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June 21, 2003
I read this by Ken Parish on the proposed changes in the bill on media ownership that has just come before the Senate.
Ken is in a bit of an irritable mood these days. He says:
"I wonder when the lefties are going to wake up and start focusing on this vital issue instead of carrying on with an interminable and largely pointless carping monologue about Iraq and WMD."
(The Iraq stuff is about accountability Ken, and the making sure the Senate does its job as a countervailing power to a dominant executive. Democracy Ken democracy.)
Well, I've been keeping a bit of an eye on this media business myself because it also has to do with democracy. Tim Blair, of course, only sees the media only in terms of the market not democracy. Tim Dunlop rightly picks him up on it. But he reads the negotiations around Alston's legislation as bad news with only The Sphinx standing firm. This article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Geoff Kitney seems to be what Ken and Tim are working off. Farifax is runnning hard on the issue.
However, I thought that Ken's post was over the top. Mind you, I have another bout of the flu, so I'm not seeing things straight and my mind goes blank every now and again. So Ken's post could be just the public mask worn by Ken --you know stirring things up etc. by being outrageous. But then again it is a text that has its own autonomy irrespective of the author. The author's intentions are irrelevent. Its the text that matters.
So what does the text say? The key issue in the media ownership debate is nailed by Ken:
'...this should not be seen as a left-right issue. Freedom of speech and diversity of viewpoint are core liberal-democratic values irrespective of one's views on social democracy versus "market forces"'.
Well said. It is somemthing that those reductionists who assume that Australia is just the free market, then write about society and politics in liberal democracy, are blind to. They have no conception of civil society or deliberative democracy.
It was this paragraph in Ken's text that struck me:
"Communications Minister Richard Alston is on the verge of clinching a deal with the 4 Independent Senators which would see the effective abolition of Australia's current foreign and cross-media ownership laws, albeit with some minor concessions to the Independents which sound on their face to be almost meaningless."
Almost meaningless? Let us turn to a journalist who keeps a close on the political happenings in Canberra, is respected by the politicians, works hard and is in daily contact with the independents. That's Michelle Grattan. Not the headline of her text---Alston's media dream hits Senate reality. That is a very different interpretation to Ken's.
Michelle says about the substance of the demands made by the quartet of Indepndent Senators:
"The Government has already agreed to insert stronger local news content rules for regional TV broadcasters, and to extend to all markets a prohibition on owning a TV licence, a radio licence and a newspaper in one market. Under discussion is a demand for a specific amendment to ensure no one newspaper proprietor can have more than one metropolitan paper in one capital city."
Now that means something in Adelaide. It means that Channel 7 10 and 9 must have local news content rather than running news out of Melbourne with one regional story for local colouring. Giving our federal democracy a hand I would have thought.
And the extension of the prohibition bit ensures regional diversity in places like Eyre Peninsula, the Riverland or Mt Gambier. Regionalism is important in a globalised world---as Ken well knows being in Darwin.
And the specific amendment to ensure no one newspaper proprietor can have more than one metropolitan paper in one capital city? Well Ken, that means that in one newspaper towns, such as Adelaide, there is a future protection for a second newspaper starting up. As you accurately observe:
"The cost of media technology and the ability of large media proprietors to achieve economies of scale by leveraging content across a wide range of media formats mean that this is an industry with huge entry barriers and therefore extremely susceptible to monopoly (or duopoly) control."
So why do all the hard yards only to have Murdockh come and gobble you up? That little amendment prevents Murdoch from taking over the startups once they are up and running. It actually fosters competition and protects cmedia diversity.
In the light of these diversity considerations that foster regional democracy Ken's judgement, that:
"Scrapping of the existing rules would almost certainly mean that all electronic and print media would rapidly become completely dominated by just 2 major players: Packer and Murdoch"
is too one sided an interpretation. Ken's text implies that the Senate is buckling under the demands of a dominant executive to "deregulate media ownership almost completely," rather than using its power to enhance media diversity.
And that is not all. Ken's a'lmost meaningless' remark is misleading in relation to the ABC. Ken rightly says:
"In this context, the ongoing campaign to abolish or "gut" the ABC by the Tories and their pundit and blogosphere apologists takes on a particularly sinister tone. This situation exposes the neo-liberal "invisible hand" of the market mantra for the pernicious nonsense it is."
So what are the quartet of Independent Senators doing? Lets turn to Michelle Grattan who says that some of what Senator Lees wants for the ABC must stick in the Alston craw.
'She insists the national broadcaster has to get more money. "If Alston won't deal on the ABC, there'll be no deal," Lees said. "If the minister is not prepared to acknowledge the need for extra ABC funding we won't be proceeding."
She wants not only the extension of ABC news radio's coverage from about 70 per cent to more than 90 per cent of the country - which Alston is thought likely to give - but also extra funding so the ABC can restart its transmission from Townsville, where its station is mothballed, and can restore and extend its digital multichannelling, in particular resurrecting ABC Kids and Fly TV.'
Sounds like trying to defend the public broadcaster to me. That doesn't strike me as "almost meaningless."
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I might have shot from the lip too, but I'm still inclined to agree with Ken's pessimistic take. So far as Lees's position goes, this seems like a hell of a way to get more funding for the ABC!