While I haven't said much about Australia's Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023, I believe too much bureaucracy has weakened our media and this might make it worse.
I want to explain why, but first, the Australian federal government recently asked for public submissions, for or against the planned Communications Legislation Amendment.
Governments have legislated for smaller, more controlled media, often in favour of the corporations, for a long time. This misinformation act is another example of this disastrous abuse of local media.
The Sydney Morning Herald told the most amazing story in 2018. The former Prime Minister, Paul Keating said a couple of years after he left office, he lobbied the former Independent Senator Brian Harradine. Mr Keating did not want the Prime Minister of the day, John Howard to get a parliamentary majority to allow the Channel 9 owner Kerry Packer to own Fairfax media. Mr Harradine was successful in keeping Channel 9 out of Fairfax - for a while.
Sadly for Australia's diverse media, the Federal Coalition overturned the fine work of Mr Keating and Mr Harradine and allowed Channel 9 to control Fairfax Media. Yes, these days, when you read the Sydney Morning Herald or Australian Financial Review, you are reading Channel 9!
This is just one of the abuses aimed at media diversity. Tragically, I have to add radio to the list of victims. Lets start with Macquarie National News. By the way, Channel 9 owns as well!
I remember well the time when Macquarie News on 2GB and its main competitor 2UE news were two very separate entities (now they are the same newsroom). Some people considered 2UE the best newsroom in Sydney. These stations, as well as 2SM, ran grand news operations.
These days, things are very different. Channel 9 run 2GB/Macquarie and 2UE news. Yes we have a TV station running our two main radio news services.
A Newcastle affiliate runs what used to be 2SM news, for the Super Radio Network. Once 2SM employed 17 full-time journalists. Now, it sounds like the country radio newsroom (which it is) - a training haven for kids in their late teens and early 20s.
Big business has effectively dismantled some of the best news services Australia knew. This was a slap in the face to a generation, which created something great.
I can remember when radio stations used the Australian AAP radio news wire, they got their breakfast, lunch and evening news wraps and vast amounts of news, categorised by state. The days when radio journalists relied extensively on such services have gone - so have the days when media outlets provided vast amounts state news.
If you type the word reporter into Twitter, you get the most amazing amount of reporters, who specialise in reporting in their local state, especially in the USA, but not so much in Australia.
Government and private interests continue to chip away at the very foundations of media diversity. Australia has sold out to corporate interests, its ability to report state news, in favour of this highly annoying national news, which is everywhere now.
Do you know that during covid, the radio 'national' news had this horrid/awful nonsense about someone who went out to his all-night store at 3am to buy a Mars Bar and came home with covid! What goddamned stupid bunk everything has degenerated into!!
One would think that if we have a 24 hour news cycle these days, then we should have powerful bases of state news. In the extreme absence of anything which resembles state news in Australia, one has to wonder what exactly the 24 hour news service is supposed to represent. Well actually, it's a news silo, which might favour the Kardashians. I don't dislike the Kardashians and they have a fan-base. I don't, however, think they should replace news about something happening in my home state or local catchment.
The news silo theory means that everything goes in the silo and out the other end comes a very national and international service. It is incapable of telling people what is happening in their local communities and how the big stories of the day might impact their local areas.
The USA does it better than anyone. The radio station 1010 WINS CBS New York only has news about New York.
It doesn't stop there. Did you know that the Australian ABC has stooge stations? Well they do. Through much of this century, I have tuned into SBS Radio, our wonderful multicultural radio station. Just imagine my frustration when I listened to news on a German show, only to hear 10 second grabs from the Australian Prime Minister and opposition leader, in English, while the rest of the bulletin was read in German! Was it a slow news day in Germany or was it just that the bureaucrats force SBS journalists to copy the official line, broadcast on the ABC? I suspect the latter. What about all the news happening in Germany. It has a much bigger population than Australia? If I am listening to a German bulletin, I want to hear about what's happening in Germany. This would not normally mean that I hear voices of Australian politicians.
The exact same can be said for the First Nations Community radio station in Redfern, in Sydney. Yes they have first nations people reading the news - great - no problem, but why, oh why, oh why do they copy the ABC National News? If I listen to First Nations News, I don't care about the 10 second grab from the Australian Prime Minister. Do they mean to say that there is not a vast wealth of First Nations news around Australia? I would have thought they would have a never ending source.
Christian radio stations with community radio or narrowcasting licences run the same ridiculous national news - an insult to Christians who need to hear news of Christianity from all over the world. That information is out there, but sadly, not on Christian radio stations!!
Much to my extreme disgust, this scenario continues to appear in most community radio stations, which are licenced to broadcast to a specific catchment. Sometimes this includes no more than a very limited number of suburbs. It is completely truthful to say that the National News, which the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia network via their stations, is an ABC stooge news service. They are not interested in the specific suburbs, to which the licencing laws state they must broadcast. Instead, we're back to more 10 second grabs from the stupid Australian Prime Minister and opposition leader on this stupid excuse for a local news service, which bills itself as the national news. It does not have any place on community radio and so why is it there?
For goodness sake, listeners can get national news on their phones. I fail to understand why they need to hear it on community radio.
If you don't like what I say, well do you know what, I'm right and you're wrong and here's why: the McLean Report of 1974, from the Whitlam Government (Independent Inquiry Into Frequency Modulation Broadcasting) in section 3.6 backs me up. It was the document, which got FM community radio stations and other community licences off the ground. It stated:
Community programmes of various sorts, covering drama, politics, education and other talk-types of programmes, seek FM, as an alternative to existing Commercial/ABC presentations.
The authors of the McLean Report wanted community radio stations to produce news, which was an alternative source to the commercial and ABC radio stations.
The McLean Report implied that community licences of various kinds were to provide services to the local community to whom they were licenced to broadcast. That attitude appeared right through the report. I don't agree community stations have adhered to these principals. The fact that they refuse to broadcast three minutes of local news relevant to their local catchment, prior to the ridiculous national news, is a case in point. Regional radio stations used to run three minutes of local news and sport before a national news bulletin. After this the music host would read the weather. The government needs to change the laws to make this compulsory for all the community broadcasting licences I have mentioned. That's whether they are religious, language, first nations and community stations.
The national news is often on community radio, because it ticks boxes regarding funding. The Community Broadcasting Association make money through the sale of a national service, to community stations. These stations can then tell the government media authorities that they are providing a community service, through the news.
Community FM licences for music stations were originally thought of as a vehicle for classical music lovers to hear a wide variety of symphonies. Where have all the symphonies gone??
If community radio was to provide an 'alternative to existing commercial/ABC presentations,' then I think that the community radio station, which reads newspapers to the blind, 2RPH is on shaky ground when it reads Channel 9 (aka the Sydney Morning Herald) to its audience! This kind of corporate narrative, for want of a better phrase, never belonged on community radio. I always questioned why they couldn't have read AAP radio wire items in full - at least they were written for radio, unlike a newspaper.
I don't agree with the standardised responses I get when I expound these thoughts. People come back to me to say they are adhering to their blasted community radio code of conduct. I would suggest they are hiding behind it as well as adhering to it! I also suggest that the new misinformation act will be another thing broadcasters will hide behind, so as they do not have to produce local and state news.
I should note that they have destroyed our local papers this century. Once the Parramatta Advertiser was our biggest local metropolitan newspaper. Now it's this tiny online operation. The same could be said for the Central Coast Express Advocate, which was the biggest regional local paper I had seen, in 1995. Now, it's this small online thing. Sometimes a couple of interns run local newspapers around Australia and it shows.
Real estate advertising has taken over many of these local papers and it's a great shame. Local news, state news; local sport - where has it all gone?
I worry the Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill is more of the same bureaucratic folly and this latest round of legislation might be the toxic arrow, which has the potential to sink the ship further. They pave paradise and put up a parking lot and expect us to look the other way.
I dare say the linguist and American political commentator Noam Chomsky had the right idea when he said:
I don't know what word in the English language - I can't find one - that applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organised human life [in the not so distant future], so they can put a few more dollars into highly overstuffed pockets. The word evil doesn't begin to approach it.
Yes this was more in the context of environmental or nuclear disaster, but I want to apply it to what I'm saying here too. They are messing up the systems we put in place as part of the existence of organised human life, so they can make more money - shame − Joseph Walz