- Large animals with big appetites eat smaller animals.Keeping media owners confined to a single paddock – either a TV, radio or newspaper paddock – guarantees a minimum level of editorial diversity in the nation with the highest concentration of media ownership in the developed world. Under the government’s proposed media legislation, the fences will be removed, the biggest and hungriest animals will roam free, and fewer editorial voices will be heard in the land.
- It will reduce the number of “media of influence”.The importance of the cross-media rules is not about the number of commercial media owners, it is about the number of media outlets which have the power to influence the public debate. Most media companies don’t have that influence because they’re in the entertainment business, not the news and current affairs business.The substantive “media of influence” are daily newspapers – which set the news agenda, publish editorials, run campaigns and are highly influential in their communities – and a handful of TV current affairs and radio talkback programs. If the new laws lead to a reduction in the number of owners of these “media of influence”, media power will concentrate in even fewer hands.Anyway, how can a law that legislates for the minimum number of media owners in the country’s major markets to be cut from 11 to five be described as anything other than reducing diversity of media ownership?
- It’s based on a myth about the current state of the media.The government’s main rationale for introducing the new laws is that “new media” is rapidly assuming dominance over “old media”, making cross-media regulation redundant. This is nonsense – on two fronts. Firstly, the old media still totally dominate the flow of serious information in Australia. The arrival of websites and blogs may have added more numeric voices to the debate, but they are minute blips on the information radar compared to the societal and political influence that is wielded by newspapers or talk radio. The government’s rationale looks even shakier when you consider that the biggest news and current affairs sites on the internet are overwhelmingly owned by the usual suspects – the old media companies.
- It will result in fewer journalists and diminished journalism.Think about what will happen. As soon as the new laws are passed there will be a lunge by existing media owners to snap up low-hanging assets like Southern Cross Broadcasting, Fairfax, Network Ten, Austereo and Prime TV. This will be the last great media land grab in Australia, it will be highly competitive and it will result in very full prices being paid for assets.Then, to justify the prices paid, buyers will cut costs and, inevitably, journalism will be near the top of the cost-cutting list. Newspapers with 300 journalists can and will be produced with 200, amalgamated TV-radio-newspaper regional newsrooms will be run with half the staff, content will be syndicated and recycled, cross-media synergies will see journalists working for more than one medium.If good journalism is vital for a functioning democracy, and there are identifiable threats to the viability of quality journalism in Australia at its current levels, is it the role of the federal government to introduce laws that are likely to accelerate that trend?
- Despite what it says, this government has no interest in encouraging media diversity.I know this from personal experience. For the past two years, Crikey’s Canberra gallery correspondent, Christian Kerr, and our other commentators have been banned from attending the annual Budget lock-up. The reason, we’re told by the treasurer’s office, is that Crikey is not “mainstream” media.Crikey may be the largest online news media platform in Australia, with 40,000 daily email subscribers, more than 300,000 monthly website unique browsers and a full-time staff of 15, but we are banned from doing our job as professional journalists by a government which believes Australia needs new laws to enhance media diversity.
- It demeans us all.Watching the most senior members of the federal government sucking up to media proprietors is a deeply unedifying, and worrying, spectacle. In Australia we are used to watching leading politicians cosy up to media moguls, giving them state memorial services and attending their public events. We are now presented with media-owner-friendly legislation that is crafted to reduce the number of media owners and increase the asset base of those remaining. What does this say about the integrity of Australia’s political process – and what does it say about the integrity of our political leaders?7
- It could destroy Fairfax.The estate that houses and invests in Australia’s best print journalism will be highly vulnerable to cannibalisation if the cross-media rules are removed. Fairfax has no controlling shareholder, it has no shareholder mandate to protect its role as a public institution ahead of increasing its profits, and it has no defence against the intervention of a corporate raider with purely commercial motives. With the cross-media rules removed, Fairfax (and its quality journalism) is ripe for rationalisation.
- The government should be protecting, not threatening, the idea of quality journalism.For the reasons I’ve already outlined, the proposed media laws will create an unprecedented threat to the fabric of serious journalism in Australia. So what is the government’s role here? Is journalism simply another product in the marketplace, or does it have a direct connection to the quality of the public debate? And if it does, how can a government justify laws which treat it just like any other consumer commodity?
- It is undemocratic.The removal of the cross-media rules will result in fewer owners of the media that set the national agenda. By consolidating political and societal power in the hands of a tiny number of individuals, this legislation will curtail public debate and make Australia a less democratic country. The role of the fourth estate as the scrutineer of government will be weakened, perhaps irrevocably.
- It is unnecessary.No-one (except a handful of media owners who want to make more money) has asked for these changes. A majority of the public and journalists don’t support it, according to polls. There is no independent evidence to show it’s in the interests of Australia. There is no remotely discernable demand for it. It is a shameless act of sycophancy by politicians towards media owners.
Eric Beecher is the publisher of Crikey, a former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and a former editor-in-chief of The Herald and Weekly Times.
Source -
Beecher, E n.d., ‘The media gods must be crazy’, The Walkley Magazine, n.d.,
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26 May 2007
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