AUSTRALIA'S MEDIA BECOMES "RUPERTISED"!

The current media politics in Australia have become mono-voiced and the mono-voice has taken its cue from the main monopolistic media broker in the country.

Have you noticed that with the one voice they are crying "GET GILLARD BY FAIR MEANS OR FOUL!"

I am not a Gillard fan - she and her ALP government have let down the Australian population and those who would hope to become part of that population, and they have failed us on many issues.

However, with one voice the media are trying to destroy a legally elected government and to prove that the natural government of the country is in the hands of the most conservative voices ever to shout from the rooftops ""WE SHALL GOVERN AND WE ALONE SHALL DECIDE WHO GOVERNS THE COUNTRY"!

The main voice has been the Murdoch-controlled media which is roughly 70 per cent of all media in Australia. But the other 30 per cent is more or less Fairfax media and the ABC which has thrown in its lot with the Murdoch gang to the extent that there is no possibility of ever obtaining fair and reasoned argument on that once august organisation.

From Keating onwards, all governments hve undermined and underfunded the ABC and of course the coup de grace was when Howard appointed Mark Scott as Managing Director of the organisation after he had already subverted journalism at Fairfax.

Journalists who might actually voice dissent and reason with sound arguments are on notice not to rock the media boats which give them their livelihoods - which are shrinking anyway, because alternative media are able to tell the truths which the main stream media (MSM) won't do - they are all supporting reactionary, right-wing, homophobic bigotry and worse.

Is this a media dictatorship taking over?

It certainly seems so!

Here is an interesting letter from The Age 0n 6 February 2013:

Media must pin down politicians

IT IS time the media accepted some responsibility for the contempt in which politicians seem to hold their constituents. Fatuous sound bites from doorstep interviews have become the basis for opinion pieces. When did fact checking and research go out of the journalistic kitbag?

The public has learnt to expect that politicians have difficulty with the truth, but it seems the media, caught up in the frenzy of being first with the news, are also losing credibility. Pinning politicians down to answer questions, and presenting in-depth analysis once were the basics of political journalists.

Policies and costings for every political party's platform should be demanded by the press and then properly scrutinised and reported by journalists. If journalists went back to basics, the freedom of the press would mean something. It would mean electors would be free to choose the government they want, knowing exactly what it is intending to do.

Greg Tuck, Warragul

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION TURNS 80 AND STILL BEHAVES LIKE AN 8-YEAR-OLD!

Mark Scott was appointed to head the ABC by the Howard government. Scott came from Fairfax media and brought his right-wing reactionary views with him to the new job.

As with SBS the ABC has been sliding backwards for the last 10 to 15 years and has now reached almost rock-bottom with its political judgement so extremely on the right that Genghis Khan and others look positively liberal by comparison.

Apart from the dumbing-down politics of this once great organisation, other actions on a day-to-day basis show that the ABC ignores listener complaints learns nothing from past mistakes and continues to perpetuate them.

Take the introduction to the television news at 7pm every night when we have the introduction saying "ABC News - ABC News - ABC News" to ensure that those of us who are moronic enough not to understand what is about to take place that we are about to get to see a news bulletin! Really!

As if that isn't bad enough, some other programme promos tell us this is "ABC1 - ABC1 - ABC1" telling us that we really are too dumb to know if we only hear it once we won't know that the TV station is actually ABC1 - surprise, surprise!

One of the reasons people like me have taken to blogging is because over the years we have written to organisations such as the ABC complaining about things like the above, only to be totally ignored.

One of the other major sins about which people have been complaining for years - at least those whose letters actually get published - is the endless promos for various new programmes - such that by the time we get to see them we often feel that they represent an anti-climax - will they live up to the hype? Sometimes yes, mostly no!

Another major sin - and this too is on the list of complaints - endlessly - is the one about music-over accompanying speech for many programmes. The music drowns out the speech so one doesn't know what has been promoted. Many broadcasters who are well-spoken and articulate are drowned out totally - Marion Arnold is one whose announcements usually suffer, together with most others too.

One of the other major problems, apart from the right-wing bias so obvious in news and current affairs programmes is the creeping in of religious music on Classic FM and support for zionism and totally ignoring of Palestinians.

Unfortunately for many of us there is no alternative, but these days when it all becomes unbearable we turn to CDs and DVDs and thank goodness for them!

FAIRFAX MANAGEMENT AND JOURNALISTS HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME!

Mark Scott moved from Fairfax to the ABC, and the ABC has followed a downward path on a similar trajectory to that of Fairfax in the ensuing years.

Fairfax management agenda has been on a particularly right-wing reactionary path since the Howard years, following a political direction set since at least 1996 onwards.

Instead of responding to what many of the Fairfax readers have hoped for over the years, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age journalists have allowed themselves to forget about in-depth investigative journalism, and being seduced into the reactionary maelstrom of gutter journalism at its worst.

Where stories cried out for "deep and meaningful" investigation into allegations and counter-allegations of various breaking-news issues, most journalists have gone for the superficial, meaningless slurs and innuendos, the latest of which is the story about Peter Slipper, Craig Thomson, James Ashby and Kathy Jackson.

Why is it that independent journalist investigators, people who are not working for Fairfax, News Limited, the ABC and other like-minded media outlets, managed to get the factual information so lacking in those organisations' reporting of the important parts of the story?

Is it because they illustrated graphically their determination to bring down the Federal government and cast aspersions on all those who support it in the current parliament to the extent that most Fairfax journalists have worn their politics on their sleeves, and in the process shown what their mettles are like as journalists and reporters.

Some of the most senior reporters at the Fairfax newspapers have become so reactionary in their reporting of stories from the current federal parliament that they could easily be mistaken for members of the opposition parties without too many doubts about their interests and aspirations.

The only difference Rinehart would make to the editorial direction of Fairfax is to put the stories in her own image.

As things stand at the moment, they are not far off!