Media reports about Rupert Murdoch’s tax arrangements for News Corp Australia have not pleased the company. Last week Nine’s A Current Affair ran an eight-minute story off the back of Michael West’s Fairfax media report about the amount of tax the company pays.
“Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in the US has siphoned off $4.5bn of cash and shares from his Australian media businesses in the past two years, virtually tax free,” West wrote.
Channel Nine interviewed West for the story, called Tax cheats ripping off the Australian public, which is still available online, and the story pulled no punches. News Corp Australia, with Foxtel and Ikea, were called “greedy multinationals” who were making “obscene profits” at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.
The loyal Murdoch lieutenant and columnist Terry McCrann was quick to hit back, calling West “an inflatable clown” and attacking Nine. “What do you get when you marry Fairfax Media columnist Michael West with the Nine Network’s A Current Affair? Even more hysterical, utter rubbish, and totally false assertions about companies and tax than you normally get from West, Australian journalism’s ‘Whac-a-Mole’, writing alone.”
Now, Weekly Beast has been told, the rift between the two media giants has spilled over into affecting the coverage of Nine’s TV programs in the News Corp tabloids. Nine has confirmed a publicity photo shoot with the Daily Telegraph’s TV section scheduled for Monday was cancelled at the last minute. The shoot was with Mornings co-hosts, Sonia Kruger and David Campbell, to mark Kruger’s return from maternity leave. Nine says it doesn’t know why the shoot was cancelled and News has declined to comment.
Ducking the anti-vaccination question
A Michael Leunig cartoon has caused a storm of protest on social media because it was interpreted as being anti-vaccination. Leunig’s cartoon, published in the Age on Wednesday, included the words “A mother’s love may be as great as any new vaccine that man has ever seen” and pictured a mother pushing a pram and running away from syringes falling from the sky.
But a spokeswoman for Leunig said the artist was making a comment about the punitive approach the government had taken towards people who were conscientious objectors.
“Michael Leunig is in support of the right of individuals to conscientiously refuse vaccination for their children,” she told Weekly Beast. “This support does not necessarily indicate his position on vaccination per se; it is primarily a human rights issue that he addresses in his cartoons. He also illuminates questions regarding maternal instinct and concern, and appeals for tolerance to be extended to the possibility that a mother’s personal wisdom and insight concerning her child’s health has been traditionally near-sacred and may be of enormous ongoing value.
“He contends that such conscientious maternal concern should not be dismissed too lightly or overruled so belligerently. Most of humanity owes much to the natural care of a mother at the beginning, with all the intuition, attunement and skill involved in that individual mothering process. Michael feels the punitive approach by the government to people of conscientious belief regarding this matter is coercive and unjust, and sets an appalling example to society about how those opposed might be universally regarded and treated.”
Censorship or righting a wrong?
Brendan Byron, the co-editor of the University of New South Wales student newspaper, Tharunka, has admitted deleting several historical articles that damaged his reputation and that of his political allies. Byron, a Labor student politician, was asked on Facebook if he deleted a 2012 article which was critical of his election campaign.
The article was published by the editor of Tharunka at the time, Kylar Loussikian, a political opponent of Byron’s who is now a journalist at the Australian. Byron on Facebook: “Yep. ’Cause let’s be real, using student media to try to destroy people you disagree with: not actually very nice. Not a great look for the reputation of the paper, either. If student journalism is to talk shit about someone running against you in an election, mention them specifically by name, and use search engine optimisation to make sure it features prominently whenever you Google them, then there’s no value in student journalism.”
To which someone replied: “Hey Brendan there’s a great book you should read called 1984 I think you’d like it.”
Byron told the Weekly Beast he had deleted about four articles because they were biased and he was distressed by them turning up every time someone searched his name on Google. “I genuinely do think I’ve done the right thing,” he said. “I don’t think student journalism should be used as a tool to win elections. I didn’t want an opponent’s scorn chasing me forever.”
But another former Tharunka editor, Osman Faruqi, was outraged and raised the issue on Twitter. He told Beast: “It is extraordinary that an individual editor appointed for one year believes they have a licence to erase the work of previous editorial teams. Tharunka has a proud history of advocating for press freedom and pushing boundaries going back more than 60 years – Wendy Bacon, a former editor, was jailed over censorship. Considering that history it is particularly appalling to see current editors believe they have the authority to censor articles from the past by deleting them entirely.”
ABC South Australia archives missing
A quick follow-up to our story last week about ABC management initially refusing to give redundant staff in Adelaide time to sort out the archives before they left the building after the TV unit was closed down.
A staffer said the unarchived South Australian tapes had “plenty of Richie Benaud footage on them”.
Sadly, because ABC management did not give them time to catalogue the treasure trove – until an intervention by the union and a parliamentary committee – the Benaud footage could not be used in the various ABC tributes and news bulletins last week.
Licence to print money
Woolworths is not the only company to face criticism for tarnishing the Anzac legend with commercialism. Anzac references are everywhere, even in special episodes of Seven’s soapie Home and Away.
While News Corp copped some criticism for its Anzac coin giveaway, it is in the clear – it sought permission from the veterans affairs department. A spokesman for the veteran affairs minister, Michael Ronaldson, said permission was granted to give away and sell for $3 an Anzac coin with newspapers.
“This is a joint venture between the Royal Australian Mint who produces the coins and News Corp, who was to be the distribution point,” he said. “Approval was granted on the basis that there is no profit being made on the coins and News Corp has agreed to make a very large donation to benefit the ex-service community.”
