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Analysis and Comment (31)

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While reporters' political biases are always hotly debated, other biases remain – including too few voices from diverse backgrounds. AAP/Alan Porritt

Whose views skew the news? Media chiefs ready to vote out Labor, while reporters lean left

By Folker Hanusch, University of the Sunshine Coast

Most Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead. But while the media’s political…
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The Herald Sun has described fans of A-League soccer club Melbourne Victory as ‘soccer hooligans’, a label many fans feel is unfair. AAP/Martin Philbey

‘Soccer hooligans’ of the Herald Sun’s making

By NAJ Taylor, La Trobe University

In 2011, I attempted to warn then-Victorian Police Superintendent Rod Wilson and Australian soccer’s governing body, Football Federation Australia, from “amplifying the actions of a few unruly football…
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If Twitter allows us to follow (and share) our interests, then can it make a reliable measure of influence for media groups? AAP/Tracey Nearmy/Twitter

How to measure influence: using Twitter to rate Australian news sites

By Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology

News of significant job losses and organisational restructuring at Fairfax has thrown new spotlight onto the continuing transformation of the Australian media landscape. It’s clear that newspapers in…
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Media proprietors have complained about Federal Government plans for a public interest test – but are they using freedom of speech arguments to protect their commercial interests?

Dear media CEOs, stop meddling in our democracy

By Martin Hirst, Deakin University

Dear media CEOs, Thanks for your recent letter to Prime Minister Julia Gillard outlining concerns some of you have about regulation of the news media industry. First a question regarding your views of…
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The problems facing the Australian news media are global; our companies must start providing solutions that their readers are prepared to pay for. AAP

There’s life in them yet: why it’s too early to call the death of print

By Brian McNair, Queensland University of Technology

It took a while, but the Australian news industry has finally caught up with the crisis of journalism which has been affecting the rest of the world for quite some time. I say “crisis”, but let’s be clear…
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News Corporation will split its publishing assets from its entertainment arm – with the exception of its Australian operations. AAP

News Corporation is breaking itself up. Why?

By Stephen King, Monash University

News Corporation is breaking up. The process will take about 12 months and is subject to shareholder approval. The de-merger will separate News Corporation’s publishing assets from its media and entertainment…
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As the “rivers of gold”– classifieds – dry up, there are alternative revenue models emerging – although none offer a simplistic panacea to the media industry. AAP

As the ‘rivers of gold’ dry up, what business model will save media?

By Jim Macnamara, University of Technology, Sydney

Journalists have never been particularly fond of advertising or advertisers – to most journalists, advertising was space and time taken away from good stories and advertisers were commercial interests…
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Most reporting still comes from a newspaper: Australia’s media troubles come from a failing commercial model, not a journalistic one.

Australia’s newspaper crisis is a failure of the market, not journalism

By Jeff Sparrow, Victoria University

“Perhaps the single most dishonest aspect of the New Right’s campaign has been its attempt to rubbish and discredit the public sector.” That’s Keith Windschuttle in his excellent 1983 book, The Media…
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Major media outlets predominantly use wire services such as AAP for their online breaking news. But this approach reduces media diversity and can perpetuate errors. Flickr/Dulnan

The new mantra of ‘not wrong for long’, churnalism and the role of AAP

By Susan Forde, Griffith University

In the swathe of important debate that’s occurred in the last week about the massive changes underway in the Australian media, there’s a piece of the puzzle that’s been ignored. Indeed, it’s a piece that…
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Journalists are the principal carriers of the lifeblood of democracy – but having fewer voices means we are vulnerable to vested interests. AAP

Fewer voices, less democracy – is this really the media we want?

By Alexandra Wake, RMIT University

“A newspaper is a private enterprise owing nothing whatsoever to the public, which grants it no franchise. It is therefore affected with no public interest.” – William Peter Hamilton, a former publisher…
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Communication Minister Stephen Conroy will oversee the government’s response to the Convergence Review. AAP/Dean Lewins

Convergence Review: the call for regulation will be unpopular with established media

By Susan Forde, Griffith University

I’m looking forward to the next few days. The Convergence Review’s key recommendation to introduce a new body to “regulate” the activities of our major 15 media operators – including newspapers – is significant…
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Mark Scott, managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. AAP/Alan Porritt

Mark Scott on the future of your ABC

By Rod Tiffen

Welcome to In Conversation, our series of discussions between leading academics and major public figures in Australian life. In this instalment, Mark Scott, managing director of the Australian Broadcasting…
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Rebekah Brooks travels to News International headquarters last year. EPA/Kerim Okten

Hackgate: the impact of Rebekah Brooks' arrest

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband Charlie were among a number of people arrested yesterday UK time on charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The…
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Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announces the media inquiry in September. AAP/Lucas Coch

Media inquiry day one: Chicken Little takes the floor

By Fiona Martin

As journalists and academics got ready to outline a new media order at the Finkelstein inquiry yesterday, anti-regulationists lined up to dismiss the process with bipartisan relish. On day one of the…
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Would a right to privacy have helped Lara Bingle? AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy.

Breaching confidence: do we need a privacy tort?

By Megan Richardson, University of Melbourne

Who would have predicted there would be serious talk of a statutory privacy tort in Australia, giving private individuals who feel their privacy as been breached the right to sue? But then again, who would…
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Rupert Murdoch holding a copy of The Times, a News International paper. AAP

The perils of trying to regulate for ethical behaviour

By David Maguire, Murdoch University

In little more than two weeks, the long simmering issue of illegal phone hacking at News Corporation’s British newspaper News of the World has developed into a cascading crisis, with fatal results for…
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Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News attracts criticism in the US for its perceived bias. AAP

Rupert Murdoch and the state of American journalism

By Glenn Altschuler, Cornell University

The decline and fall of Rupert Murdoch has more twists and turns than a colonoscopy: the closing of the 168-year-old News of the World; the resignation of two of his top executives and four Scotland Yard…
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Appearing before a parliamentary committee was “my humblest day” according to Rupert Murdoch. AFP PHOTO/PARBUL

Murdochs' defence strategy: ‘Sorry, we had no idea what was going on’

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

So, after a day of drama at Westminster, what have we learnt, other than the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi packs a mean left hook (future pranksters beware)? For the best part of six hours we…
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Lara Bingle and Michael Clarke faced enormous media interest over their relationship. AAP

Privacy in the age of no privacy

By Roger Patching

Reaction to the widening News of the World scandal has again highlighted the lack of protection against invasion of privacy by the media in Australia. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating renewed his attack…
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An ethical journalistic culture cannot be imposed from above but must develop within a news gathering organisation. AAP

Ethical reporting after NotW phone hacking: it isn’t black and white

By Bill Birnbauer, Monash University

The handwritten sign hanging on the bereaved family’s door says: “No media". As a reporter, do you knock? Most journalism students yell back a resounding “No". Okay then, what if the family has a high…
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Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire is reeling under the phone hacking scandal. AAP

Murdoch, mediacracy and the opportunity for a new transparency

By John Keane

Schadenfreude is the tough-sounding word that wins my vote for describing accurately how millions of people around the world are feeling about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. For those who were long resigned…
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Britain’s tabloid culture is yellow journalism for the 21st century. AAP

Rupert Murdoch and the News International tabloid grotesquerie

By John Lloyd, University of Oxford

When American newspapermen mused on their profession a century ago, they would confess, usually with pride, that it was both cruel and mendacious – and had to be. H L Mencken, among the most influential…
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The final edition of the News of the World carried a full page apology to its readers. AFP/Ian Nicholson

News of the World scandal reverberates beyond the Murdoch empire

By David McKnight

The dramatic events around the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s London News of the World are unprecedented in a major news media organisation in an advanced industrial country. A newspaper closed…
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Metropolitan Police officers are interviewing senior News International executives as part of their investigation into phone hacking by journalists. AAP photo. AAP

The News of the World closure: trying to make sense of it all

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

Where to begin? The closure of a 160-year-old newspaper, the arrest of the man who until recently was the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, the revelations that the Metropolitan Police, or at…
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Greens leader Bob Brown has attacked the News Ltd ‘hate media’. AAP

Bob Brown’s misjudged attack on the Murdoch ‘hate media’

By Denis Muller, University of Melbourne

Greens leader Senator Bob Brown recently described attacks on his party by The Australian as being the work of a News Ltd “hate media”. News outlets owned by the Murdoch empire are renowned in the USA…

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