Wayne Swan yesterday sharpened his attack on the mining billionaire by suggesting
her designs on Fairfax Media endangered democracy.
The biggest threat to democracy is the fact that Swan made that statement.
Fairfax are in trouble because the people stopped buying their newspaper and I would suggest the reason is that they were catering to a small inner city market that enjoyed reading about the evils of conservatives as they sipped their latte.
To continually support a government as bad as we have now is economic and ideological nonsense. To not call the government to order over even one of their many incompetent, class driven stuff-ups is head-in-the-sand reporting and by definition looses readership.
Gina Rinehart’s involvement is driving the ALP/Green Earthians crazy.
Victorian MP Steve Gibbons called for laws to empower a new authority to oversee media behaviour and impose harsh penalties on those who breached standards.
I presume “breaching standards” only refers to media that refuse to sign up to the ALP supporters group.
The motion, which Mr Gibbons wanted to be debated in parliament on Monday, argues that the media industry has lost its “social licence to operate” and must face greater government control. “Concentration of news media ownership in the hands of a few represents, prima facie, a competitive market failure requiring compensatory regulation to ensure socially acceptable outcomes,” his motion states.
This is dangerous. We don’t want the government interfering in media control. We already have a media control mechanism in place – if the readers don’t like what they read, they stop buying the newspaper.
Gina Rinehart wants board representation for her money and she is entitled to it. It also appears she isn’t interested in abiding with Fairfax charter of editorial independence.
So what. The charter isn’t the driving force of what appears in the press. It is the mindset of the Editor and journalists that drive copy. If the majority ownership on the board don’t like the editorial stand then they can be easily replaced.
And I suspect there will be some replacements in coming days.
The Green Earthians Ludlam shows just how out of touch with the world he is;
Greens senator Scott Ludlam wrote yesterday to Senator Conroy and opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull, asking them to back legislation that would impose fines or other penalties on Mrs Rinehart if she breached the Fairfax charter.
The Fairfax charter isn’t a law, you dropkick. It’s a feel good statement to try and head off any conservative writings in Fairfax media. You can’t legislate against something that isn’t already legislated.
What next, a law to ban Andrew bolt from ever having a position with Fairfax?
Here’s something else for the ALP/Green Earthians to panic about. News Corporation has made a
bid for Fox News.
For News, a successful bid would double its stake in pay TV business Foxtel to
50 per cent
Great stuff all round.
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