Dear Kim Williams: a little regulation won't kill you

The Drum
By ABC's Jonathan Holmes
Updated November 10, 2011 15:51:47

Dear Kim,

First, congratulations on the new gig.

You and I haven't had a whole lot to do with each other since you headed up the Australian Film Commission back in the late 1980s, and I was head of ABC TV documentaries. In those days you were struggling to prise open the door of the ABC to at least some independent productions. As you usually are, you were successful. The trickle has since become a flood, to the extent that outside News and Current Affairs, only a handful of programs aired on the ABC are made in-house.

Of course, you've climbed to dizzying heights since then. And you've long since left behind the world where rival organisations fight for a place at the taxpayer's teat.

blah blah blah...

News Ltd hasn't yet put in its own submission to the media inquiry. Perhaps it won't bother. But I hope it does, and I hope it includes a clear acceptance that the outfit that holds everyone else in the nation to account should be, must be, and, without interfering with the freedom of the press, could be, held to account itself.

All the best

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-10/holmes-letter-to-williams-back-the-media-inquiry/3657758

Yeah... Nothing like a bit of a crooked bow tie...

GERARD HENDERSON BLOG: Media Watch Dog

 
4 November 2011
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
▪ Jonathan Holmes’ 60-Words-A-Day Job
As Nancy is wont to observe: Most employees have holidays, but journalists have well-earned breaks.
Last Monday, Jonathan Holmes announced that next week’s edition of the ABC1 Media Watch program would be the last for 2011.  Just how much the Media Watch staff deserve a well-earned break is evident from Andrew Murfett’s sympathetic piece titled “Watchdog has his day” which was published in The Age’s “Greenguide” on 27 October 2011.  Holmes told Murfett:
We have six well-paid journalists working on 2000 words a week. We have three full-time researchers, a producer, a story editor and executive producer.

And then there is Jonathan Holmes himself – who is the seventh left-wing presenter (out of seven) to present Media Watch since it first went to air in May 1989.  His predecessors are the lefties Stuart Littlemore, Richard Ackland, Paul Barry, David Marr, Liz Jackson and Monica Attard.

So Media Watch has seven full-time staff producing 2000 words a week to occupy 13 minutes on-air time for the nine months or so in which the program is shown each year. ABC management and staff are invariably whinging about not receiving enough taxpayer funds. Yet, according to Jonathan Holmes, seven well-paid full-time staff are flat out at Media Watch producing 2000 words between them each week – which works out to less than 60 words per working day.
Can you bear it?  [Er, not really. MWD produces about 5000 words per week with no full-time staff and with Nancy (who graduated in Lost Causes at the Yagoona Lost Dogs Home) as its only part-time assistant – Ed].

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There you have... for once in my life I agree with Gerard Henderson... Blimey, I need to get my brain checked...

May be Jonathan needs to have his brain checked as well — for a different reason, that is...

Even with sponsors pulling their support from his radio show, drawing the ire of a federal minister and being the centre of an angry online storm, Kyle Sandilands says his attacks on a female journalist were just a display of freedom of speech.

After thousands of people signed an online petition for several companies to pull their ads from 2DayFM's Kyle and Jackie O Show, the pair lost the support of advertisers Holden, The Good Guys and Vodafone.

With the hashtag #vilekyle, people also took to Twitter to call for Sandilands to be taken off air and his name was still trending in Australia this morning.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/youre-allowed-to-say-what-you-want-and-so-am-i-kyle-sandilands-denies-being-a-woman-hater-20111124-1nvjz.html#ixzz1eYrug5DW


You can say what you bloody well like, Kyle, but advertisers can do what they like too... It you don't bring in the cash to the station because of what you say, you might end up unemployed, unemployable and in a queue at centrelink or centrebet...
Pity this could not happen to Jonathan Holmes and his double standards... or could it?
One must say that Gerard Henderson's rant was a bit unfair (see post above this one), as everyone knows that in order to write 2000 or 3000 words on the box, there is a lot of research to do — some of it totally crook and biased mind you... Like asking stupid question about a newspaper article on aliens and crocodiles (very popular in the NT).... If I was the recipient of such inquisition, I would ignore, as not to add fuel to Media Watch's out of control bias...

Kyle Sandilands' on-air rant against a female journalist has cost his top-rating breakfast radio show more advertisers.

This morning Telstra, Harvey Norman, Fantastic Furniture, Blackmores and Crazy John’s became the latest companies to pull their support of 2Day FM's Kyle and Jackie O show after Sandilands threatened to "hunt down" news.com.au journalist Alison Stephenson.

In a vitriolic on-air rant this week, Sandilands branded Stephenson "a fat bitter thing", a "fat slag" and a "little troll" after she wrote an article critical of his Seven Network TV show A Night With The Stars.

"Your hair's very 90s. And your blouse ... Watch your mouth, girl, or I'll hunt you down," he said.

Sponsors Holden, The Good Guys and Vodafone announced yesterday they were cutting their sponsorship and advertising, while news.com.au is reporting Medibank has also withdrawn its advertising from the show.

"Really shocked 2 hear comments Kylesandilands made yesterday. Couldn't be further from our values & we're pulling our advertising now," Blackmores tweeted this morning.

"Fantastic Furniture doesn't condone the recent actions of Kyle Sandilands and has removed advertisements from the Kyle&JackieO radio shows," the furniture company also tweeted.

Today, Sandilands said he reacted badly, but defended his rant and said he would continue to attack anyone who criticises him.

"We live in a country of free speech. You're allowed to say what you want and so am I," he told listeners of The Kyle and Jackie O Show.

"How can people turn this into a female thing? It's pathetic.

"If you speak out against me I will defend myself like any normal Australian would do.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-24/kyle-sandilands-hits-back/3690568

 

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Yes Kyle... three bags full Kyle... keep pedalling...

Free speech, freedom of the press, the right to say what you like - all are getting a huge run at the moment.

John Hartigan and Greg Hywood, bosses respectively of News Ltd and Fairfax Media, and right down to radio announcer Kyle Sandilands have nailed their commitment to free speech on the church door.

Maybe it's the presence of the Finkelstein inquiry into the print media that has brought on a rush of concern that any form of statutory regulation would damage the delicate flower of press freedom.

Sandilands, one of the professional nasties of commercial radio, had attacked on-air a reporter who had the temerity to criticise his unwatchable TV program. She was a ''fat slag . . . a piece of shit . . . a little troll''. Worse, she had very '' '90s hair'' and if she didn't ''watch her mouth . . . I'll hunt you down''.

With less than a grasp on the finer details, he defended this a day later: ''We live in a country of free speech. You're allowed to say what you want to and so am I.''

His advertisers didn't agree, and Holden, Vodafone and shopkeepers The Good Guys have all pulled their sponsorship. The market is talking, but 2DAY FM and the Australian Communications and Media Authority are nice and quiet.

The same day that Sandilands was having such a ball with free speech ACMA was trampling all over Alan Jones' right to be wrong and biased.

The Communications and Media Authority, 21 months after the broadcast, found that Jones was factually off-beam when he attacked the operation of native vegetation protection laws designed to prevent unapproved land clearing by farmers.

He also gave scant attention to the other point of view.

The regulator now has to discuss with 2GB, which Jones partially owns, what penalty would be appropriate for the breach of the code of conduct that was created and confected by the commercial radio industry itself.

Jones's stablemate Ray Hadley was also exercising his right of free speech yesterday in response to an allegation from Tim Flannery that he had been set-up by the shock jock, in as much as a neighbour was used to phone in to say the environmentalist and Australian of the Year had a waterfront home and sped around in a polluting boat.

In a letter to the latest Quarterly Essay Flannery claimed the caller had been prevailed upon by Hadley to ring the program to make what seemed like scripted allegations.

Hadley had this to say: ''Here's a warning to you, Tim Flannery, take me on at your peril, son, because I'll tell you something now, I'll tell you I'm from western Sydney, we don't back down . . . You go your hardest, old mate, and I'll go my hardest . . . you low bastard.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/trolls-of-tv-and-radio-would-not-last-a-day-under-print-rules-20111124-1nwy5.html#ixzz1ehohPeV8
See toon of one of the most sneaky and most offending ABC shock jock at top

From Jonathan Holmes...

But other illegalities are not so justified – most notably, the News of the World's illegal accessing of the voicemails of thousands of citizens, from Prince William to murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, without their knowledge or permission, and the printing of stories based on that illegal access.

Laws change from one country to the next.  Ethics don't.  And what determines whether a journalist's methods are ethical is, at least in large part, whether he or she is pursuing a story that is genuinely in the public interest, or just a story that might interest a lot of readers – a very different thing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-23/holmes-hacking-scandal-overblown/3687192

 

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I fell off my chair.... Jonathan Holmes mentioning ETHICS! Journalistic ethics?...On many levels his gig — called Media Watch — is as far from ethical journalism as Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt are — except Media Watch still conveys an aura of truth, dragged from history when Littlemore was fronting it. For quite a while now, Media Watch has slipped into the doldrum of petty pedantic grammar and opinionated garbage...

At least, Stuart Littlemore and Richard Ackland — as presenter of Media Watch — had a knowledge of the law...

“Tougher self-regulation.”

This must be the oxymoron of the year and it would rate well in best cliché competitions, too.

We should remind ourselves that tougher self-regulation is exactly what Ray Finkelstein wanted from the Independent Media Inquiry. He was unable to put it in his recommendations because, at that time, the gang of seven was against it. A number of them and their deputies marched into the inquiry and gruffly demanded that it do nothing.

You might not remember this because it has conveniently fallen down the memory hole.

Exactly who is attacking free speech?

In fact, it really is as if nothing’s happened. We’ve gone up the ladder and been taken back down in a Python-squeeze of over-excited adolescent group hysteria about a non-existent attack on free speech.

The media inquiry report does not make wholesale recommendations for the elimination of freedom of the press or free speech. It recognises the ethico-legal paradox at the core of the job it was asked to do and it attempts to find a balance.

For example, paragraph 2.94, on page 53, notes the following:

‘This is the situation this Inquiry must address: how to accommodate the increasing and legitimate demand for press accountability, but to do so in a way that does not increase state power or inhibit the vigorous democratic role the press should play or undermine the key rationales for free speech and a free press.’

Ray Finkelstein acknowledged this difficult balancing act and throughout the public hearings he made clear, time after time, his preference for a regime of self-regulation that would meet the demands for accountability, but ensure that the underlying market mechanisms were not disturbed.

Finkelstein was far from the anti-free speech monster portrayed by the gang of seven. It is fair to say that the media inquiry itself suffered from bad press.

Claims that that the review’s recommendations amounted to fascism or Stalinism are no more than far-fetched scare tactics and are perhaps evidence that the news media should be more closely regulated and held to standards of accountability and public interest.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/free-speech-fear-mongering-taints-media-regulation-truth/

 

read Jonathan's stuff about the "cyber-cognoscenti":

I was dead wrong. Mr Finkelstein's final report recommended a News Media Council (NMC), to be funded entirely by the taxpayer, that would have authority over all mainstream news and opinion outlets - including newspapers, broadcasters, and their websites - and, even more controversially, over independent online news and opinion sites, including political bloggers.[that could be us...?]

...

A greater inducement, at least for the very many blogs and websites out there that strive to abide by the code of ethics generally accepted by the profession, might be that by joining the NMC2 they could differentiate themselves from those who spurn such intrusions by the Nanny State.

(It's precisely to attain that credibility, one suspects, that the Crikey stable of websites, and Nine MSN, have both recently announced that they will join a reinforced Australian Press Council.)

There would thus arise an official and perhaps even legal recognition of the reality that already confronts us: that there is a two-tier media world, one of which accepts (at least in theory) that its freedom of speech should be circumscribed by law and by ethical rules; and the other of which does not.

Of course, there will be many in the mainstream media who will bitch and moan if there is even a hint of taxpayer funding, or of oversight by a statutory regulator. Seven Media has left the Press Council over just such an objection. News Ltd and others have been loud in their condemnation of the Convergence Review's proposals.

But for my money, of the two proposals before the cabinet, the CR's NMC2 is not only more commensurate with the freedom of the press in a free country: it has some chance of helping the public sort the wheat from the chaff in the chaotic new media world.

And that's an object that the mainstream media, and those who take the responsibilities of journalism seriously, wherever they work, should be very happy to advance.

Jonathan Holmes, the presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch, has been a journalist for 35 years.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-30/holmes-sorting-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-on-new-media/4232972?WT.svl=theDrum

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Ohohohohoho.... I hope Jonathan Holmes-Himself, will obey these new rules and starts to "take journalism seriously", those rules he has flaunted quite a few times in the last year or so, with His "in my opinions" His "but for my money" and His "in my view" comments as if he was the god of pontification... while being totally wrong on too many occasions...

Here, on this site, we don't claim to be journalists.... That's the "Alan Jones brilliant excuse" to promote crap and basically not being ruled by the regulations though he has been slammed on the knuckles for promoting porkies as truth...

In our favour though, here, we sail as closely to the truth as possible... For example, if I say Tony Abbott is an idiot, by this I mean one has to understand that he is a hypocrite but if he does not recognise this qualification himself, then he is an idiot. I hope I'm clear in my own head about this... I could be wrong though... See toon at top...

 

From Independent Australia

Australia’s press pack will tell you that there is nothing wrong with the Australian media ethics. Anyway who has been reading IA or watching ABC Media Watch for any time knows that this is simply not true. This story further demonstrates how our media can run roughshod over individuals they deem irrelevant or insignificant. Ideally, Australia needs a full and comprehensive Leveson style Inquiry to root out the corruption in our press, but failing that, a proper independent regulator that isn’t completely compromised by the organisations paying its bills would be an important start. The current system doesn’t work — and it demonstrably doesn’t, as we have seen in this story.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/unfairfax-and-the-tame-toothless-tiger/

 

If I was David Donovan, I would not try to associate IA with the trash that Media Watch is... perhaps he is not doing so,  but this paragraph would then seem to be written in a confusing manner...