Will Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp face a probe in Australia? It sounds like in the making:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has taken aim at Australia’s media, saying Australians had “hard questions” they needed answered in the wake of the phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom.
At a wind farm in Gurrundah this morning, in southern NSW, Ms Gillard said Australians had been “disturbed” by stories of UK journalists hacking phones.
“And I think that does mean that Australians here look at News Limited, they’ve probably got some hard questions that they want answered.”
News Limited is the Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, and is publisher of The Daily Telegraph.
Ms Gillard wouldn’t comment on Mr Murdoch’s testimony during a UK parliamentary inquiry, but she labelled as “grossly objectionable” the act of the comedian who slammed a pie into Mr Murdoch’s face.
Under pressure to clarify if ams Gillard believed Australian News Limited-owned newspapers had a case to answer – not just UK tabloids – Ms Gillard pressed her point.
“I do believe Australians watching all of that happening overseas with News Corp are looking at News Limited here and are wanting to see News Limited answer some hard questions,” she said
AND:
Murdoch’s Australian arm, News Limited, owns the top-selling masthead in almost every state and controls about two-thirds of the nation’s daily newspaper circulation.
The Greens, which hold the balance of power in the Senate, have called for the inquiry to specifically consider Rupert Murdoch’s grip on the Australian media.
The CEO of News Limited, John Hartigan, has launched a review of all editorial expenses by Australian staff in the past three years, but says he is not aware of any wrongdoing.
News Corp. is not pleased with the Australian PM’s suggestion:
News Ltd [the company’s Australian wing] chairman and chief executive John Hartigan today hit back as Ms Gillard’s comments, saying there was no evidence of similar behaviour by the company’s journalists in Australia.
“The Prime Minister’s comments seek to draw a link between News Corporation operations in the UK and those here in Australia,” Mr Hartigan said in a statement.
“No one is more appalled or is more concerned about what has happened in the UK than we are. It is an affront to everyone at News in Australia and a slur on the professionalism of our people, especially our journalists,” Mr Hartigan said.
Ms Gillard’s comments come as the government considers whether to support an inquiry into the Australian media, urged by Greens leader Bob Brown.
Members of the Gillard government have been critical of News Ltd papers, particularly The Daily Telegraph, over their coverage of her government’s climate change plans.
News Ltd publisher of The Australian has declared it will cooperate with a parliamentary inquiry into the media if such an inquiry is called.
Ms Gillard has indicated she is open to Senator Brown’s call for a media inquiry, saying the News of the World revelations would spark a “long debate about media ethics in this country”.
“I’m also not surprised to see that in parliament, or amongst parliamentarians, a conversation is starting about the need for a review, and I will be happy to sit down with parliamentarians and discuss that review that people are obviously contemplating,” she said last week.
Senator Brown, who has been a long-time critic of News Ltd and The Australian newspaper, said he would write to MPs seeking their support for an inquiry canvassing new licensing requirements for major newspapers.
He also wants consideration of a new “fit and proper” character tests for newspaper proprietors, new curbs on foreign entrants and a comprehensive review of media ownership “in light of the domination of News Ltd in print media”.
The BBC gives this background on News Corp’s growing (until now) operations in Australia:
The company dominates Australian media – it controls 70% of the newspaper readership and has extensive holdings in television, the internet, and other media.
The BBC’s Nick Bryant in Sydney says that largely because News Limited owns most of the tabloid titles, the competition in Australia for stories and gossip is nowhere near as cut-throat or intense as that in Britain.
The tabloid agenda is also different, he says, without the same preoccupation with sex scandals and nowhere near the same salaciousness.
News Limited boss John Hartigan has launched a review of all payments made by the group in the last three years and has said he is willing to co-operate with any inquiry.
He has also denied allegations by governing Labor party members that News Limited has been running a campaign against them, describing his group’s journalism as aggressive but fair.
The government has reportedly stalled a ruling by an independent panel in favour of Mr Murdoch’s part-owned Sky News to run Australia’s taxpayer-funded overseas TV service.
The panel had unanimously backed the Sky bid to run the Australia Network but the government imposed a “national interest” bar on the process.
News Corp has also been attempting a takeover of the Australian broadcaster Austar.
The bottom line: the phone hacking scandal is causing politicos on several continents now to see if there is a way to control a press baron. Second bottom line: no matter what the specific outcome is on the phone hacking case, Murdoch’s power has peaked and he seems and on the descent.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.