News Ltd boss Kim Williams sounds the alarm while it’s still legal: 

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.

The Daily Telegraph fights back while it’s still free: 

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/

The Hitler of media, Mr Murdoch and the Goebbels of the spruik, Mr Andrew Bolt, think that Conroy wants to muzzle their freedom to tell mega porkies, tall stories, fairy tales, lies, unscientific rants... they spread for power and profit...

Federal Minister Tanya Plibersek has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of sanctioning a culture of personal abuse and vilification after protesters yelled insults at the Prime Minister during yesterday's Question Time.

Ms Plibersek's comments came amid an acrimonious debate on the Government's proposed new media laws, with the front page of today's Daily Telegraph comparing Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to dictators like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Yesterday parliament was disrupted twice by members of the public shouting at Julia Gillard, including calling her "Ju-Liar".

Speaker Anna Burke ordered them to be removed and warned that interjections from the public gallery could lead to Parliament being closed down.

Ms Plibersek was heard calling out to Mr Abbott during the brouhaha, saying: "This is the culture you created".

Today she said Coalition MPs had spoken at an anti-carbon tax protest that was held outside parliament before Question Time.

"You've got Liberal Party members of Parliament out on the lawns whipping people up, you've got people out there in Liberal Party t-shirts who then come into the Parliament with the feeling that their views are sanctioned and their behaviour is sanctioned by the highest levels of the Liberal Party of Australia," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-13/abbott-blamed-for-culture-of-political-abuse/4569660

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Remember the Detritus principle in fictional Gaul... Sneaky Detritus spreads the dirt amongst the ordinary folks so they fight each others. Detritus does this deceitful trade on behalf of his boss, Caesar — or in the case of Tonicchio, Mr Murdoch... And where is the Detritus glory spruiked? — in the merde-och media of course...

Cry freedom

When it comes to freedom of speech, Institute of Public Affairs thinker Chris Berg is your go-to man. After all, he is the author of mighty tome In Defence of Freedom of Speech: From Ancient Greece to Andrew Bolt and on Tuesday issued a thundering press release denouncing Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's proposed media regulations as ''a de facto licensing scheme for the print media and a fundamental threat to freedom of the press''.

Great stuff, music to the ears of any hard-pressed reporter.

So of course CBD went straight to Berg to ask whether mining magnate Gina Rinehart's legal attack on Fairfax Media journalist Adele Ferguson had any freedom of speech consequences.

CBD phoned twice. By press time, Berg had yet to call back.

A key crossbencher has provided qualified support for the Gillard government's proposed media law reforms, with Bob Katter saying that he was concerned about ''biased'' and ''irresponsible'' reporting.

Mr Katter told Fairfax Media on Wednesday that while he would wait to see the legislation before deciding how he would vote, he agreed with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy that ''something needed to be done'' about an often irresponsible press.
The independent MP singled out News Ltd's Australian newspaper for criticism.

''It has had a constant determination to enforce a free market philosophy. It has never printed the other side,'' Mr Katter said.

''If you exercise that power in such an unbalanced manner . . . Newspapers do not necessarily belong to the proprietors, they have a responsibility to society.''

Mr Katter's comments come as News Limited waged a furious campaign against the media laws, with Sydney's Daily Telegraph photoshopping Senator Conroy's head onto the body of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/katter-backs-media-reforms-to-curb-biased-press-20130312-2fymv.html#ixzz2NOCqf6lm

News Limited claims to put consumers at the forefront of its journalism, but its dismal coverage of the proposed media laws shows where its true interests lie, writes Tim Dunlop.

If you want to understand the contempt in which audiences are held by many in the media, look no further than their collective response to the Gillard Government's proposed changes to media laws.

Rather than any sort of measured, rational discussion of the matter, let alone an objective presentation of the legislation itself that explained in accessible detail what the government was actually proposing, some of the industry's most powerful players have chosen instead to approach the matter with the shrillest of partisan voices and a cartoonish approach that simply presumes their audiences are idiots.

The Daily Telegraph led the way with a front-page in which a picture of the relevant Minister, Stephen Conroy, was juxtaposed with those of Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-un, Robert Mugabe and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The headline: "Conroy Joins Them."

(The Tele cleverly chose to not include Hitler in the list of dictators with whom to compare Conroy, a concession no doubt designed to illustrate their own reasonableness.)

Their heavy-handed approach continued inside the newspaper, with an article by journalist Gemma Jones entitled, 'Julia Gillard's henchman Stephen Conroy attacks freedom of the press', which was accompanied by a picture of Conroy photoshopped onto a picture of Stalin.

Yes, nothing quite says serious journalism like a bit of photoshopping.

The Telegraph also published a piece by News Ltd CEO Kim Williams which approached the issue with all the seriousness and subtlety you would expect from the guy ultimately in charge of the newspaper:

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.

That this is simply wrong, a nonsense overreaction padded with the weasel-word escape hatch of "effectively", is almost beside the point.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4570170.html

Unfortunately, too many people still pay to read the crap from News Limited and they have no idea it's crap, though these dummies get entertained by being stirred into a hanging frenzy... On the other side of the glass bowl, "clever" people get paid to write the outrageous opinionated crap — from Paul Kelly to Andrew Bolt. These clever people are no more intelligent than a piece of driftwood stirring mud.

For too long, these spruikers have taken the place of serious journalism. Just appearing serious in a photograph, while dishing crap is not journalism, especially at News Limited. Today, News has reached sewerage maximum capacity at a broken-down treatment plant.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has denied he is engendering a culture of abuse in politics and accused the Federal Government of trying to bully its critics into silence.

Proposed new media laws announced yesterday have triggered an acrimonious debate between commercial news bosses and the Government, with the Daily Telegraph's front page comparing Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to dictators like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Inside the paper Senator Conroy is depicted dressed as Stalin - the Soviet dictator blamed for the deaths of millions of Russians.

This morning Mr Abbott defended News Limited, telling Macquarie Radio that "the media changes that were rushed out yesterday appear to be a blatant attempt to bully the media, particularly to bully the News group, into going soft on its quite justifiable criticism of this Government."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-13/abbott-blamed-for-culture-of-political-abuse/4569660

Of course, when the crap hits the fan, Detritus always plays the innocence card... Nothing new... Always blame others... 

Online news site Crikey has responded to legal threats by agreeing to destroy leaked accounts indicating a steep decline in News Corporation's Australian newspaper business.

Crikey published what the Rupert Murdoch company calls internally "the blue book", the company's operating accounts for all its businesses.

The documents, which date from last year, show News Corp's print and digital publications were suffering from large falls in revenue, with flagship paper The Australian losing $27 million.

Late on Thursday afternoon Crikey removed hundreds of pages of the documents.

News Corp's chief executive Julian Clarke has dismissed the revelations as "yesterday's news".

"The Australian is our premium product, we love it dearly, it's doing very, very well and quite frankly, what [has been] published is 14 months old, ask me about what's happened in the last 12 months," he said.

"Just have a look at our assets though ... if you didn't want to own The Australian, there would be something wrong with you. It is absolutely the go-to newspaper in this country."

News Corp's chief executive until last year, Kim Williams, has rejected suggestions he is the source of the leak.

He has also poured cold water on the current management's suggestion that things have improved since.

"I'd be very surprised if the trends have not continued, because the trends were pretty indelible when I arrived at the company," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-21/crikey-to-destroy-leaked-accounts-showing-news-corp-decline/5687988