|
July 7, 2011
The News of the World phone hacking scandal is being interpreted as one of the great scandals in modern British media history. It is scandal involving criminality, incompetence, misjudgment , deception and depravity coupled to systematic blustering denial and ruthless attack. That's the Murdoch way.
Dave Brown
This raises questions about the role of the Murdoch media in a liberal democracy beyond that of the yellow of the British tabloid press given its media dominance, commercial and political power. As is well known, News Ltd uses its media power in the UK, the USA and Australia to defend, protect and fight for, and advance the conservative side of politics. It is unquestioningly accepted that a condition of success in British politics is to cosy up to and then please the world's most powerful media empire.
The politics of Murdoch's media is usually done in a black and white way that reduces political issues to a cartoon level, and in this the broadsheet, such as The Australian, is basically no different to the tabloids in Sydney and Melbourne.
Consider this commentary by Bernard Salt the demographer on the negativism around the issue of economic growth and development. Salt, who is well known for his articles in The Australian defending ‘Big Australia’, says:
All too often it seems that any form of urban growth is to be objected to or blocked, as is any form of property development. The reason being that to allow either is now popularly viewed as being tantamount to defiling the planet...And not only that, but the role and motive of property developers, let alone of a "shyster adviser" to the property industry, can only be to line their own pockets....It is therefore up to the citizenry, organised by often politically motivated propagandists, to block, stymie, and/or divert any form of property development. Don't you people get it? No development. At all. Anywhere. That's the only way we can avert environmental calamity and put the self-interested developers back in their box.
Salt stands for fact, reason and logic coupled to processes of the modern planning system against this irrationality of the anti-growth forces and the way that they use unfair and unreasonable tactics to block and stymie development projects.
Although there is anti-growth narrative--eg., the traditional anti-immigration, anti-globalization, and anti-growth greens who articulate a neo-Malthusianism-- that is not where the debates are about urban development. These are centred around placing limits to suburban development, infilling the older suburbs around public transport and restoring vibrancy and people to the inner city. The issues is how can development ensure the sustainability and liveability.b
What underpins Salt's ideology and that of the Australian and Murdoch is the Julian Simon/Matt Ridley techno-economic optimism + free markets that sees no limits to economic growth. This is a reduction of development, which involves sustainability and liveability (of the urban form), to economic growth or increased GDP. For the latter markets and technological innovation---without wise government bureaucrats guiding technological innovation---create prosperity.
Except that The Australian is opposed to technological innovation in renewable energy and opposed to using the market to address greenhouse gas emissions through an emissions trading scheme.
Update
The arrogant bully boy corporate culture of News Corp, with its tendency to deny and lie about the criminality, corruption, moral wrongness and civil liability of its journalistic practices at the News of the World would suggest that the overseas broadcasting contract should not be granted to Sky TV, which is run by and one-third owned by Murdoch interests. The part-Murdoch-owned Sky is trying to wrest the contract to run the Australia Network from the ABC.
It would be a great image for Australia if Murdoch gained the contract to run the Australia Network. This is a corporate culture that has been found to be characterized by criminality, incompetence, misjudgement and deception. There ought to be a ''fit and proper person'' test included in the Australia Network tender.
|
Murdoch: green policies will steal your freedom and bankrupt the economy. The future of human freedom, economic progress, and science itself depends on the outcome of the fight over climate change. The green charade must be exposed.