Glover Slams SMH Editor

When Sydney Morning Herald Editor Allen Oakley was interviewed by Richard Glover on his drive programme on ABC Sydney today, he must have surely known what was coming for him.

While Oakley tried haplessly to defend his own management, Glover exposed the explicit short term profiteering that Fairfax is clearly involved in. While Glover's column will appear in the SMH tomorrow, because he filed on tuesday and the section is already printed, he warned that if the dispute is still going, he will refuse to cross the digital picketline. Glover even warned Oakley that he was willing to be sacked with Mike Carlton, and every other columnist who is willing to make a stand in support of journalist rights.

The precedent of being able to sack columnists on the spot is a dangerous one. It allows companies to undersell the rights of all freelancers and, in this environment of increasing outsourcing, this is a fate we should all fight to avoid.

Listen to the interview here

Media Workers Protest Mass Sacking

Strking Workers at the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Newcastle Herald an the Illawarra Mercury, have today been joined by other journalists and members of the public in actions against Fairfax's mass sackings. In Sydney, the actions directly confronted Fairfax boss, David Kirk.

See a video of the action here

In other related news...

All papers have continued publication with the assistance of scab workers...

Mike Carlton has been sacked for refusing to submit his column for this Saturday's SMH. Fairfax management has decided that columnists can not strike. The Workplace ombudsman is currently investigating the case and a petition in support of Carlton can be signed here

Although AMWU print workers have promised to not cross any picket line, it is still uncertain whether picket lines will be set up to disrupt the production and delivery of the weekend newspapers.

There could be legal trouble ahead for the MEAA. This is due to the current workplace laws that make any strike taken without a secret ballot illegal.

Another industry set to suffer from the Fairfax fallout are in-house Media Law Professionals. This is despite the fact that outsourcing this work will cost more and will limit the flexibility to report, especialy on latebreaking news.

The campaign can be followed at http://www.fairgofairfax.org.au/
The facebook group can be accessed here

Fairfax Workers Strike Kicks Off

Fairfax media workers have not taken the attack on their industry lying down. Today workers, in newspapers like the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review, have decided to strike until Monday.

Already this has resulted in a sharp fall in the Fairfax media share price. But the cost for the 550 workers, including a substential number of editorial positions, is clearly going to be a lot larger.

Regional Papers, like the Newcastle Herald and the Wollongong Mercury, are likely to proportionally be the hardest hit. It is perhaps a sign of the times ahead that today the Age and SMH featured stories from their respective cities zoos on their front page.

Media Crisis Hits Australia

One week after announcing a massive 47% rise in net profits, to $372 million; Fairfax Media (owner of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald) has sacked 550 employees across Australia and New Zealand.

The mass sackings included The Age's editor in chief, Andrew Jaspan. ABC Radio National's The Media Report has revealed that Jaspan had a "difference of opinion" with the management in Sydney. The sacking of Jaspan, who had served as editor for the last four years, has been seen by many as a first step in the further rationaliation of the newspaper.

Chris Warren, of the MEAA(Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance), has remained tightlipped on the possibility of industrial action. Warren instead used the opportunity to play Fairfax off against the Murdoch press. The problem with this, is that it not only unnecessarily promotes the idea that the Murdoch press is actually any kind of bastion for journalism. But it also ignores the fact that change is not needed by any single entity, but to the whole media landscape if we are to not only survive, but thrive out of the current crisis.

U.S. Digital TV Giveaway

One of the biggest stories, unreported by the mainstream press, has been the giveaway of the Digital TV spectrum to the same networks that already control the media.

With Digital TV offering the possibility of hundreds of new channels across standard definition, high definition and datacasting channels, the Black Agenda Report has rightfully labelled the giveaway an "opportunity lost".

The mainstream media has decided to instead cover the rollout of digital technologies. These vested interests are hoping that availability and take up are sufficiently large enough, so their advertising and profitability questions will hopfully work themselves out.

Sadly, however, the media is probably worst at reporting on itself and its own industry, unless what they are reporting will expose their competitors. This is why the real fight for media democracy cannot expect mainstream coverage.

See the Black Agenda Report Article Here

Trotsky's Fight for Artistic Revolution

Much can be made of Stalin's propagandisation of literature and art. This history has stained these professions with an anti-communist bias.

But contrary to Stalin's command and control styled bureaucratic state, to support literature and the arts is in no way anti-communist, in any true sense of the word.

In ousting Trotsky from the pages of Russian history, Stalin also was able to destroy the memory of the man responsible for formulating the ideas for a true cultural revolution, which would expand our collective minds to the power of literature and art, as a means of expressing our views and communicating with each other.

But fortunately we need not let Stalin's Pravda, be our own truth. Fighting for revolutionary arts need not limit us, for we and the society at large, have so much to gain from our own expression in the fight for a better world.

Trotsky's Literature and Revolution can be read online here

Wall Street Journal Crys Poor For Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch, the world's largest media mogul, whose empire takes in all media platforms and cotninues to grow across the globe is maybe best known for forcing governments to back down on media protection laws wherever he goes.

The Wall Street Journal, however, felt it most important to note that while Murdoch's combined salary, stock and bonus compensation rose 9% last fiscal year, to $27.1 million, his overall compensation dropped 14% due to accounting changes that slightly cut his retirement savings.

How Sad! ;)

While it is important we understand how much moguls like Murdoch are earning, especially in a time when the media is facing one of its greatest crisis and journalists are being sacked by the thousands throughout the western world. It is also important that these kinds of facts are backed up with the context that allows stakeholders to make valid decisions on the issue. But as both Wall Street Journal and its publisher Dow Jones are firmly planted under the Murdoch banner, it may be too much to ask.

Source article here

U.S. Media Stuck in Cold War Frame

Today, FAIR reports on the misreporting of the war in the autonomous territory of South Ossetia in the border region between Georgia and Russia.

With the old atlases many schools still stock, I guess it is no suprise that many people still believe that the cold war never finished and the United States is still fighting the 'red menace' with the help of their "perfectly democratic" friends in Georgia.

Read more here

Alternative views of the conflict can be viewed here and here

CIA GOES RECRUITING FOR JOURNALISTS

The history of the CIA in the journalism profession is long and illustrious. The spy agency have played a role in compromising journalism and putting journalists unneccessarily in harms way.

It is therefore unsuprising that the CIA sees journalism conferences as great recruiting ground. Particularly if they can find a way to compromise minority communities by doing so.

Recently, NPR (USA) reported on the CIA's activities at the recent Unity 08 conference. A particularly interesting point in the context of the current media crisis, though it is heartening seeing the resistance of many journalists to the CIA deciding to recruit at their events.

More Here

The Real News Alternative?

Below I have included an interview with Paul Jay, founder of therealnews, where he discusses the problems with current journalism practice and his own plans for therealnews on PBS.

Jay is hoping he can kick off a online video service funded purely with viewer contributions that will represent the story from outside a mainstream framework. The hope is that this kind of service can counter the mainstream news that supported the U.S government in its illegal invasion of Iraq and is currently cheerleading for an attack on Iran.

The problems with this model under the current system are numerous. Lack of internet access, lack of media alternative awareness, lack of financial ability. These are just a few of the wider (governmental responsibility) problems that therealnews is going to have to work around and without funding from foundations, corporations or state growth is going to be a hard slog.

View the Video here

Who's doing the real journalism?

Glenn Greenwald's article for Salon.com reveals some disturbing truths. First of which is the fact that it is not just bloggers that are not doing investigatory work. In fact, investigative works by the mainstream media outlets has dramatically fallen over recent years with niche advocacy groups picking up most investigatory work and with the media sparingly reporting on the findings.

Central to this has been the massive cutbacks in newsrooms, which has seen 6,000 U.S. media workers lose their jobs over recent months, according to recent reports.

In the name of convergence, media organisations are leading the cross media integration, not simply to create a better media environment, but instead to cut back on "the expensive parts"of their media businesses.



http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/24/journalism/index.html