She's sung already, the Age to go tabloid is the headline!

The Age has moving steadily to the right for a while - along with its core demographic of aging baby boomers. It has attempted to attract younger readers by turning a large part of the paper into a lifestyle magazine.

I am a long time subscriber but I find that I am reading less and less of the paper. I subconsciously skip any article by Michelle Grattan - she may have written an original piece back in the 80s but she has become tediously boring, conservative and predictable. Regular boring columns from political has-beens Peter Costello and Amanda Vanstone and the paid shills from the IPA are part of the Age's staple.

In some ways, Gina-fax will be a full-stop on a process that started a while ago. I now get most of my news and opinion from internet blogs. Feed readers allow me to sample the best of blogs and newspapers from across the world.

Count me in! The con is one of the few internet offerings that I would happily pay
to recieve.

I would also like to see The Conversation succeed.

As such, I've set up a recurring transfer of funds from my bank account via direct debit which I think of as my subscription. For those who are interested in doing the same The Conversation's banking details are listed here https://theconversation.edu.au/support_us

James the two are intertwined in this case. Concentration of media ownership in alignment with any ideological perspective is generally not the best idea. In the Soviet Union it was well understood that Pravda was fine if all you wanted to hear was the view of the Communist Party but generally useless for actual information. If Gina exerts editorial control in line with her personal opinions - and regardless of reality, that is a risk to the effective operation of the fourth estate.

Hi Grendelus, fair point, but if Rinehart wants to make a buck she'll both have to increase readership and differentiate Fairfax publications from News. It would be a crazy business decision to create a carbon copy of the Oz.

James,

Gina's not about making money from Fairfax - at least not directly. This is buying an outlet to spruik her "vision" for Australia ... this ugly amalgam of national and self-interest.

I stuck a link up somewhere today of Vice Commodore Monckton laying out the need for the extreme right to buy a media outlet in February - he was hoping for a satellite but got this instead. Jo Codling (Nova) and Andrew Blot get favourable mentions in dispatches. I thought I posted here but could have been elsewhere ... been busy today. If you'd like to see it let me know.

Don't be thinking of that small l liberal Australian as a model - a hotbed of extreme leftism by any decent standard - think more Fox News ...

Hi Peter - I'm sure she wants influence, but she won't have any if the Age and the SMH can't sell papers.

The Wall Street Journal - another quality Murdoch production.

Jack, the issue is diversity. You may not agree with the leftist media, assuming that this is even an appropriate label, but surely you can see why an Australian media with a single voice (in-line with Gina and Rupert's shared world view) is not a good thing.

so where was the outcry about "diversity" when the left controlled the media?
If the echo chamber of the dinosaur media that controlled it for decades was all that good, it would have prospered instead of lost the race in a public where alternative points of view were allowed. Even Pravda today has more diversity in opinion than most of the leftist media. they had to do it to gain some credibility so lacking in many of the dinosaur media today. It has nothing to do with monopolies, which all contain the seeds of their own destruction. It is called those who live by the sword of bias and deceit will die by it. And it will happen to The Age or The Herald under the new regime just as it happened when the left controlled them.

Jack, when and where did the left control the Australian media?

Now you might be able to make a case that there are "left-leaning" journalists about - you know Moscow Ross Gittins and the deeply sinister Mike Carlton but is this control?

Or is it all that seedy investigative stuff you find disturbingly subversive?

Sounds to me you just want to be rid of people you disagree with rather than see a diverse spread of views ... that's OK but don't pretend the left controls what you read.

Just say you want Andrew Bolt and an editorial penned by Alan Jones over your morning tea. Every second taxi-driver in the country will agree.

I encourage debate and discussion, unlike the ABC or BBC. The problem that the left has is that they think they are the center. They are not. But they judge the world based upon their point of view. So their supporters think that what they read, and agree with, is the center. It is not. It is why those who are exposed to other points of view, and come up with a different analysis of "the truth" are viewed as "extremists" as the author of this thread does and then comdemn dissent as a hostile takeover of their domain when in fact they cannot deal with those who think differently than they do. They hate the loss of influence and control that comes with people exposed to an alternate view of the world. Much like Putin.

No Jack you're right - the centre is obviously over there somewhere - closer to the right and down a bit - well down quite a lot really.

Let's see how Gina's new toy covers the impact of the high dollar on Australian manufacturing, or the progress of land claims on mining sites, or the carbon price - in fact I wonder if any issue that conflicts with her real commercial interests will ever be covered again. Debate and discussion - you think Gina's interested in that? Really?

I look forward to the breathless reports from the first SMH/Age journalist to be embedded with the next "Convoy of No Consequence".

Well there you go. Thinking that the discredited media is the source of information in today's internet world is a bit unobservant of reality. if Gina screws up as badly as those who killed the papers she has bought for pennies to the dollar, then she will pay the same price that they have. The end of their influence, which is what the left hates the most. Much like the Greek populace that thought they could live the good life without having to live the real life of hard work. I look forward to some balance of real reporting about things such as global warming instead of the nonsense that is masked as "science" under the "hide the decline" hockey sticks of the left.

"Andrew co-founded The Conversation. He previously edited The Age, The Observer (London), The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. He was Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue (London), and he founded and edited the Sunday Herald in Scotland. He is the Asia-Pacific Director for Innovation Media."

Enough said. All left publications there, so I'm sure his opinion isn't biased.

The conversation might be able to champion their independence but not that the publication is fair and unbiased. Would James suggest Fairfax cannot exercise the same editorial controls as the patrons of The Conversation?

In order to engage in discussion on the subject of "left" media, amongst which you count the publications cited immediately above, I have to demand of you some explanation of what you mean by "left".

Don't shirk this.

There are many understandings of what constitutes "left" and as many again as to what constitutes "left media". We may not agree about any of them but at least if you define what you mean then it might be possible to respond meaningfully to your concerns without becoming entangled in the usual confusions about, for example, the differences between the "left" and "liberal" or between liberal individualism and communitarianism.

For clarity I'd suggest we anchor the terminological discussion in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/).

The Big Issue? Of course markus - it is so obvious now that you point it out - compassion for the less fortunate is so not an Ayn Rand thing to do. Andrew Jaspan should be ashamed of himself - he should try to be more like Gina - grab, grab, grab and remember no playing favourites with family.

Doubtful that philosophy actually defines a truly static conception of political thought.

Nevertheless, Liberals or the right in a political context, insist that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live her life —including employing her labor and her capital — as she sees fit. It has been argued, for example, that all rights, including liberty rights, are forms of property; others have maintained that property is itself a form of freedom (Gaus, 1994; Steiner, 1994). A market order based on private property is thus seen as an embodiment of freedom, unless people are free to make contracts, or unless they are free to save their income, or free to run enterprises when they have obtained the capital, they are not really free.

Liberals insist that private property is the only effective means for the protection of liberty. Here the idea is that the dispersion of power that results from a free market economy based on private property protects the liberty of citizens against encroachments by the state. As F.A. Hayek argues, ‘There can be no freedom of press if the instruments of printing are under government control, no freedom of assembly if the needed rooms are so controlled, no freedom of movement if the means of transport are a government monopoly’ (1978: 149).

Whereas, progressives or the left in a political context insist individualism of the classical liberal tradition is misguided. Progressives reject social and political life as the aggregation of inherently conflicting private interests. Instead, they seek to view individuals relationally, where an ethically desirable social order is understood as an organism in which the well-being of each part was tied to the well-being of the whole.
Progressives insist on change of liberal societies for greater equality amongst citizens, which through the ages has been shown not only to be unsustainable but often destructive.

Wiki explains, the Left includes progressives, social liberals, greens, social democrats, socialists, communists, and anarchists. The Right includes conservatives, reactionaries, capitalists, monarchists, nationalists, and fascists.

The political spectrum in Australia is centralist and I for one hope it remains so. Regardless of the insistence of the radical greens and academics that proclaim there needs to be world governance for the protection of humans from a ‘non-existent’ threat. The author of this article has shown his leftist hand with by the pejorative term (Gina-fax). IMO his showing of that opinion was lamentable given she holds less than 20% of the capital.

So what would an acceptable media owner profile look like if not Gina the Miner?
A Super Fund with vested interest in financial markets and their manipulation.
A large telco with a vested interest in curtailing the NBN.
A large union owned investment vehicle with a vested interest in promoting restrictive work practices and anti Liberal Party sentiment.
A car industry investment vehicle with a vested interest in continuing car subsidies and restricting free trade.
The list goes on.
And none of them would give up their right to direct the "product" content if it meant improving returns.
Just how do you see this panning out to your satisfaction?

None of the above actually Ken.

Ideally I'd like to see Australian newspapers run by folks who just want to make a quid out of it - who rely on a solid and hopefully expanding readership attracted by good journalism, skilful writing, humour and basically quality of content ... who leave their journalists alone to write news and analysis without the routine slanting and interference from the owners that occurs for example whenever there's something like the Leveson Inquiry in Braitain - have you been watching the coverage of that debacle or the NOTW in Rupert Moloch's papers and TV? If it's damaging to Rupert it doesn't get a run... simple.

Now Gina has no interest in making money out of a newspaper .- she makes her dough elsewhere. Rather ownership of Fairfax - as she has said - is designed to give her and her fellow hole diggers a platform to present their interests, to skew the public debate and to present their vested interests as facts.

There was an interesting report on a talk given by Prince Regent Lord Viscount Monckton at a mining council dinner in Perth a few months back where he made exactly this proposal. I'll track it down when I have a tick.

And heck - Fairfax is just lunch money for Gina.

This breaking news from Crikey:

"Fairfax Media will move The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to a tabloid and sack 1900 staff — including about 380 editorial positions — as part of a massive cost-cutting drive to save the media giant from corporate oblivion."

Staff's best option is an immediate burnt earth policy: refuse to publish either paper and drive Fairfax into the ground. Thereafter, see what rises from the ashes.

what will arise from the ashes is a public that will read a newspaper that is convenient to read on the train instead of the original broadsheet that was best suited to those reading them in their lounge chairs. The content is what matters, and the Herald and The Age have failed on so many dimensions as journalism that it is amazing that anyone would pay a farthing for them.

So, Sir Frank was a model of decorum to which Gina should aspire? Help!

You clearly miss the point. I was rebutting the observation that 19 per cent ownership ( or complete in the case of Packer) means that the one with the power will automatically manipulate media content. I can give examples of plenty who did not have the guts to say no. They have a shorter life span than those that do.

The danger to democracy lies not with Gina Rinehart getting two seats on the board of Fairfax and, therefore, the power to stifle reasoned political commentary. The danger lies in government pursuing its own power to suppress that commentary through regulation.

Witness Government Whip Joel Fitzgibbon’s recent attempt to cite the bottom-of-the barrel behavior of A Current Affair and Today Tonight in the Craig Thomson affair as evidence of the need for government regulation.

Let’s ignore the hypocrisy of his feigned indignation. That has been well covered. Instead, let’s go straight to the Finkelstein Report.

So single minded was its pursuit of News Ltd, it overlooked the appalling standard of electronic media news reporting and commentary, that it all but ignored the sins of electronic media.

Yet Mr Fitzgibbon says the actions of ACA and Today Tonight in the Thomson affair vindicate the Report’s recommendations. Lifting the actions of channels Seven and Nine from their context to support the government’s attempts at censorship is as scurrilous a misuse of media as the so-called unacceptable behavior of Mr Fitzgibbon’s newspaper quarry.

Mr Fitzgibbon says he has read the Finkelstein Report. If that is so, either he does not understand it and should not comment, or he does understand it and misrepresents it as a protector of democracy.

The Report was shoddy. Much of what it presented as social research was a cobbled together mish-mash of textbook commentary, often of that written in an era in which TV did not exist, and, as in England of the time, when there was not even any commercial radio. Some cited research dates back to 1947. It also quoted communication theory of Wilbur Schramm written in the 1950s, an era that has little relevance to the different, diverse society of today. Yes, the basic principles of Schramm’s model might not have changed. But the noise on the communication channel is of a type and quantity that he could not have imagined.

I do not have the space to pick this research apart item by item. Suffice it to say that, in the main, it was selective and inadequate.

However, as one example, is the Report’s frequent recitation of the ABC as the most reliable news source. It tries to support this contention with research dating back to a previous era in which totally different parameters prevailed.

Also, it did not acknowledge the contradiction of more recent research, which lauds the ABC as the most reliable news source, but overlooks the fact that most people—a significant majority—get their news from other sources. In short, the researchers did not bother to raise the SDR factor. Any one who has worked in the industry is well aware that the socially desirable response can significantly skew results away from reality.

Then—incredibly—at Section 10.23 the Report claims “democratic accountability” as an advantage of government regulation. But this overlooks the truth that government is a major perpetrator of slanted communication. Ironical, because section 10 implies that information is a “public good”, but, apparently, only that which the regulator allows. Mr Fitzgibbons must have missed that threat to democracy. I hope those who wish to protect a democratic right of free speech did not.

I suggest you read more of what is availiable on the internet. Yes there is a lot of nonsense mixed in with reality, but if all the print media vanished tomorrow, you would probably be better informed than picking up a copy of your favorite rag, just like losing your favorite blanky.
Yes thousands of leftist media writers would lose their jobs, but they would have lost them because they were not honest with their audience. If they have any credibility, they will find many followers willing to pay for their points of view. Modern day "journalists" are the equivalent of witch doctors who read their bag of bones and can't understand why someone refuses to pay for their services when there are alternatives to their "reports."

Name a few of these modern day witch-doctors Jack. Too easy just to make such assertions without pinning a tail on these donkeys.

I remember an experiment when ALL the journalists of the day were replaced with people like Andrew Bolt. It was run by a Dr Goebbels