Conroy crushes freedom of speech

[Deleted]

Yet not a peep from the lefties! Australia becomes the first modern democracy to identify, filter and ban free speech whilst not in a state of war .. an extraordinary attempt to withhold justifiable criticism of the Labor Party government.



Press freedom is public freedom

The Daily Telegraph
March 13, 2013 12:00AM



_{Julia Gillard's henchman Communications Minister Stephen Conroy channels Joseph Stalin. Source: The Daily Telegraph}



FREEDOM of the press is a phrase we've heard a lot from Stephen Conroy recently. And yet it is now clear that he has no idea what those words mean.

The sweeping restrictions announced by the Communications Minister are the last refuge of a government which, unable to inspire positive news coverage through positive action, has now resorted to trying to enforce it.

Indeed, the crusade for more media restriction is so hamfisted and transparently biased it is a perfect example of the bloody-minded politicking which has made Labor so unpopular.

The initial Finkelstein inquiry was of course announced in the wake of the phone hacking and bribery scandal in the UK which embroiled News International, whose only relationship to News Limited, publisher of The Daily Telegraph, in Australia is a shared parent company.

Despite this Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the publisher of this newspaper had "hard questions to answer" - although could not name those questions, let alone answer them. Instead News Limited commissioned an independent root and branch, line by line inquiry that found precisely zero evidence of any such practices in Australia.

The fact is no serious figure has even hinted at these appalling practices taking place locally and yet the government's inquiry and its posturing was clearly constructed to imply just that. This is real dogwhistle politics .

But while the government let that imputation float in the ether to corrupt public faith in its news providers, it was pursuing its own agenda of attempting to constrain a press that was critical of Labor's shortcomings.

As the saying goes, you should never hold an inquiry unless you know what the outcome will be, and that outcome became plain in Senator Conroy's announcement.

This bully-boy policy, which the government is attempting to push through in four days compared to 18 months for the convergence review, and refuses to negotiate on, is a blunt political weapon through and through which attempts to divide and conquer. Senator Conroy throws a sop to Channel 9 by flagging a merger with Southern Cross that will increase TV concentration in regional areas and dangles a carrot to Seven West Media by indicating its own self-regulatory body could be part of the new "Public Interest Media Advocate".

Which brings us to the most Orwellian aspect of the proposed reforms - a government appointed body which will apply a "public interest test" for media mergers and, more chillingly, determine whether the Australian Press Council and newspapers maintain standards - standards that presumably the government or its so-called "independent" watchdog itself will determine.

As the respected Fairfax columnist Peter Hartcher observed, this is a solution in search of a problem. More worryingly, it is both a mechanism for politicians to deflect criticism and a gateway to government control of the press - and beyond that gate lies a dark and dangerous road.

Thomas Jefferson knew this when, despite being frequently castigated by the newspapers of his day, he said: "If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter." Why? Because as he declared: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

That is what freedom of the press means: The right of the media - as a conduit for the public and a scrutineer of power - to criticise and even curse those who rule us.

To curb that is to control it. And to control it is to crush it.

[geopol]

What bloody bullshit. The Daily tele is the mouthpiece of rampant fascism on behalf ot its maniacal power-hungry bastard owners and their missioary like dumb-em down journalists The Tele just shows the need for the likes of Conroy....Stuipidity needs to be assaulted at every chance and we must al applaud the new move to entrench standards...

[Deleted]

Spoken like a true comrade. Gag

[pim]

Rubbish, Stellar! The hysterical tone of the piece in the Daily Bellylaugh (the paper you can thrust) gives the lie to what it accuses Conroy of. The changes that were made to the media laws under the Howard Government, which allowed media ownership to be concentrated to the point that Murdoch has the lions share and Fairfax the rest, has been the greatest threat to freedom of speech and diversity of views.

[Deleted]

In other words, you cannot stomach any criticism of Gillard or Labor. You're just another comrade.

[pim]

C'mon Stellar, that's unworthy of you. You know that's not true. You can do better than that.

[Deleted]

Well would you rather that Fairfax have the lion's share and murdoch the rest??

[Deleted]

Consider this comrades. Obviously Juliar is worried about the slush fund affair. She's done everything she can to hush it up by ringing editors and bullying them and having journalists sacked ... but still some won't be browbeaten. So the Labor Party employs a paid army of hackers to destroy any weblog ciritical of Gillard and Labor.

The following article was written after consulting legal advisers ...


Rorts and scandals would go unreported

by: Gemma Jones
From: The Daily Telegraph
March 14, 2013 12:00AM


THE Obeid mining deals scandal, AWU slush fund affair and discovering the identities of sports cheats now have something in common.

Under draconian sanctions proposed by the government, the media would find it near-impossible to publish some of these stories - unless they obtained permission.

Under the reforms, media companies risk losing exemption from the Privacy Act. If that occurred, it would mean a journalist would have needed Prime Minister Julia Gillard's approval before publishing her exit interview from law firm Slater & Gordon as to what she knew of the AWU slush fund.

The first reports on the Obeid saga, before it reached ICAC, would also have required the Obeids' permission before details of the family's financial transactions were published.

Reporting on the NRL drugs crisis would also be stifled because it would be considered players' personal health information that could not be sought by a journalist.

Clayton Utz privacy expert Narelle Smythe said people subject to an investigative journalist's work could demand access to any information - potentially even the names of confidential sources.

Media academic Mark Pearson said the sanctions would be a nightmare: "What it will do is open up a bureaucratic nightmare for journalism organisations because the Privacy Act will apply to both the collection and the disclosure of personal information about people, which can be as much as a photograph of them."


Read more: www.news.com.au/national-news/nsw-act/rorts-and-scandals-would-go-unreported/story-fndo4bst-1226596774510#ixzz2NSsUnEvB

[Deleted]

Chinese media controls ....

[Deleted]

That photo Stellar highlights the hysteria Murdoch press has been able to drum up....Conroy's media controls is simply placing media that is now self control and censored into public hands, it is the public that controls what the media puts out as propaganda and bullshit bananas such as what the Telegraph has done, not
the government.

The issue of taking out media self control goes back to the Howard years and the consensus something had to be done, and here you are frothing at the mouth knowing little on the subject, making you look like a mad dog..grrrrr snap snarl fang without rhyme or reason.

[pim]

That gruesome and tasteless pic is most likely not a Chinese journalist but somebody who's fallen foul of the Chinese criminal law and has been sentenced to death. Could be a member of the Triads for all we know! And the thing is we don't know do we. So your pic is 100% inflammatory propaganda.

Regarding your question about whether fairfax or murdoch should have the lion's share, you really are being disingenuous, aren't you Stellar. Why should it come down to such a choice? Why not Murdoch and Fairfax and ... and ... and ...?

I don't blame the Murdoch media empire for going into meltdown over this. They are, after all, defending their turf and their power and I wouldn't expect them to do any differently. But the media landscape is changing. Drastically. And Rupert is 82 years old. The Australian, so one is told, loses money hand over fist but Rupert keeps it going because it's a useful platform for him as a flagship broadsheet in Australia. So it's subsidised from the rest of the Murdoch empire. I have no problem with that, but Rupert, thankfully, is mortal - as are we all. And his putative heirs and successors don't have the same connection with Australia. It's highly likely that in the medium term there's going to be a massive shakeout in the Murdoch media holdings in this country when Rupert shuffles off this mortal coil and takes his place in the Great Boardroom in Hell where I'm sure he'll outline his plan for a hostile takeover of Heaven.

Have a Bex and a lie down, Stellar. It ain't so bad! Things have a habit of sorting themselves out ...

[Deleted]

Yes, we do need to say more - that Michael Smith was taken off air for expressing political opinions about Juliar Gillard ... you know, the allegations of fraud with her boyfriend, etc etc. And interviewing Bob Kernohan.

[Deleted]

Have a Bex and a lie down, Stellar. It ain't so bad! Things have a habit of sorting themselves out ...

I never take analgesics or any sort of pain killers because I never need them. And btw, did you know that the production of Bex powders ceased oh, around 1975 or so.!!

[pim]

Mar 14, 2013 9:57:23 GMT 10 Gort said:

Taken from Michael Smith's web blog!

About Michael
Born and raised in Sydney, Michael Smith is best known for his time as a radio
host on Brisbane’s 4BC and Sydney’s 2UE stations. Prior to his career as a radio
presenter, Smith served in the Army for eight years before he left to join the
Victoria Police. After serving in the force for four years he spent time living
and working in Indonesia.


Need we say more?

Yes, you do! The information is neither here nor there. OK, he worked as a radio host (shock jock? Disc jockey?) on 4BC and 2UE, and before then the Army followed by the cops. I don't listen to stations like 4BC or 2UE and I tend not to like what they broadcast but there's nothing illegal in working for them. Army service, police officer ... what's wrong with that!! These are honorable callings. The other factoid is that he lived and worked in Indonesia. So what!! So did my brother and his wife.

You say "Need we say more?" which means that this data is all we need to condemn Michael Smith. I won't condemn him - not on the basis of the scanty factoids that you reproduce, Earl Grey.

[geopol]

Another bloody hysterical load of crap from Stella, on a par with the crap Murdoch dishes up in what he thinks is a "newspoaper"........Australia sinks deeper into the pool of shit replenished daily as it is with a stream of rubbish provided by cynical bastards, who think they are "journalists" while doing no more than serving the capitalist powerbrokers whose wants are their commands.....Whither the wide brown land....

[pim]

You know something? I've lived for 66 years and 3 months on this planet and today is the first time I've ever heard of this "Michael Smith".

Truly.

I don't feel deprived. I don't feel that my inner life has been in any way diminished by my ignorance of this man's existence - as I would have felt if only today I'd become aware of the existence of Mozart and his music.

So no, I'm not embarrassed by not being familiar with his frothing-at-the-mouth about Julia Gillard. And, yes, it is fine! In fact you should rejoice that some people are impervious to this sort of propaganda. In fact so impervious that they're even unaware of the existence of the purveyors of this propaganda.

Earl Grey, allow me to digress just for a moment to illustrate with an example. The connection will become obvious to you in a moment. My favourite character in Downton Abbey is the Dowager Countess played so brilliantly by Maggie Smith. She is such a snob that she doen't have to be hypocritical or dishonest. In one of the early episodes, when the heir to the estate is presented to the family, he is ruthlessly patronised as "middle class" which of course is exactly what he is - a lawyer. In a conversation at the dinner table, the heir's mother (and the mutual loathing between her and the Maggie Smith character is a wonderful sub-plot in the series) mentions something about doing XYZ "on the weekend" whereupon the Dowager Countess simply asks "What's a 'weekend' ?"

So far, I think that's the best line I've heard in the whole series.

That's also how I feel about how much I should know regarding Michael Smith.

[Deleted]

Since the increase in the privatisation of education and the dumbing down of the nation ....so escalates the the rabid press, and media.

[garfield]

The only question here is do we want to be able to decide for ourselves what is bullshit and what is not or do we want to outsource that decision to the labor party.

[geopol]

Murdoch bullshit could be more truthful and more in accord wioth good running of the media??? Crap and nonsense and only idiots like some on this board coul possibly think so. The rest who support the crap from the Tele are just self deluded charlatans...heads up arse, frightened prigs, lying prats etc.

[Deleted]

Gotta say ii in a language they uderstand....de gubberment ain't got control..ay...it a peoples censirship in it.

[slartibartfast]

Mar 14, 2013 12:17:27 GMT 10 @garfield said:

The only question here is do we want to be able to decide for ourselves what is bullshit and what is not or do we want to outsource that decision to the labor party.

If I want bullshit, I read Garfluff and Stellar.

[pim]

Mar 14, 2013 14:30:32 GMT 10 slartibartfast said:

Mar 14, 2013 12:17:27 GMT 10 @garfield said:

The only question here is do we want to be able to decide for ourselves what is bullshit and what is not or do we want to outsource that decision to the labor party.

If I want bullshit, I read Garfluff and Stellar.

[caskur]

Mar 14, 2013 14:30:32 GMT 10 slartibartfast said:

Mar 14, 2013 12:17:27 GMT 10 @garfield said:

The only question here is do we want to be able to decide for ourselves what is bullshit and what is not or do we want to outsource that decision to the labor party.

If I want bullshit, I read Garfluff and Stellar.

Why am I not on your list?

Get me on that list... I insist!

[Deleted]

Stellar needs to take a good dose of Bex and have a good lie down.

Fair-dinkum how anybody can take Sydney's Daily Telegraph seriously needs to have their head read.
The only people who do take the DT to be the paragon of truthfulness, are brain dead bogans.
So, why do you read it again, Stellar ?

[slartibartfast]

And she claims she doesn't listen to shock jocks, yet she quotes them. Just brilliant.