP drew up, along with possible offences they believe they may have committed.

The documents show that during the course of an investigation into my sources for a story I had written, an AFP officer logged more than 800 electronic updates on the investigation file.

Farrell is not the only journalist whose metadata has been accessed in search of sources, but the Australian Federal Police insists that it has not accessed any journalist’s metadata for the last six months – the last time being in 13 October 2015.

Footnote

* See http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/probes-of-journalists-communications-records-rare-police-say-20150317-1m1g9d.html

Mr. Denmore: "Do keep up now"

The Failed Estate, 3 April 2016:

To be fair, political media is broken because politics is broken – or at least what we call politics – the charade that takes place in Canberra or any other world capital each day featuring people and parties who don’t really believe in anything anymore, but making sure they posture and pontificate in a way that suggests they do. And the media, having so much invested in the semblance of a left-right, blue-red, coke-pepsi contest, is forced to play along with the whole silly game.

The rest of the population senses the breakdown. And not just in Australia. This is a global phenomenon, reflecting the end of a 35-year era in which neoliberal capitalism looked to have destroyed all other contenders. Politicians of the nominal left and right swallowed the consensus whole, leaving them to fight ridiculous and infantile ‘culture wars’ to justify their own sorry existence.

But ironically “the market knows best” people don’t seem to have figured that the wider population understands the issue better than the insiders do. The big problems we face are global in nature – climate change, people movements, adequacy of resources, the impotency of central banks, the dislocations wrought by “free” trade, the rise in the power of stateless corporations at the expense of people, the encroachment of “markets” into every aspect of our lives and the power of well-funded lobbies that sell private interest as public interest and destroy the possibility of people-oriented change.

THAT’S why politics is broken. And THAT’s why the media does not appear to have a clue about what’s going on right now. Oddly enough, this is a much, much bigger story than whether Malcolm loves Scott.

Do keep up now.

A reader bites back at Northern Star editorial style

The Northern Star, 23 February 2016:

Good with the bad

Good editorial David (NS 18/2), Your unwavering support for Kevin Hogan is touching. You may have some work to do convincing readers that you don't mind what political persuasion a politician is. But you do deserve credit for publishing letters criticising Kevin Hogan and the Nationals.

The Nationals are a strong force in this area, although I often wonder why because

they promise much and deliver little. I`ve lived in this area nearly 30 years so I`m

almost a local, in that time the Nationals have had an almost exclusive hold on these Northern Rivers seats, only with short disruptions when Labor`s Harry Woods and Neville Newell were elected in Page and Richmond.

When Justine Elliott and Janelle Saffin were elected in 2004 and 2007 all hell broke

loose, suddenly major infrastructure projects that were ignored for years by the

Nationals were being built.

Don Page lobbied the Howard Government long and hard for the Ballina and Alstonville bypasses, his National Party mate Ian Causley repeatedly failed to secure any funding. Safe seats; why bother, (not anymore).

When Janelle Saffin was elected these two projects were immediately funded and

built.

Kevin Hogan also made the good people from the Ballina Marine Rescue Tower wait  for over two years in inadequate facilities just so he could roll out the pork barrel closer to an election.

So David, if you think such disrespectful and cynical behaviour is OK and Kevin Hogan is on a roll, fine. If not how about some balance in your editorials and comment on issues where Kevin and his government are letting the local area down.

Keith Duncan

Pimlico

Australian Federal Election 2016: and the slurs quickly become childish

This time it is independent candidate in the NSW New England electorate, Tony Windsor, on the receiving line for daring to stand in a seat held by Nationals Deputy-Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and it’s the Murdoch media which is behaving like toddler in full tantrum mode: 

Image found on Twitter

National Indigenous Times to be revived

Australian Newspaper History Group, Newsletter, No 86, February 2016:

86.1.9 Revival of National Indigenous Times to be attempted

Aboriginal businessman Wayne Bergmann has taken control of the collapsed National Indigenous Times, with the aim of transforming it into a newspaper that celebrates indigenous achievement in business, politics and sport. A company majority-owned by Bergmann has bought the paper from liquidators and is expected to relaunch it within weeks. Veteran Perth journalist Tony Barrass will become the editor of the publication, which will be resurrected online before a decision is made whether to resume in print. The old Times had enraged some aboriginal leaders with its hardline approach to indigenous affairs. Kimberley Aboriginal leader Bergmann said on 20 January that he wanted the paper to focus heavily on indigenous business success stories. Barrass, who has a 49% stake in the company, promised the publication would be upmarket, entertaining and provocative. “It will reflect a range of indigenous views, not just one political leaning,” he said (Australian, 21 January 2016, p.6).

Is Rupert Murdoch about to gobble up ten Queensland and two NSW regional daily newspapers?

It probably comes as no surprise to readers of APN News & Media’s The Daily Examiner and Coastal Views that newspapers in the Northern Rivers are battling and, Rupert Murdoch may be poised to swallow whole  APN’s print stable Australian Regional Media.

This print stable includes 12 daily newspapers and 70 community & specialist titles.

If News Corp does purchase ARM that would leave only three Northern Rivers newspapers, including the Clarence Valley Independent not in Murdoch’s control.

Echo NetDaily, 26 February 2016:

The owner of The Northern Star and other local newspapers including Byron Shire News, Tweed Daily News, Lismore Echo and Ballina Advocate has put them on the market, saying they are dragging the company down.

They join more than 100 regional newspapers and websites in Queensland and northern NSW that are are up for sale as their owner says it no longer wants to pour money into them.

APN News & Media says it is in talks about the divestment of its Australian Regional Media (ARM) business, which reaches an audience of more than 1.5 million between Mackay and Coffs Harbour.

ARM’s earnings dropped 27 per cent in calendar 2015, despite millions in cost cuts and growth in digital subscriptions beginning to replace the declining newspaper audience.

‘Further investment in this business is now inconsistent with APN’s long term ambitions and we have commenced the process to divest the business,’ APN chief executive Ciaran Davis said.

According to industry publication TheNewspaperWorks APN was asked after its results presentation, whether News Corp Australia was the only potential purchaser of the mastheads and how APN would ensure it was not disadvantaged in the sales process by News’ investment in the company. (News holds a 15 per cent strategic stake in APN.)

‘In response APN said it was talking to a number of parties, and it was too early for a price guide,’ TheNewspaperWorks reported.

Byron Shire Echo and Echonetdaily general manager Simon Haslam said, ‘This just reinforces the point that Rupert Murdoch is calling the shots at APN.’

Mr Haslam added, ‘On behalf of The Echo, I’m happy to offer to run free classifieds for APN to help them in their search for an alternative purchaser, so Byron shire is not further exposed to News Ltd, as Murdoch’s ownership increases to 100 per cent of the Byron News and Northern Star.’…..

The fate of one whistleblower whose evidence was presented to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse

Extract from Australian Newspaper History Group May 2015 newsletter:

82.1.1. Jewish newspaper and a whistleblower

The Australian Jewish News (AJN) has made a senior journalist redundant after he passed on information that helped a royal commission and led to the resignation of Australia’s most senior Rabbi (Australian, Media section, 2 March 2015). Adam Kamien, who had worked for AJN since 2006, became the only person in the newsroom to be made redundant following an internal investigation into how text messages ended up being used by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The text message, sent from the Rabbi Meir Kluwgant to the editor of the AJN, Zeddy Lawrence, and read out at the royal commission, described the father of an abuse victim as a “lunatic” who neglected his children. “Zephaniah is killing us. Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?” Under intense cross examination, Rabbi Kluwgant said he sent the message to Lawrence during the commission evidence of Zephaniah Waks, father of victim and whistleblower Manny Waks. Soon after admitting to the text, Rabbi Kluwgant resigned as president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia.

Yeshiva College sex abuse victim Manny Waks told the Australian Kamien was a whistleblower who courageously ensured that justice was done. “In my view it’s clear that the journalist was effectively dismissed for disclosing to me a vital bit of evidence for submission to the royal commission,” he said. “Had the text message not been disclosed, Rabbi Kluwgant would probably still have his senior leadership positions and victims and their families would still be accused of exaggerating the intimidation. The journalist’s disclosure ensured the truth was told. It vindicated us fully.”

The AJN launched an internal investigation into how the text message found its way to the royal commission and Kamien was suspended on full pay pending the outcome of an investigation. A few days later the AJN confirmed it had concluded its investigation and would “take no further action in relation to the matter”. But on Friday, 27 February, group general manager Rod Kenning sent an email to staff saying that Kamien’s position as senior journalist had become redundant as part of a restructure of the editorial team.

Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance: "This has been a dire 12 months for the state of press freedom in Australia"

Forward to the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) 2015 Australian Press Freedom Report:

This has been a dire 12 months for the state of press freedom in Australia — for journalists, for the communities we serve and for sources that trust us to tell their stories.

On October 30 last year, Attorney-General George Brandis admitted that the controversial section 35P of the Government’s first tranche of national security laws was written with the aim of targeting whistleblowers. “It was primarily, in fact, to deal with a Snowden-type situation,” he said. Whistleblower Edward Snowden had worked with journalists to reveal US government officials had routinely and deliberately broken the law. [1]

On February 27 this year, the report of Parliament’s Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security revealed that targeting whistleblowers was one of the aims of its metadata retention scheme. Recommendation 27 of the committee’s report said journalists’ metadata would be accessed “for the purpose of determining the identity of a journalist’s sources”.

Public interest journalism relies on whistleblowers, the confidential sources that provide crucial information to journalists — sometimes placing both at great risk.

It is a well-known ethical principle of journalism that journalists do not reveal their confidential sources. It’s a principle that is vigorously defended because it is the only way many vital stories in the public interest can ever be told. Whistleblowers turn to journalists to help expose misconduct, illegality, fraud, threats to health and safety, and corruption. Our communities are the better for their courageous efforts to ensure the public’s right to know.

If the identity of whistleblowers can be revealed then that has a chilling effect on public interest journalism; sources needing anonymity cannot rely on their contact with a journalist being kept secret. When that happens, we all lose.

The politicians who ignored press freedom concerns about the raft of national security laws failed to understand how confidential sources and public interest journalism are linked.

If you are going after whistleblowers, you are going after journalism.

And even when they did register the concerns for press freedom, their solutions failed miserably. Take the so-called “safeguard” of journalist information warrants introduced as an amendment to the data retention scheme. The journalist information warrant will operate in secret on pain of a two-year jail term. It relies on “public interest advocates” appointed by the government. It will still allow a journalists’ metadata to be accessed to identify a journalist’s sources, and the journalist and their media organisation will never know access was granted. Nor will they be able to argue the public interest in protecting the identity of a whistleblower.

In short, the three tranches of national security legislation passed by the Parliament represent a colossal failure to stand up for press freedom, freedom of expression, privacy, freedom to access information and the public’s right to know.

As this 2015 report into the state of press freedom in Australia shows, press freedom has been under assault in many other areas. South Australia continues to reject attempts to introduce a shield law, thus exposing journalists throughout Australia to the prospect of plaintiffs going “jurisdiction shopping”.

Tasmania briefly considered breaking away from the uniform national defamation scheme to reintroduce the prospect of corporations suing for damages.

Freedom of information law reform continues to linger in limbo due to successive governments’ inaction and a lack of courage in embracing sensible remedies that ensure the public can benefit from truly open government.

And while we are all delighted at the release and homecoming of Peter Greste from his Cairo prison, the re-trial of Peter and his colleagues goes on. MEAA is also awaiting the fate of Australian journalist Alan Morison who faces up to seven years in a Thai jail for reprinting a paragraph from a Reuters news report.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the murder of our colleagues Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham and Greg Shackleton in Balibo and Roger East in Dili in East Timor. MEAA is disappointed that the AFP spent five years on examining these war crimes only to abandon their investigation without seeking any co-operation from Indonesia and “without any interaction with their counterparts, the Indonesian National Police. The result is that impunity has triumphed and the killers of the Balibo Five and Roger East have literally got away with murder.

It can only be hoped that over the coming year, greater effort will be made by governments, politicians, government agencies and those who like to talk about championing press freedom to turn away from repressing freedom of expression and actually respect and promote it.

Paul Murphy
CEO MEAA

Brief background on Australian journalist Alan Morison here.

Another step down the path to fascism in Abbott's Australia

In Abbott’s Australia indirect government control of media and investigative journalists - through fear of arrest, trial and gaol sentence – is becoming entrenched through federal legislation.

The Guardian 27 April 2015:

Journalists who report on serious wrongdoing by Australian intelligence officers may still face prosecution under new national security laws, according to the commonwealth director of public prosecutions (CDPP).

Australia’s acting independent national security legislation monitor, Roger Gyles QC, is considering the impact of a new section inserted into the Asio Act in 2014 – section 35P – which would criminalise disclosure of information that relates to a “special intelligence operation”.

Gyles was scheduled to hold hearings on Monday as part of his inquiry into the laws, which were passed by the federal parliament with Labor’s support in 2014.

The new section has sparked concerns among news organisations, human rights groups and some opposition politicians. Journalists and whistleblowers may face jail for up to 10 years if they breach the disclosure offence.

There is no public interest consideration or defence that would allow a journalist to report on intelligence matters. But for a prosecution to be initiated by the CDPP, a public interest test must still be applied. The federal government relied in part on this check to reassure journalists who were critical of the new laws.

Unusually, the CDPP outlines two hypothetical scenarios that reporters might be placed in to consider whether it would proceed with a prosecution in a submission to Gyles’s inquiry.

In one scenario a journalist receives information about “serious wrongdoing by a commonwealth officer in the course of a special intelligence operation”. The journalist contacts Asio, which refuses to confirm or deny whether a special intelligence operation is under way, and eventually the journalist publishes the information.

While the CDPP indicates the public interest considerations would not favour a prosecution, it indicates that it might still consider the possibility.

“This scenario may well be one in which the public interest considerations either favour no prosecution taking place, or are ‘finely balanced’. As stated above the matters that will be taken into account in assessing whether or not a prosecution is in the public interest will be different in every matter,” the CDPP submission said.

The admission is likely to raise further concerns about the potential chilling effect the disclosure laws could have on the media.

ABC The Drum 17 March 2015:

The Coalition's push to save and search all of our metadata for at least two years will have a chilling effect on press freedom.

Journalists' sources will be compromised by metadata collection. Without the ability to interact with confidential sources without the government finding out, journalists may as well give the game away.

Even with the yet-unseen government amendments proposed yesterday, after negotiations with the Opposition, Australia is going in the opposite direction of our two closest allies the United States and the UK.

Requiring a warrant before searching journalists' metadata sounds like a modicum of protection. The public discussion around it indicates it will just be a "tick and flick" approach and won't give journalists or media organisations the right to argue their case.

The warrants will be obtained in secret and media organisations will be none the wiser.

Next time a News Corp newspaper tries to tell you that it has an independent editorial stance remember this.....

The Independent 21 April 2015:

Rupert Murdoch berated journalists on his tabloid papers for not doing enough to stop Labour winning the general election and warned them that the future of the company depended on stopping Ed Miliband entering No 10.

The proprietor of Britain’s best-selling tabloid warned executives that a Labour government would try to break up News Corp, which owns The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. He instructed them to be much more aggressive in their attacks on Labour and more positive about Conservative achievements in the run-up to polling day, sources told The Independent.

Mr Murdoch is understood to have made his views clear on a visit to London at the end of February, during which he met with senior Tories including the Conservative chief whip and former Times executive Michael Gove.

The News Corp boss, who has made no secret of his dislike of the Labour leader, told the editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, that he expected the paper to be much sharper in its attacks on Labour……

Two days after Mr Murdoch’s visit the paper devoted a two-page spread to the election – with the left-hand page containing a 10-point “pledge” to voters written by David Cameron. The right-hand side of the spread was an attack on Ed Balls under the headline: “I ruined your pensions, I sold off our gold, I helped wreck [the] economy, Now I’m going to put up your taxes.”

It is understood that Mr Murdoch reminded executives that Labour would try to break up News UK, which owns The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. The party has suggested that no owner should be allowed to control more than 34 per cent of the UK media, a cap which would force News UK to sell one of the titles.

It has also pledged to implement recommendations in the Leveson report for an independent press regulator backed by statute, bitterly opposed by Murdoch. Mr Miliband has made “standing up” to Mr Murdoch over the phone-hacking affair a central plank in his attempts to persuade voters that he is a strong leader. A source said: “Rupert made it very clear he was unhappy with The Sun’s coverage of the election. He basically said the future of the company was at stake and they need to get their act together.”……

Main stream media in self-congratulatory mode

Main stream media is currently in self-congratulatory mode. 

The Daily Examiner 14 April 2015:

Who had the power to help reduce street violence by 40% in Australia's biggest city? Who made Queensland's Government aware of the need to protect local jobs and forced them to backtrack on allowing 100% fly-in, fly-out workforces? And who is on the cusp of significant changes to domestic violence legislation that will better protect women?

The answer? The nation's newspapers, whose influence in our society is being highlighted in a $5 million marketing campaign.

APN News & Media (parent company of this newspaper), Fairfax Media, News Corp Australia and West Australian Newspapers (Seven West Media) have combined to promote the "Influential by Nature" campaign.

It will highlight achievements that few other media are able to match; like a Sydney Morning Herald campaign that reduced drunken violence by 40%, an Australian Regional Media campaign spearheaded by the Mackay Daily Mercury, Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and Gladstone Observer that reversed a 100% FIFO stance by the Queensland Government. And the current campaign involving this paper that will likely result in new domestic violence initiatives.

APN chief executive Michael Miller, fronting the campaign for the newspaper and website publishers, said readers and advertisers needed reminding that one media was having more impact on their patch than others……

There is no denying that ethical news reporting often gives newspaper readers their first information on a social or political issue.

However, this thinly disguised marketing ploy "Influential by Nature" ignores the decline of that which it is promoting.

The barely re-worked media releases presented as news gathered by journalists, the advertorials passing as articles, the growing number of spelling and grammar errors which turn paragraphs into guessing games for the reader and, the fact that modern newspapers are now more often followers rather than leaders when it comes to social and political 
issues.

Choppy waters ahead as report, newspaper article and letter concerning a Clarence River study all differ in detail

It seems that the difference between the 504 test sites identified in the UNSW Water Research Laboratory 211-page report on Clarence riverbank vulnerability and the 252 sites implied in the newspaper article raised some local eyebrows, but it was this paragraph which appeared to elevate the blood pressure of one particular reader who perhaps was remembering that the Clarence River is over 300 km long:

 While the study found there were sections of the river in those areas where management of activities was warranted, the majority of the river was suitable for water skiing and wakeboarding for vessels making up to 150 passes of the river a day.

The irate reader himself also had trouble with the number of sections in the 37 km study area. Though to be fair it appears he may be using the locally recognised distinctions between stretches of the river between Rogan's Bridge and Ulmarra.

The study has a contentious history with Seelands residents - see here and here.

The report

UNSW Water Research Laboratory (WRL) Report: Riverbank Vulnerability Assessment using a Decision Support System: Clarence River (Rogans Bridge to Ulmarra) - excerpts:

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The newspaper article

The Daily Examiner 30 December 2014:

The controversial activity of wakeboarding is generally suitable for the Clarence River between Ulmarra and Seelands, says the draft of a university report released this month.

The University of NSW Water Research Laboratory study, Riverbank Vulnerability Assessment Using a Decision Support System: Rogans Bridge to Ulmarra, looks at the effect of water activities on the river on riverbank health.

While the study found there were sections of the river in those areas where management of activities was warranted, the majority of the river was suitable for water skiing and wakeboarding for vessels making up to 150 passes of the river a day.

Data collection for the report was concluded in May.

To study the effects of erosion on the banks and three river islands, the 37km stretch of river and Susan, Elizabeth and Peanut islands were divided into 84 sections and each section had six test points - three on each bank.

The erosive potential for each section was broken into five categories: highly resistant, moderately resistant, mildly resistant, moderately erosive and highly erosive.

These categories were used to come up with the decision support system (DSS) ratings: allow, monitor and manage.

The study also found riverbanks were generally more vulnerable to erosion at mid-low tide and high tide. It also looked at the effect of wind waves.

The Clarence Valley Council, the NSW North Coast Local Land Services (LLS) and NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) funded the report.

The Maritime Management Centre (MMC) in Transport for NSW is now seeking feedback on the report, to help inform the development of a draft management plan for the area.

One readers response

The Daily Examiner 5 January 2015:

Confidence eroded

I refer to the DEX article "Report finds wakeboarding 'generally suitable' on Clarence" (30/12).

Your readers should be made aware that this article is factually incorrect and displays a level of irresponsible journalism that has negative effects beyond the continuing reduction of the credibility of this newspaper.

The riverbank erosion study did not find the "majority" of the river was suitable for wakeboarding.

The UNSW Water Research Laboratory study examined only three relatively small sections of the navigable river and therefore could not and did not draw any conclusions on suitability of wakeboarding for the "majority" of the river.

In the limited study areas, about one third of the riverbank studied was assessed as requiring "immediate enforceable no wash zones" (i.e. no slow-tow wakeboarding) to prevent further riverbank erosion; another third was assessed as requiring zoning to prevent wakeboarding within 100 metres of the riverbank; and for the rest there was a requirement to monitor riverbank erosion and conduct small areas of remedial protection works.

To report the study results as finding wakeboarding "generally suitable" on the Clarence is a nonsense and a significantly irresponsible action.

As a result of this misleading article, and the lack of effective action by CVC and RMS, the river between Rogan Bridge and Moleville Rock that was identified as particularly vulnerable to excessive wash is inundated by slow-tow wake boats and the significant (according to WRL) riverbank erosion and damage is continuing.

At the recent WRL study presentation Professor Glamore stated "blind Freddie" could see the riverbank from Rogan Bridge to Moleville Rock was extremely vulnerable to wash erosion.

However what the professor did not understand was that being blind to the legitimate concerns of the community (which have now been scientifically validated) is apparently part of the job descriptions for DEX, CVC and RMS personnel.

What DEX should be investigating is why CVC has not taken any effective action and why RMS refuses to implement immediate boat wash restrictions as recommended by the WRL study.

John Griffith,

Seelands