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March 18, 2013
The corporate press are acting the same in the UK as they are in Australia---trenchant opposition to steps beyond their own ineffective self-regulation to any form of regulation to make them more accountable for their consistently bad behaviour --- misinformation and misrepresentation--- instead of reporting fairly and accurately as they profess to do.
Accountability here minimally means an effective handling of complaints against the press given the history of neither the newspapers themselves nor the Press Complaints Commission doing anything effective about their bad behaviour.
The bullying corporate press, in acting in their self interest under the guise of freedom of speech are indifferent to the rights of the public, the ordinary people who are at risk from being trampled under foot by the consistent misuse of corporate power.
The press have turned the issue into a do-or-die battle against an independent press regulator that also has teeth and have become hysterical in their over the top commentary about the Gillard Government smashing the liberties (freedom of speech, freedom of the press ) they say they uphold and defend.
The swaggering corporate press are even opposed to the proposed moderate system of independent self-regulation in the form of balancing the rights of newspapers themselves to self-regulate with a degree of accountability and protection for the public from the lies, insults and mas deception.
They want to ensure they can be provocative even if that hair-chested strutting around means trampling over the public. They want to ensure that they remain above scrutiny, requiring no monitoring except from within their own ranks. This they reckon, is the best way to increase their readership and prevent their ongoing decline in circulation.
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I understand that Fairfax runs the following two mutually exclusive stories - on Friday.
Gillard was about to be bought down by Rudd supporters because of the Media reform agenda, and on Saturday Gillard was protected from Rudd supporters because of the Media reform agenda.