Small example of NEWS Corporation bias.

[Johnno]

This isn't "alternative media", rather mainstream media.....still seems the best section for it.

Yesterday I took part in a demonstration/rally involving approximately 40,000 people (according to media reports)to protest the Australian conservative governments Industrial Relations laws. Basically these are a bad thing if you are an Aussie worker with a union; capital is funnelled upwards to the powers-that-be rather than spread around reasonably equitably as it has in the past.

The Rally was organized by the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions) who mobilzed each individual union which then organized for workers to attend. It was entirely voluntary with some workers forgoing pay to attend, it was on an off-shift day for me so there were no problems.

Yes, it could be argued that the unions are just another example of a power sharing group, unions being in charge of the labour commodity rather than the commodity of capital. In some cases "the scum rises to the top", however usual such types join the Labor party and become politicians! Nevertheless the union movement in Australia is a good example of the "little people" sticking togther for some sort of collective benefit. It is under serious threat with the new industrial relatins laws.

News Corporation has a "Your say blog post" and here is how they framed the rallies

UNIONS are trying to reignite community animosity towards the Federal Government's Work Choices IR laws with mass rallies around the country today. Do you think the protests will have any impact? Have you been affected by the new workplace laws?

My favourite comment so far has been.

The greatest irony is us arguing this on a News Limited blog. After all Rupert Murdoch practically started individual contracts when he shut down his Fleet Street Presses and only hired staff who sign individual contracts at their Wopping plant. locking out the unions.
Is News Limited still suffering from "Wopping" bias? Have a look how they phrase the blog question, read the editorials and decide.
I wonder what penalty rates a blog moderator gets at news limited?

 

[Third_Density_Resident]

I rarely read News Corporation "news" anymore. Apart from the fact that each page is covered, on average, with 70% advertising, I sense that the overall tone of the articles is invariably right-winged, scare-mongering or just poorly disguised government propaganda. And I should also mention that the articles are staggeringly superficial in their range and coverage. In Queensland, we have the Courier-Mail, the only major newspaper in Brisbane, and as such there is no competition from other news companies. So we are left with, in their own words, "Queensland's best news columnists", the likes of which include Andrew Bolt. What a lovely, well-informed, intelligent, tolerant man he is!

 

[Ryan]

I would probably buy the Courier-Mail if they would print a "quilted" edition. ;)

 

[Johnno]

Adelaide has the same deal Ryan. There's no sentimentality either. "The News" which he started off with in sleepy Adelaide, became NEWS Corporation. He then bought out the opposition "The Advertiser" and shut his original paper. The Advertiser is now the only one available in South Australia.

The Courier, Advertiser and Sydney's Daily Telegraph are pretty well all the same....... only the names have changed, singing from the same song book.

 

[Sigma6]

I have to report the same from Canada. My Girlfriend is in Ottawa (I'm in Montreal), and her folks get the Citizen. She called me today in an uproar. . . going on about the articles and their content and saying 'how the hell can they get away with saying these things?', and wanting me to write letters to them. . . I used to write letters to them in the old days, and they would publish them. Since 9/11, they haven't published anything I've sent, and frankly, that doesn't surprise me at all, given that they were bought by Canwest Global, home of the notorious Asper clan. . . The Aspers basically run the editorial portions of their papers from the main office, and they don't tolerate dissent. . . Leonard, when he took power, cracked down on critiques of Israel (not tolerated anymore at all), and he went right ahead and authorized switching 'suicide bombers' to 'homicide bombers' in articles written in Canwest papers about Palestine, when that was the big flap (didn't last long, as you may recall). The Canwest papers used to be the liberal leaning ones. A few months ago, the Citizen published an article describing gay people as being 'posessed by devils', and a few weeks ago, one describing the hard (avowedly fascist) right of France as being the only people trying to stand up for 'freedom' and 'jobs' there.

She's not stretching to hyperbole when she gets outraged, my GF, but we're out of luck, because there are only two papers in the country of any note anymore that are more reasonable than the Canwest papers, and they're not too far off. . . (the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, and I imagine any other Canadian here would join me in laughing their can off to describe them as reasonable).

As for demonstrations, my experience (I've been to quite a few here, and even got hit by a CBC cameraman at one) with them and the press is that they stress the word *demon* hidden in the word *demonstration*. Especially since you-know-when.

I'm at the point where I send letters because I'd like the remaining Citizen editorial staff (they lost a lot of people in what I like to call 'the crackdown') to know how I feel about their betrayal, and not because I think they'll ever publish them. I know they read them, because they always call me to let me know that they're 'considering my article for publication', and at this stage, that's almost good enough. Not quite, but almost.