Qed

The C-Word Ain’t What It Used to Be – Arts & Living News Briefs | Newser

Ahh bugger that, first the f-word and now the c-word…

The C-Word Ain’t What It Used to Be – Arts & Living News Briefs | Newser.

What would Eric think?

Polluters win no matter who is in power | theage.com.au

Kenneth Davidson sums its up rather nicely…“policy is developed between key ministers and industry lobbyists representing mining, private heath insurance, religious and independent schools and employer groups….It is clear that the Rudd Government is not prepared to undertake reforms to reverse the Howard government’s policies, which created two-tier health and education systems where access is largely determined by income and reinforced by fiscal policy.”

via Polluters win no matter who is in power | theage.com.au.

Ted Kennedy: His Life and Times – Photo Gallery, 26 Pictures – LIFE

Ted Kennedy: His Life and Times – Photo Gallery, 26 Pictures – LIFE.

BBC NEWS | Business | Murdoch attack on ‘dominant’ BBC

My first temptation is to delete the BBC classification of Business in the headline since this is much more than a business matter but I’ll just make this observation instead. Murdoch jnr sums up his address with these lines – “for a better society…the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit” – this is clearly much more than an address about business!

Is this just a version of the 4th estate claim his father was so enthusiastic about? Murdoch jnr certainly seems to think that “state” sponsored journalism is an evil, even citing Orwell’s 1984 to support his case. Orwell of course was considered a socialist so Rupes jnr probably thought his argument was pretty clever but despite his concerns for a better society the obvious issue at stake here is simply self interest, not, as Rupert jnr claims, social good.

Pure and simple, free news from the Beeb or any other state sponsored media outlet is a direct threat to the pay-news model that News Corp wants to foist onto the world. The BBC just happens to be the biggest threat. I think there’s more here to ponder since Murdoch jnr is clearly staking out an ideological position – “There’s a land grab pure and simple, going on and in the interests of a free society it should be sternly resisted.” Presumably a free society is not one that can consume news and information for free. Indeed he claims that “It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it,” so its reasonable to assume that (in Murdoch’s view) only people who can pay for news should be entitled to access the news.

But the other key point I think is this notion of independent journalism, the famous 4th estate claim. Frankly I think it’s a load of twaddle coming out of the mouths of the Murdochs and company. The notion of independence is surely the idea that something does not depend (for survival) on something else. What Murdoch jnr should be saying in fact is “independent of the state” but of course that brings into question what sustains this independent-of-the-state journalism. Obviously this independent-of-the-state journalism depends on the free enterprise system for its survival. The problem here is that such journalism is unlikely to be critical of the free enterprise system. Its even debatable that it can be critical of the free enterprise system.

The argument about independence that Murdoch jnr applies to state sponsored journalism also applies to free enterprise journalism. Unfortunately for the debate and for the future of a free society, the matter of dependence as it applies to free enterprise journalism is hardly ever called into question.

BBC NEWS | Business | Murdoch attack on ‘dominant’ BBC.

The news you have to pay for

Ok let’s try this idea. You have a business, its core activity consists of people stringing a few words together based on information received. They, the stringers-of-words, do this stringing thing regularly and they also spend more than the average amount of time reading other stringers-of-words. Then there is a certain accumulated body of knowledge that goes with this activity. All up, its something that’s probably worth money to somebody.

Now do you, a fully paid up member of the public, think you should pay for these words strung together with some care and or ability? Why should you? Libraries exist, you can get words AND pictures for free in a library. And if you think about it, the content in a newspaper is pretty cheap on a per word basis. Then there’s TV, its free and the radio, its free too. Now don’t split hairs and tell me that you need to buy a TV to watch one or that both need electricity because that’s not really the point, except it might be but that’s later. For the time being, you can get free TV and radio content, you can even get free PRINT content. I can pick up free magazines and newsletter everywhere, some of it I need to actually tell people I don’t want it so desperate are they for my eyes to consume their words.

Right, I think we have established that as far as consumers are concerned, a lot of media is now free. Free as in no need to pay every time you want to access it. But some of it isn’t. There’s pay-tv for example and then there are the movies, there are books that you can buy as opposed to borrow and of course there are newspapers. These things people pay money for because by and large they are better than the stuff you don’t have to pay for, the old adage you get what you pay for and so on.

So you might want to watch the live telecast of Amazonian Fighting Fish battle it out for global supremacy and you can afford a few dollars a week so pay-tv is on your shopping list. Personally, I don’t really care for Amazonian Fighting Fish. I just like the news and current affairs. It’s boring information some of the time but strangely we have evolved this thing called government which also makes the news. The government is BIG, they can use force to make people do stuff they don’t want to and they can take money off people to pay for other stuff so keeping an eye on the government is probably a good idea. Certainly the early proprietors of newspapers thought so, hence this rather quaint notion of the press as some sort of watchdog on the activity of government. Notice here that big business escapes attention, its all about the role of Government.

But why should anyone take it upon themselves to be so unselfish, to go to all the trouble to uncover facts about the state just so they can tell me and others like me what the government is up to, and do it for free? Interesting question don’t you think?

Now in the past, before the death-of-journalism, such activities were paid for by businesses that made money by selling advertising which appeared along side this vitally important job of watching the government, ie government can’t be trusted and by the way buy a new car. Uh yeah. Why should I pay for that? I mean, let’s just examine this idea for a moment. Keeping across the role of government, ok, good idea, see above. Buy a new car, well don’t we have this little problem with carbon and isn’t oil running out and aren’t there enough cars on the road and why do I need a car to drive to work when a thousand other people are doing the same thing as me. I think you understand where I’m going with this but I’ll spell it out.

The information sources that exercise their right to scrutinise and criticise the government are biased. The bias is so blatant it almost can’t be believed, but such is the power of a big lie that most people don’t even question it. The media is about delivering messages to you, the so-called public. One message that almost completely escapes censure is that we must have the economic system we currently have. It might be an economic system that produces marked inequality or destroys our environment but these consequences are never attached to the underlying economic order. The bad things that happen just happen, if everyone is going to have a new car and the latest designer thingymajig, well we need an ECONOMY and it has to GROW.

Where are the watchdogs? Those caring sharing souls who are so keen to spill the beans on the reckless excesses of the state? Not interested! And the businesses running these media outlets, the corporations that make billions out of these messages, do you really think they’re interested? Seriously?

So the next time someone tries to tell you that you need to pay them so they can keep telling you that about all the bad things the state does and why you just have to have that holiday at the South Pole, it might be worth your while to stop for a moment and ask yourself what else is going on. There might be a whole different world of information out there that you might never know about because it isn’t in the best interests of the media to tell you. Or you could just trust them I suppose, after all not just anybody can string a few words together.

As a complete aside, its just occurred to me that there are some parallels here with the picture theory of representation, hmmm.

On stupid.

According to Uncle Fatty (I know insensitive language alert) – “It is important to bear linguistic history in mind when one attempts to nail down what irony is, as it clears up why the word means specifically things phrased to bury connotation behind denotation. Irony has nothing to do with something coming back to haunt one; it’s about doubletalk, two-faced speech and the sly underpinnings of sarcasm and trickery through misphrased honesty.”

You might be wondering what this is all about, then again I might just be avoiding the picture theory of language. Well it might be about John Winston Howard, former Prime Minister of Oz who is only the second Prime Minister to lose his seat in a Federal Election articulating his objection to a Bill of Rights on this basis – “I’ve always held the classical view that the public elects members of parliament, who pass laws hopefully in the public interest and those laws are in turn interpreted and enforced by courts…That sentiment is at the very heart of my unconditional objection to a bill of rights…It would deprive Australians of their current right to decide issues of great importance.”

Ironic? Perhaps. Another view is that Little Johnny still hasn’t completed the five steps so any comment of his belongs in the catalog of self help for beginners. Now Anna Winter also observes that PJ O’Rourke isn’t above a bit of hyperbolic irony from time to time. But you might have a biased view of PJ O’Rourke. You might think he’s an outspoken right wing libertarian whose tired humour is used to attack his political opponent and as such found few fans on his relatively recent tour of Oz. On the otherhand you might like him…your choice. My view is he’s not funny, but then I think this is so what does that tell you?

Now someone smart will quickly spot that Little Johnny and PJ are apparently on the same side of politics, ie the right. The smart person would then spot the inconsistency between their two points of view on the same subject. PJ even helps out the slow learners – “you’d have to be fairly stupid to believe democracy could be preserved by democratic means” but there’s no help for the really stupid who then fail to apply that to the sentiments of Little Johnny.

Ahh the irony. Maybe it needed an Alanis Morissette reference.

Everyone’s ABC? Only if you lean left | theage.com.au

Peter Costello please stay in Politics, you have such an honest and unbiased view of the world and it is very selfish of you to deprive the wider community of your obvious talents. Of course the ABC is a warren of left wing bunnies which is why your former colleague and culture warrior Little Johnny installed Planet Janet and Keith-Whitewash-Windshuttle to the board of the ABC.

But I hear you say, nothing changed.

That pesky carrot-top on the 730 Report still keeps asking impertinent questions and Phillips Adam remains unchallenged in his oh-so radical left wing opinions. Clearly more action is required and who better than Businessman Mark Scott, political advisor to the former New South Wales Liberal Education Minister, Terry Metherell and champion of the cost cutters at Fairfax. He’ll sort out the rampart communists lurking in the corridors of the ABC. And by golly he has! Editorial Balance! Peter how could you be so untouched by this piece of brilliance by Mark Scott? Surely this counts? And the outsourcing of ABC productions, Peter this too must count! Just think of all the potential for more commercially motivated producers to share their vision of the world.

And Mark’s dream, Peter how could you not be aware of how grand it is? Shiny new stuff everywhere producing nice balanced little bits of floss everywhere, the savings in operational staffcosts is pure poetry. Just think of the money Peter, its all about SAVINGS!

True, that unruly lot in Radio keep poking their noses in other peoples business but who listens to the radio anyway? A man of your standing is surely above such petty concerns. Your obvious sympathy for the fate of the poor lonely single Liberal party supporter in the ABC is impressive, yet I detect a greater worry that might be nibbling away at your quest for a balanced and fairer ABC. Do you think that Mark Scott, former Liberal Party Staffer has gone soft? Worse still, might he have become infected with some left wing ideology? On $430,000 a year? Surely that’s enough to buy anyone? Is Mark Scott a Labor Party Stooge? OMG!

Peter you must stay and help fight the good fight. If you can’t trust people like Mark Scott to stay the hard and difficult course, who can you trust?

Everyone’s ABC? Only if you lean left | theage.com.au.

Fairfax chief via The Australian

No sooner is the LA Times talking up collusion in the US newspaper scene and we see the same sentiments expressed here in Oz. Fairfax probably has one of the better news site in Oz but who will pay for it? Especially when the ABC will probably be obliged to continue providing their content for free as part of their public charter.

Mr McCarthy (Fairfax CEO) was open to the possibility of co-operation online with News Limited — whose parent company is global media group News Corporation — as part of a broader strategy to charge for stories on the internet. “If there is an opportunity to engage with News Limited (online) , we will look at it as an option. We will make the right decisions for our mastheads … and if that means we do something with (News chairman) Rupert Murdoch, we do, and if there's a better alternative, we don't.”

via Losses in ‘worst environment’ Fairfax chief has seen | The Australian.

What is required?

Apparently “what’s required for serious — which is to say expensive-to-produce — journalism to survive is that all the quality English-language papers and news sites agree to charge for Web access and then mercilessly sue anyone who makes more than fair use of their work without paying a fee.”

That’s according to the Tim Rutten on the LA Times. Nothing like self interest to bring out the rhetorical best in a journalist – “Unless that imbalance is reduced, all but a few quality papers will disappear. For its part, Congress needs to move quickly to grant the newspaper industry at least a temporary exemption from antitrust and price-fixing laws so that publishers and proprietors can, in essence, collude for survival.”

The notion of the free market apparently doesn’t apply to journalism because it so damn essential to a functioning democracy (like the US). Tim adds – “American papers had combined revenues of $34.7 billion from the advertising in their print editions last year” – I reckon that little number has got more to do with Tim’s opinion than any crap about the mythical fourth estate. Any bets that the government will give in to the monopoly capitalist? No? Didn’t think so, what a farce!

a new leak

Bill Leak from the Oz

Very witty. But why is it funny?

The Stern Review examines the evidence on the economic impacts of climate change itself, and explores the economics of stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Stern Hu is currently facing a very uncertain future.

Meanwhile, Martin Furgeson’s future is looking bigger and brighter.

Labor is certainly a party of principle expediency.