An Accomplished Woman and a News Corporation:: So Unfair, so Unbalanced

By Uthers Say

This narrative is a story about a News Corporation that dominated Australian media during the Gillard years and the extent it was prepared to go to, to inflict its corporate will on the people of Australia.
It may explain how a government that not only survived the GFC without going into recession but continued to outperform almost every country in the world has for the duration of its term looked like it was headed for a crushing defeat at the hands of voters who had been convinced that their government had not only done a bad job but was possibly the worst ever, and maybe the worst in the world.
The sentiment of the people could have been echoed by the American Chairman of the News Corporation on 19 May 2013, “Oz polls show nothing can save this miserable government. Election cannot come soon enough. People decided and tuned out months ago.”
At that stage for more than two years the assets of the Chairman’s corporation had been working tireless to shape the sentiment of the Australian people to harmonize with those of the Chairman with a narrative that was at odds with much of the evidence of this period.
The bubble that the assets of the News Corporation set up around the Australian people can best be exemplified by the occasion in 2011 when Australia was adjudged to have AAA credit rating by all three major assessment agencies. This was acknowledgment based on statistics and indicators of performance by international agencies of the quality of the Australian economy and the quality of the government that set the levers in place.
The same month, Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph was telling Australians that “the last four years have been disastrous for Australia… There have been broken promises, billions lost and wasteful spending and economic mismanagement and sheer incompetence.”
It was sheer Murdoch media not letting facts, evidence and dictionary meaning of words get in the way of the agenda of the corporation that required regime change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483500072

Book preview

media.

Part 1: Introduction

The Australian Prime Minister and the Chairman of the News Corporation.

Chapter 1

A Prime Minister and a man who built a News Corporation.

Australia’s first female Prime Minister

Julia Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister Australia on 24th of June 2010.

She had been elected leader of her party unopposed. She had previously served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and Social Inclusion in a Labor government led by Kevin Rudd. Her election as leader by Caucus took members of the press gallery by complete surprise.

The unusual event which saw the first term Prime Minister deposed was a complex matter. In part it was a result of the whole government facing a number of problems which were threatening its re-election which was due within months. In part it was due to the Murdoch media in particular having become very critical of the then Prime Minister especially with regard to the proposed mining tax. In part it was also the result of Kevin Rudd’s style which was not collegial enough for some of his colleagues. In part it was also due to Kevin Rudd’s inability to state policies and arguments simply. The leadership spill was the culmination of many factors but the support for the deposed leader was at levels such that he decided not to re-contest the leadership.

Despite all the bleatings of the army of journalists who did not foresee the leadership change, the only people who could have voted in a ballot for leader were elected members of the government either in the House of Representatives or the Senate. There was not one faceless man eligible to vote in that election. The men and women from among whom former prime minister decided he did not have sufficient support to make a contest of the ballot had in every case had to face an electorate to earn the right to make the decision as to whom would lead their party. Their faces were much better known and accessible than those of the men who sat in faraway boardrooms and pulled strings of their hired hands who chorused faceless men, coup, assassination and blood on the floor.

There was no blood on the Prime Minister’s hands before; there was blood on the Prime Minister’s hands

At the time Julia Gillard assumed the leadership of the party and became Prime Minister of Australia the Herald Sun of 24 June 2010 had the following comment,

Julia Gillard has no blood on the hands after Kevin Rudd’s dramatic removal from power according to the Australian public...

That was before the Australian public was told again and again and again by the same journalists who had no idea the leadership change was in the offing that the Prime Minister had blood on her hands.

The article at the start of the Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard went on to say that a poll conducted found, the blame for Mr Rudd’s demise rested with the ex-PM himself... Specifically the article said that one in two people surveyed said that Kevin Rudd was most to blame for the historic change.

Fewer than 2% said the Prime Minister Julia Gillard deserved most of the blame.

But that was before the assets of the News Ltd press began their relentless assault on the Prime Minister. The news limited media, including the public broadcaster, which was dwarfed by the dominance of News Ltd were only too happy to follow the lead with me too journalism and a period spanning years of groupthink journalism followed which did a great disservice to the Australian people. It was almost a competition among people trusted by the community as journalists thinking as if with one mind to see who could say Kevin Rudd, assassination, knifings, coups, leadership challenges, divisions in the government, people hate Julia Gillard, stabbed in the back or any variation or combination of these more than anyone else in Australia’s news limited media.

Soon after the election of 2010 which saw the negotiating skills of Julia Gillard enable the swearing-in of the minority Labor government the group thinkers of Australian journalism who were completely unaware of the leadership challenge that brought Julia Gillard to the leadership of her party began their week to week surmising of leadership challenges that they predicted would see the demise of the Prime Minister. After 30 months of this never-ending story that dominated Australia’s newspapers and news broadcasts in March 2013 with the election date already announced for September Australia’s journalists were just as unrelenting with their compulsive desire which had become an unhealthy obsession to have the Australian Prime Minister removed by her colleagues.

The media Baron who once was an Australian

In 2010 News Corporation was the media colossus that dominated the Australian media scene. It controlled two thirds of the newspapers in Australia, employed more journalist than any other entity and those journalists had access to the range of Australia’s media assets not owned by the News Corporation. Its Australian operations operated under the label of News Ltd.

The media Baron who built up the News Corporation into a worldwide media powerhouse was once an Australian before he took citizenships of the USA to further his commercial interests. He was a newspaper man who inherited a newspaper from his father and he had a reputation for hands-on involvement in his news delivery.

He was an early hero of people who were later saddened by the damage his media empire did to the business of delivering news and opinion. Despite that he was still a remarkable man in 2010 with great achievements, fabulous wealth and a media empire that spanned the globe.

But it was back in 1972 just after he had launched a national newspaper which he used to support a change of government in Australia after 23 years of Conservative rule that had the admiration and appreciation of many on the brink of adulthood for being a daring newspaper man prepared to challenge the status quo. Many owed their free university education, not being drafted into the military and perhaps sent to Vietnam, and other opportunities to the new government.

The media Baron quickly became disillusioned with the new government and in the election of 1976, The Australian which had given the Whitlam government a leg up four years earlier became its greatest critic and created a sense of panic about dysfunctional government in the community similar to that which the News Ltd press generated at regular intervals during the prime ministership of Julia Gillard.

The 1976 campaign to effect a change of government was much briefer and perhaps more substantive with the economy having been through a very difficult time. Yet 1976 was a time when journalists at The Australian went on strike to protest the unfair, unbalanced and unethical journalism of their own newspaper. So much had changed in the meantime and in 2010 senior journalists at the Australian spared nothing in trying to outdo each other in efforts to be their master’s voice.

Mr Murdoch in 2010 could sit comfortably atop his News Corporation confident that his minions would not wander far from the will of the hand that fed them.

This news Corp narrative covers some of that period from 2010 to 2013 when the forces of the News Corporation worked relentlessly to effect regime change in Australia and in particular to end the prime ministership of Julia Gillard.

If there is any melodrama in that last statement and perhaps a little hyperbole, this news Corp narrative would suggest that this is the work of an amateur compared to the melodrama and hyperbole inflicted on the Australian people by Australia’s professional journalist’s class.

Julia Gillard Best PM in Australia

30 months into the News Ltd campaign to discredit and denigrate the Prime Minister as part of a campaign to effect regime change, a website set up to portray another view- one that did not have access to Australia’s news limited media- had the following assessment,

Despite what the media spin. Gillard is our most successful PM in decades. Record Bills passed and biggest reforms in decades. Our economy is the envy of the world. Australian are now the wealthiest in the world. 12% super to come. Record personal savings. Low inflation. Increased pensions. Increased wages. Record pipeline investment. Record job creation. World best Carbon emissions lowering scheme in the world. 9% reduction in emissions. Ahead of target in the switch to renewables. Low interest rates. NBN. NDIS. Health funding reform. Aged care reform. Murray darling agreement. World biggest marine parks. Just think 12% super will give most $2,500 a year extra in super contributions. And average mortgage holders $3,500 a year better off. The Tax cut and compensation the Carbon tax brings pays entire Gas and electricity bill for the year, and puts money in pockets. (Example) Total energy bills = $600 a year. Total compensation $720. The Carbon tax is working a treat. .. Refugee policy beginning to work. Boats are slowing to a trickle. Our nation’s first paid maternity leave scheme. 20 month high in stock market. Strong super growth. Commodity prices (improving). Mining Tax beginning to rake in revenue. 5.4% unemployment. Our biggest problems is Obesity and a trickle of desperados trying to get in, to have a taste of the heaven we live in. But the Liberal owned media paint a different picture...

How about some fair and balanced

One job of the media is to hold the government to account (and the opposition too).

The Gillard government should have its policies scrutinized and constructive criticism is healthy for democracy. The Gillard government has its share of shortcomings and they should be held to account for them. Government policies deserve to be analysed and critiqued together with those of the alternative government.

But the theme of this News Corp Narrative is that the nature of news (information) and opinion that has been inflicted on the Australian people during this period has fallen far short of what is the legitimate role of ethical media. The group think that has enveloped Australian journalism has been dominated and plagued by the hard core that want to be players and not reporters and facilitators of civil discourse and debate.

This is a narrative suggesting that information and balance have been overshadowed by gossip, mischief making and deplorable absence of and respect for other views. The gossip has focussed on every miniscule bit of information about Kevin Rudd that can be drummed up into an excuse to question the legitimacy of the Prime Minister and repeat the mischievous suggestions of coups, assassinations, bloodletting and blood spilling allusions, faceless men allegations and premature predictions of the demise of the PM. The group thinks has manifest itself in the leadership challenge preoccupation but also in the uniform media response to the speech on sexism and misogyny and the group refusal to consider any of the accusations levelled at the leader of the opposition. It manifest itself in the late 2012 hyperventilation of the opposition and News Ltd press and their insistence that all media should join in the trawling through events from 18 years ago which had been examined so many times already in an effort to pin wrongdoing and perhaps a crime on the Prime Minister. The group think manifested itself early in 2013 with blanket criticism of the PM for announcing an election date so early, almost unanimous criticism and the worst possible spin for the resignation of two minister who were planning to retire after the next election, almost universal criticism of the PM’s decision to campaign (or spend time in) Western Sydney described by various members of the chorus as a stunt or more demeaning of their profession as a sleepover, the uniform obsession with the bad polls and the uniform reading of those polls as unavoidable doom for the government despite evidence that polls so far out from an election had been known to change and not one journalist, with the courage to say that the polls were only reflecting what their news limited journalists were telling the folk. Nobody in Australia’s news limited media was asking why coalition supporters and almost every News Ltd journalist was so anxious to get Rudd into the leadership before the election.

In a more rational setting the manufactured crisis would have been much ado about nothing.

But much more disturbing than the unrelenting negativity that accompanied the gossipy, snarky and superior tone adopted by the group thinkers of the chorus conducted by News Ltd professionals was the silencing or diminishing of information and narratives that did not suit those who had an indecent haste to dispatch the Australian PM and her government.

There was no credit given for guiding the country through the GFC with greater success than achieved in most developed countries. There was no allowance made for the decline in revenues caused by that event. There was little credit, if any, given to the government for presiding over an economy that by many metrics was the envy of the world with low unemployment, low interest rates, steady growth, and debt levels below those of many others developed countries and that satisfied all the credit rating agencies that Australia was one of a few countries in the world worthy of a AAA credit rating.

The next chapter will explore further whether Julia Gillard may be Australia’s best PM as described by fans whose voice could only be found in the far reaches of cyber space or was the woman an ongoing crisis for the nation, who must be dispatched at the earliest opportunity as those who dominated the air waves and the print media with ready access to peoples’ homes hysterically proclaimed.

Chapter 2

Many mediabots controlling the narratives for a news limited environment

The silenced narrative – Julia Gillard best PM

The last chapter included a quote from a group which saw the Prime Minister the news limited media denied credit to as our most successful PM in decades.

They made different choices about all the facts and evidence and narratives available from the Gillard years. Many of these were the narratives which were minimised by the narrative makers of the News Ltd boiler room during this period and were also minimized by the group thinkers ensconced in the bubble of the news limited media which others thought resulted from the dominance of one media conglomerate in the Australian media landscape.

The statement of those who saw Julia Gillard as the most successful PM of Australia in years, includes measurable indicators of success of an economy and of a country which in most fair and balanced media would in part be attributed to successful government. Certainly unfavourable indicators would be seen as a sign of some failure in government policy.

The statement includes much information and data which would need to be verified and assessed and then accepted, rejected or modified to come to a conclusion about the effectiveness of Julia Gillard and her government.

The statement does include some expressions of opinion which can be the subject of civil discourse and rational debate.

A summary of indicators, data and opinions in the statement which points to Julia Gillard as our most successful PM in decades follows:

Measurable Indicators

Low inflation

20 month high in stock market.

5.4% unemployment

Increased pensions.

Increased wages.

Our nation’s first paid maternity leave scheme.

Record pipeline investment.

Record job creation.

Low interest rates.

Data/ information subject to verification

Record Bills passed

Biggest reforms in decades

Our economy is the envy of the world

Australians are now the wealthiest in the world

12% super to come

Record personal savings

NBN.

NDIS.

Health funding reform.

Aged care reform.

Murray darling agreement.

World biggest marine parks.

9% reduction in emissions. Ahead of target in the switch to renewables.

12% super will give most $2,500 a year extra in super contributions.

And average mortgage holders $3,500 a year better off.

The Tax cut and compensation the Carbon tax brings pays entire Gas and electricity bill for the year, and puts money in pockets.

Commodity prices (improving).

Mining Tax beginning to rake in revenue.

Opinion, everyone has one

Gillard is our most successful PM in decades

But the Liberal owned media paint a different picture...

World best Carbon emissions lowering scheme in the world.

The Carbon tax is working a treat. ..

Our biggest problems is Obesity and a trickle of desperados trying to get in, to have a taste of the heaven we live in.

These opinions are the kinds of things that are open to discussion. But in the reality presented by Australia’s News Ltd media others thought these opinions were diminished, disregarded and unworthy of respect and dismissed. In their place driven by an agenda, namely to change the Prime Minister and the government, there was little room in Australia’s new limited media for much of the above during the time the Gillard government. Others thought that facts, indicators, dictionary meaning of words, and perspective had been sacrificed at this time to satisfy the expectations of those who controlled the media in Australia.

Narratives of a News Corporation for a news limited environment- Julia Gillard must go

An Australian freelance journalist, Alan Austin wrote in the Australian Independent Media Network website on March 15, 2013,

Most Murdoch publications are now merely spruikers for Conservative political causes which they advance with distortion and lies. The frequency and viciousness of these crusades increased markedly after Labour came to power in late 2007.

This News Corp Narratives is in part, an other account of the operations and impact of the dominant media player in Australia in the period of the Gillard government. The Corporation which employed more journalists in the English speaking world than anyone else set those journalists on a mission with laser like focus. It was as if an army of agents of the corporation acted as if directed from one mind, from one operation centre. It seemed there was not one in that collective who respected the Prime Minister or facts or fairness, let alone one who would speak loudly or consistently in defiance of the master’s voice. Nobody was hearing, let alone reporting, the drumbeat of stable government, low unemployment, low inflation, low interest rates, AAA credit rating from all three agencies, steady consistent growth, ground breaking climate change legislation, adequate safety net and health care system, education priorities backed by dollars, NDIS and NBN in process, peace and prosperity in the nation.

If there is an objective analysis of this period of minority government and an assessment is made of the performance of Australian journalism during this time it may point to a most shameful chapter in Australian journalism. Media has always had bias but what was different this time was the strangling of, if not death of diversity. The adherence to the narratives of the News Ltd by journalists not on the Murdoch payroll almost had a religious fervour.

In a period when there was so much to be proud about in the performance of Australia and its government, there was hardly a voice with the courage to shout that message with the same volume, energy, and consistency as the group thinkers that would not acknowledge any success of the government led by Julia Gillard and would not miss any opportunity to diminish, denigrate and worked relentlessly to dismiss Australia’s Prime Minister.

Measurable indicators

Any stories about welcome indicators such as low unemployment rate, low interest rates, jobs created, low inflation, storing up the safety net, improve services, and reductions in carbon emissions were drowned out by the never ending stories about leadership challenges that did not eventuate but worked a treat in efforts to delegitimise the Prime Minister. The media that had an insatiable appetite for this gossip of a Kevin Rudd variety and of course they blamed everyone else including Kevin Rudd and anyone who supported Kevin Rudd and anyone who could say Kevin Rudd in an orgy of Kevin Rudding (Ruddmania) as pathetic as it would having been boring in a media environment that still had a reasonable amount of diversity.

Any story about indicators of relative performances of the Australian economy including successes negotiating the effects of the GFC, about relative debt levels, about Triple-A credit ratings were minimised by clichés about big spending government, big fat toxic taxes, and where was the money coming from but most times whatever happened the mediabots said Kevin Rudd thought, said or did something or someone who knew of Kevin Rudd thought, said or did something.

The month in 2011 when Australia earned its