Bob Brown attacks the media
News Corporation are getting attacked by the Dark Forces as Bob Brown calls for an inquiry in the wake of the troubles in Britain. He wants to canvas new licensing requirements for major newspapers, new “fit and proper” character tests for their proprietors, new curbs on foreign entrants and a comprehensive review of media ownership “in light of the domination of News Limited in print media”.
In other words, he wants to muzzle News Limited
Ms Gillard said the media could head off criticism by lifting its game. “If I could put it as clearly as I can . . . ‘don’t write crap’,” she said. “Can’t be that hard. And when you have written complete crap, then I think you should correct it.”
Way to go PM…such class!
I can sort of understand; the ALP and the Greens have been getting a bit of stick from the media lately – since Julia was elected at least, and I can see they think it’s all a bit unfair.
But really, if you give the media ammo then they have a duty to report it. If you stuff up, and let’s face it, you have, the media’s duty is to tell the people – that’s what they exist for.
Because the Fairfax media see and report all through rose coloured glasses and recycle the governments line on everything, they of course, will not be a part of Bob’s inquiry.
Bob is so moved because News Corporations British arm, News International, have been caught out hacking phones and he sees it as grounds for attacking locally. Well, the News of the World is a tabloid paper and in Britain they do that type of stuff.
Not here…..Oh hang on The Age has form
The Australian, for example, just write it as they see it and to suggest that they should be called to order for not seeing life as Bob Brown does, reflects poorly on his idea of free press. The fact that they see Bob as silly and dangerous is because he is, and something like 80% plus see it that way and the more he makes these silly comments the more the figure will rise.
Silly man, silly woman.
Facebook
Twitter
Kev
You’ve got to be kidding. There’s a vast difference between hastily contrived allegations of leaks from an ALP database, and employing crims to hack into the phone of a murder victim. And of course publishing details of Gordon Brown’s son’s Cystic Fibrosis is apparently OK by News Limited.
Rupert and his family Mafia are in deep merde and they deserve to be.
The Fart of the Nation relegated a story about the News of the World’s criminality to page 9 on Tuesday in the print edition.
Today’s iPad Oz ignores the developments in both the USA and the UK and posts a non-story about the age, whose content differs from it’s heading. They must think their readers are stupid.
Hilarious.
I’m comparing News Corp AUSTRALIA with The Age not the NOW. I seem to recall an editor from the Age saying, in effect, shush – stop going on about the NOW – we are not entirely innocent.
I think the NOW guys guilty of hacking should be sacked and never allowed in the media again but I’m not to sure about just closing it down – people did read it – Poms seem to love that sort of stuff. I would also take a bit of convincing to believe that Murdoch ordered it.
You don’t like The Oz because it sees through the ALP stuff ups and does nothing more than report them. For that very reason I read it every day and have since it started – give or take absences on duty etc.
So they relegated the issue to page 9 on Tuesday – well that most probably reflects the views of their readers – something happened overseas with a tabloid newspaper – big deal…now lets get back to what ever Julia stuffed up today. The live meat export industry last week…is it the economy this week.
Time will tell.
And in the meantime Bob wants an inquiry simply because they take a different stance than he does. If they didn’t I wouldn’t read it.
Yes you are right, hacking the ALP database (not leaking, big difference)is worse than going after a few specific phones, think of the sort of info people send to their MPs, all of which goes into the database and any of which could have been trawled up.
The difference is I want them all jailed for their crimes, you want the people at news of the world jailed for their political views.
Bob Brown with his totalitarian nonsense about the Govt editing opinions in the papers really has to think ahead (since free speech is not one of his beliefs) and consider if he wants PM Abbott editing the papers in 2 years time.
Since when is paying coppers for information an expression of “political views”?BTW, the allegation is that the ALP database was leaked, and at this point all we have is allegations “reported” In rival media. In the case of the NOW scandal we see arrests and convictions.
“totalitarian nonsense” – this is already in place. Once democracy is compromised by the power of multinational media corporations we are well and truly in that place.
Electrac (like the Liberal party equivalent Feedback) can contain (and rightly so) very sensitive information that constituents might pass on to MP’s so that they can provide assistance to them. It is right and proper that MP’s have access to a database of this kind to ensure the highest levels of service and efficiency when dealing with what can be a large volume of requests and inquiries in MP’s offices. Confidential health, family and even financial information could be stored there.
When The Age hacked Electrac, they broke the law.
In a letter in today’s Australian, the Victorian ALP State Secretary Noah Carroll confirmed that The Age did not – in any respect – have permission to access this database, full of confidential records.
That is a crucial point.
Without that permission, the Age directly sanctioned and authorised by senior editor a blatant breach of the Commonwealth Crimes Act that prohibits unauthorised access to databases.
So, using a corruptly obtained password, from computers in the The Age’s very own premises, on at least three and probably many more occasions, the Age embarked on the wholly criminal enterprise of illegally entering Electrac, searching on many dozens of names, recording the information for later use and even, we are told, attempting to download the entire database onto The Age’s computers. At its worst that could have meant the confidential electoral enrolment and every other confidence told to an MP and recorded on Electrac could have been permanently in The Age’s possession for their use. Every Victorian could have been at risk.
the crime did not occur in an internet cafe or at a reporter’s home or in the confines of a public libary, they did it from the Age’s very own office, leaving a digital footprint of Fairfax-registered IP addresses while they hacked. Oops.
Kev
I suggest you Google the website of the Australian Press Council.
If you can (a) find what they laughingly call their principles (well hidden on the site) and (b) read the first one without falling over laughing considering the behavior of the Oz in the last few years, you’ll begin to appreciate what a toothless tiger the alleged “Council” is.
It is simply an old chums club designed to cover the collective arses of the media monoplies in this country.
It’s time some bright sunlight was shone on this crew. “Self-regulation” is an oxymoron.
I can’t help but think of grass houses and throwing stones.I consider the Fairfax press biased towards the left and lord knows what we would do if we brought TV into the mix with the ABC considering themselves Bob Browns private TV Station. You would think he was the leader of a major party the way the ABC quote him.
The problem is not bias, although there’s plenty of that about from both Left and Right. The elephant in the room is the concentration of media power. As time goes on, the media landscape follows market forces and more and more power is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations. There’s a parallel with what has happened to grocery retailers and the retail fuel market.
When it gets to the point that PMs have to wine and dine media moguls (and we passed that point long ago in this country) it’s a threat to democracy. No individual or corporation should have enough power over elected government to corrupt the democratic process. Recent events in the UK shows what happens when corporations develop so much power that they treat the law and ethics with complete contempt.
We need much stricter legislation to limit corporate media takeovers. Personally, I believe both Fairfax and News Limited should be broken down into smaller units, and the government owned or subsidized broadcast media (ABC and SBS) be decentralized and run with locally appointed boards – probably on a regional basis. ABC Radio in particular provides a high quality service to regional Australia. This is it’s strength, as its performance in recent natural disasters revealed, and should be maintained.
From my point of view most of the newspapers along with television and radio do not present the news. Rather they provide a news commentary.
When I was a lad the new may have been something like, ” The Prime Minister, Mr Holt, stated that we would not be withrawing troops from Vietnam and walking away from our American friends”. Mr Holt was speaking in parliament today during rowdy scenes during the censure motion moved by Mr Whitlam, the Leader of the Opposition…………..
Today such a story would be framed as:
Embattled Prime Minister Holt refused to with troops from Vietnam, despite our heavy casualities, for fearing of upsetting President Johnson. Mr Holt was speaking in parliament during rowdy scenes where 5 members were named by the Speaker…….
(Please do not atttack me beacause you do not like the story I use it as an example of how news presentation has changed.)
As a boy I could not understand the bias of Brisbane’s Sunday Truth on the 27 November 1972, whose headline read “VOTE LABOR”!
When the media ceases their constant commentary and revert to presenting the news in an unbiased manner life will be better.
I recognise the media plays role in helping to determine public opinion. It should not determine public opinion.
Our Prime Minister is correct, they should stop writing crap and present the news.
Peter
Interesting comment.
It reminds me of a time in 1974 when (to complete the units needed to finish my education degree), I did a Journalism subject. Back then (and I doubt it’s changed) we were told that Journalism had evolved way beyond reporting.
Journalism students were taught that they needed to develop a “narrative” (a story) and write any piece and any follow-up with that in mind. Their major focus is to sell newspapers, after all. There is little, if any attention applied to simply reporting the news. I think your post accurately observes this “evolution”.
“the allegation is that the ALP database was leaked”
Bullshit – Age scribblers various illegally accessed the ALP’s database and trolled through it looking for personal information to use in their abysmal maunderings. The Age also gleefully published stolen emails they and their ilk gleefully acquired from Julian ‘condom-leakage’ Assange.
The dissolute left doth protest too much, methinks.
Bobby Brown’s fascist call to ‘license’ (hate media) newspaper proprietors has even the myopic fools in the ‘gallery’ wondering what nut-job outburst he’ll deliver next. From one world government to ‘licensed’ journalism, Bobby Brown couldn’t prove the truth the Greens are water melons more powerfully if he tried.
Amusingly it’s now revealed the climate catastrophists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit hired Neil ‘News of the World phone-hacker’ Wallis to try and spin their way out of the dustbin of scientific malpheasance in which they had covered themselves with excreta. Fitting really… Publish shit, get covered in shit and use shit to try and wipe it off.
Oh, no need to worry about Fairfax, its collapsing now its left wing Green supporting drivel has driven away its once mighty readership. That is apart from a few members of the AGW happy-clappy crowd who pick it up for their daily ideological reinforcement.
Harry Buttle
Here’s a quote from today’s piece in the Oz by Chip Le Grand (p8) –
“there is no suggestion Austin or anyone else at the Age hacked email accounts. Barber suspects the hacking was done by a political opponent”.
Barber is the parliamentary leader of the Greens in Victoria.
So the Age has published something that was possibly hacked from a political database by a “political opponent”. This “political opponent” then leaked it to the paper. Maybe – we’re still dealing with an allegation.
That is your substance of what remains an allegation. I wonder who the “political opponent ” was? And I wonder how deep the Oz had to dig to conjure up this non-story, which its writer clearly admits does not accuse the Age of “hacking”?
The whole meme has the flavor of the classic seven year-old’s excuse “but mummy – everyone else was doing it”. There’s also chicanery in the headline which says “age poll story relied on hacked emails”. Juxtaposed with the NOW scandal, A lazy reader would assume from that the Age had behaved in the same way. Classic journalistic story tweaking – won’t wash, I’m afraid. Meanwhile Rupert and his dynasty sinks deeper in the mire.
Bullshit. their IP address was logged.
But certainly Barber is credible(sarcasm), the Age is a big supporter of the Greens and Barber wants to blame it on the Libs, well done inspector Clouseau, I’d say book em Danno, but for the little matter of the Age having its IP address repeatedly logged whilst trawling throgh the database. Technology. a wonderful thing.
What the Age did was far worse than hacking a few voicemails, they illegally hacked an electoral database. Again, you want the left to walk, I want those responsible at the Age and NOW to go to jail.
regardless, Ruperts empire will be around long after the Age has sunk without trace.
“Bullshit. their IP address was logged.”
And I call your bullshit. If there was evidence the police would be acting.
And you’re trying to tell me that Le Grand is lying to protect the Age? I didn’t rely on a report from the Age. That’s a quote from a contributor to the Oz. Look it up.
Apply for a job with the Fart of the Nation. You’ve got all the necessary qualifications. You’re making it up as you go along.
Ooooh bobby 17 red-herring etc etc etc is spinning like a top.
The Age has not refuted the allegations that:
ACCESSED the database for the first time at 4.43pm on November 18 2010 and using two computers logged in repeatedly over the next four days, the final access being on Monday, November 22 2010.
ENTERED a series of fake names as part of the log-in process using the password.
COPIED the names of everyone in one seat who was concerned about the issue of abortion.
TRAWLED the database to find references to the words gay, lesbian and Muslim as well as Liberals and Greens.
SEARCHED for the names of donors to the ALP.
Labor’s audit suggests The Age attempted to search the personal details of Victoria’s top cop Simon Overland. The name “Overland” was keyed into the database from an Age computer.
Other prominent Victorians targeted by The Age included 3AW’s Neil Mitchell, the ABC’s Jon Faine – as well as his son Jack Faine.
Yarra Councillor Stephen Jolly, former Melbourne lord mayor Kevin Chamberlin and millionaire pollster Gary Morgan also were targeted.
Prosecutions may follow if evidence sufficient to support a prosecution is forthcoming.
Now about Arsewipe Assange, The Age/Pravada on the Yarra and Sudneeee Morning Herald, when will these red-stripers be extradited and prosecuted for their part in the disgusting publication of private emails?
“spinning like a top?”
Let’s look at the facts.
News of the World –
1. 11000 pages of evidence.
2. 4 arrests so far – one an ex-editor.
3. 1 very senior policeman resigned.
4. One newspaper shut down.
5. FBI enquiry in USA.
6. Parliamentary committee tomorrow.
The Age –
1. An allegation.
Who’s spinning?
“When The Age hacked Electrac, they broke the law.”
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee goes bobby red-herring….
Amused to see bobby red-herring thinks the News of the World was a newspaper.
Next he’ll be telling us his ‘fave’ daily-reader, the ever unreliable ‘Green Left Weekly’ is a serious objective source of news.
Still, as he refuses to accept the Age and sundry other leftoid publishers of stolen emails have transgressed he obviously doesn’t believe a word of his anti-Murdoch squalling either.
Can’t have it both ways bobby red-herring. All on [jumpers] or all off.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/charges-against-journalists-an-attack-on-press-freedom-20130405-2hcos.html
The three – Royce Millar, Nick McKenzie and Ben Schneiders – have been charged with unauthorised access to restricted data and are to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates Court in May.
Fairfax Media understands a fourth person, former Melbourne city councillor Fraser Brindley, faces a similar charge.
The charges relate to a story published in November 2010. It reported the Victorian ALP had a database that held personal information about voters without their permission. The story revealed how the database included details of people’s health and finances, and personal or political beliefs.
Numbers, meet real world. real world, numbers.
19.07.11
Another high profile plod bites the dust….
What’s happened at the Age?
Oh ….shucks.
“What’s happened at the Age?”
Going broke.
“Another high profile plod bites the dust…”
Because the metropolitan Police hired a former employee of the News of the World when it was still Britain’s grubby, but most popular paper.
Geez, if Victorian coppers had such a sense of propriety Nixon and Overland would have stood down two years ago, straight after Nixon’s bushfire ‘hair do’ and ‘long dinner performance’.
The Age’s editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge spins away faster than Bobby red-herring, but ends up confessing to the crime.
The Australian reports: “This story came through entirely appropriate journalistic methods,” Ramadge said. “Entry to the ALP database came via a whistleblower who raised concerns about private information held on it. This whistleblower had authorised access to this material and we reported in the public interest.”
Sounds fair, but as the inestimable Andrew Landeryou points out: “The trouble with that is that just because someone gave The Age’s Royce Millar a password the newspaper didn’t as a result have permission to access Labor’s Electrac database, any more than if someone gave me the password to Royce Millar’s Betfair account that we’d be entitled to log-in, see what he’d bet on, and put a fiver on an ageing grey nag on Race 4 at Randwick. The law is pretty clear about all this.
The Age’s spin/defence doesn’t stand the slightest scrutiny. If they really had a “whistleblower” (and not just a corruptly obtained password) who had legal access to the database, then why did they repeatedly and brazenly access the database, without the ALP’s permission, from The Age’s computers, embarking on a wide range of searches, many completely unrelated to any story about databases. McKenzie, Millar and others (like Ben Schneiders) searched on a range of prominent Melburnians, family members, their girlfriends, subjects of later-published stories, their colleagues, you name it. It was not the high-minded pursuit of news they claim, it was sleazy, venal and, most importantly, blatantly illegal and outrageous.
Why didn’t they merely ask the whistleblower to print out the contents of it and pass it on? That wouldn’t have involved cyber-criminal hacking. The short answer – which is often the answer to explain criminality be it armed robbery or expense account fiddling – is that the temptation to do their own searching on a secret database from the convenience of their own premises was too much. They just couldn’t help themselves.”
The Fairfax circulation and share price continues to plummet. We’ll soon be rid of the comics it publishes.
“Still Britain’s most popular paper”
And
“amused to see that bobby red herring thinks the News of the World was a newspaper”
You’re contradicting yourself.
The red herring “look over there – a unicorn” meme as applied to the Age has no legs. Give it away, it’s embarrassing.
I can’t wait to watch Rupert and co front the committee tonight It’s streaming live on the ABC radio website. Should be riveting viewing.
Been in the UK since this story broke, never been a reader of the NOTW but apparently they had sales of over 2.5 million copies per issue. I personally read the Daily Mail and The Independent, the latter giving a very clear non political view on things, as far as I can ascertain at least. The newspapers in the UK take little notice of what Bob Brown thinks of the situation regarding the phone hacking, they probably don’t even know that he exists, what they seem to be more concerned about is the hacking of a phone that belonged to the victim of a murder and deleting messages on her message bank making her parents believe that she was still alive also the hacking of phone message banks of families belonging to soldiers that died in Afghanistan and other places. Of course with the exposure of this recently,( it had been investigated last year at some stage and swept under the carpet ),and the disclosure that a few Lords and politicians could be implicated that something has finally been done about it. Murdoch’s name is mud here at the moment and so it should be, he has renounced his Australian citizenship which all Australians should be thankful for, I too am looking forward to seeing him squirm on television.
“can’t wait to watch Rupert and co front the committee tonight It’s streaming live on the ABC radio website. Should be riveting viewing.”
It was. Typical lefty dickwad got well and truly owned by Rupe’s missus.
“You’re contradicting yourself.”
No 17 Bobby red-herring, you’re the only one who called it a newspaper. I worked for Murdoch in a real newspaper – the News of the World never considered to be anything other than a comic – just another ‘Red Top’. But then even Red Tops have more credibility than The Age and Sydenee Moaning Herald and of course your fave, Green Left Weekly and ‘Socialist Party Org’ which are clearly the origins of your talking points.
The WSJ makes a pertinent point: “The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian ‘condom leakage’ Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur.”
“Schadenfreude”, an interesting German word which fit’s 17 Bobby science-challenged Schadenfreude red-herring unicorn to a ‘T’.
Stick with German – you make more sense than when you attempt English.
Bless you my son:)
“Bless you my son:)”
Blöde Fotze