Abbott policy switch 'after Murdoch chat'

Katharine Murphy

February 19, 2010
THE government has accused Tony Abbott of changing the Coalition's stance on a contentious media issue after having a private tete-a-tete with News Limited chief Rupert Murdoch.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the Coalition line on the controversial $250 million hand-out to the commercial TV networks changed soon after Mr Abbott's breakfast meeting with Mr Murdoch on Sunday.

The hand-out to the networks has infuriated News Limited, which believes it could damage its pay TV interests.

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There is no free lunch...

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Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says it was the "most natural thing in the world" for him to meet media owner Rupert Murdoch last week.

Mr Murdoch is a part-owner of the pay television company Foxtel, which is angry at the Government's decision to give a $250 million rebate to the free-to-air TV networks.

Mr Abbott did not reveal he had had the talks with Mr Murdoch when he criticised the Government's decision earlier this week.

This morning he told Channel Nine he used the meeting to present his ideas to Mr Murdoch.

"I did meet Rupert Murdoch, I'd never actually met Rupert Murdoch before," he said.

"And [it's the] most natural thing in the world I think for an Opposition Leader or a Prime Minister to meet with a highly influential Australian."

Asked if he was trying to influence the media mogul, Mr Abbott said: "Well look, I hope he liked me."

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And some loonies think the press has no influence on politics...

Gus, you would well know my feelings about anyone using my country's name. In nations who have paid dearly for establishing their standing in the world, especially the United States, such an act would bring down on the perpetrators all the power of US government – would it not?

Would we be entitled to claim that an article showing MADE in AUSTRALIA should immediately CHANGE its title if it is not?  I remember Rattus modified it when he was the Corporation’s PM even if only a small part was if fact made in Australia.  Typical was it not?

I don’t think that too many examples are needed to be convinced of the obscene gall of the multi-national Murdoch in being able to use our proud NATIONAL name as The Australian has done since 1974 when it was certainly NOT a national newspaper.

Why I complain so bitterly about this Gus is that my brothers and I served our nation, proudly named Australia, as did our military in the Boer War; the Boxer Rebellion; WW I; WW 2; Korea; Malaya; Vietnam; East Timor; various Pacific Islands and even in Cyprus.  

Those efforts and their associated sacrifices belong to The Australian people, definitely NOT to the money grabbing extreme Capitalist Murdoch’s grubby newspaper misnamed The Australian.

IMHO since Murdoch began soaking up the various Australian influential newspapers, local as well, I believe that they became part of his News Corp?  Isn’t that worldwide? And hasn’t he diversified his control to the heart of Australia – even our sport? And cheated as well? And broke the rules for having some five (5) clubs instead of only one?  And he still has the Broncos and the Melbourne Storm.

So far he and his apparently over paid mediocre journalists have literally got away with political murder – and it has to stop before he and his Lobbyists worldwide - have complete control of our minds - since we will eventually know nothing different than what they tell us.

I believe that we should win the argument for the misuse of our national title of Australia because every other nation has the same rights and I will next refer to the United Nations Charter which Rattus considered obsolete and ask for the help of a gutsy mob name GetUp.  I am currently a cranky old man like Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau.  NE OUBLIE.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has doubled its backing of the Republican party in advance of next month's mid-term elections by awarding $1m to an interest group that is leading the attack on Democratic candidates through political TV advertising.

The donation, revealed first by the website Politico, was made to the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has a stated intention to spend $75m on November's elections. Most of its money has gone into "attack adverts" targeted against Democratic candidates.

This is the second downpayment in three months by Murdoch to the Republican cause in its battle to give Barack Obama a bloody nose in the 2 November elections to the Senate and House of Representatives. In June, News Corporation gave $1m to the Republican Governors Association.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-rudd-experiment-hit-the-wall-20101001-16106.html

see toon at top.

Media academics writing about convergence tend to talk about the extraordinary convergence of media ownership in recent decades alongside the convergence of digital content and communications systems.

The convergence of ownership, and the resultant transfer of power to large media conglomerates, is as momentous as anything that's happening in technological terms, and it has happened in lockstep with technological development, rather than being disrupted by it.

Stephen Conroy’s draft terms of reference document for the Convergence Review talks a lot about the changes in digital content and communications initiatives like the NBN. But it tiptoes around what needs to be seen as the most significant long-term failing in Australian media policy: the extended erosion of diversity in Australia’s media markets.

The 300-pound gorilla in Australia’s media landscape is News Limited. In the UK, other media proprietors are fretting because News Corporation’s takeover of BSkyB will mean that, combined with their control of The Sun, The News of the World, The Times and The Sunday Times, their influence over Britain's media market will be too great.

If only we could say their influence was so limited in Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42468.html

Business Secretary Vince Cable will stay in cabinet despite "declaring war" on Rupert Murdoch, says Downing Street.

But he will be stripped of his powers to rule on Mr Murdoch's bid to take control of BSkyB, which will be handed to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Downing Street said David Cameron believed Mr Cable's comments about Mr Murdoch were "totally unacceptable and inappropriate".

Labour leader Ed Miliband said he would have sacked Mr Cable.

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said Downing Street's statement was a "humiliating slap in the face" for Mr Cable and although he had kept his job he was still in a "very awkward" position, with questions over his judgement after telling "complete strangers" highly sensitive political information.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12053656