By Natalie Zirngast
The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) inquiry into the "cash for comments" scandal involving 2UE's shock jocks John Laws and Alan Jones has the rest of the Australian media running scared. Alan Kohler commented in the Australian Financial Review on July 17 that the inquiry is "likely to become a sensational public trial of the whole media industry and radio in particular ... The ABA will be forced to rewrite the broadcasting code, if not the act, to define what a journalist is and what journalists do."
The inquiry began on October 19 and is investigating private contracts worth millions of dollars made by Laws and Jones. It was sparked by accusations, made on the ABC's Media Watch program, that Laws ended on-air criticisms of the banks after he signed such a deal, and started praising them instead.
It has since been disclosed that John Laws had 14 private contracts with companies which required him to provide positive "ad lib" commentary outside paid advertisements and not to disparage any products from these companies. Laws justified this on the grounds that he is an "entertainer, not a journalist".
Alan Jones has also given evidence to the inquiry about his deals with a range of companies. He has stated that his opinion was always his own, and that he had never read the fine print of his lucrative contracts.
While the mainstream press are pointing the finger at Laws and Jones, there is the potential for this scandal to damage the credibility of the industry as a whole. As Kohler states elsewhere in his article, "When the ABA starts tugging on the Laws thread, it will find itself unravelling a bulky sweater indeed. Undisclosed endorsements are rife throughout the media, either as part of sponsorship arrangements or specific deals."
Political deals
This also extends to political commentary. The Victorian radio station 3MP ran a series of interviews with eight Liberal politicians on October 13, just prior to the Frankston East by-election. The four-hour live broadcast was paid for by the Liberal Party; the presenter, Mark Carter, asked questions based on Liberal briefing notes.
During the four hours, there were only three attempts to let listeners know that these were not "off the cuff" interviews but had been paid for.
The bias was indicated by hard-hitting questions such as Carter's question to Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett: "It's an amazing thing to me to think about the track record of the Liberal Party over the last few years, and how they've increased business and all the good things the Liberal Party has done. How do you feel about that?"
According to the 3MP station manager Ian Toull, the material was not required to have a disclaimer because "They were interviews, not commercials".
Some of Laws' contracts also had an overtly political flavour. The Trucking Association had a deal with him worth $200,000. Internal documents disclosed by Media Watch on October 25 reveal that its purpose was twofold. Laws was to portray the industry in a positive light, but also to use his power and influence "as a tool which influences key policy makers in decisions [and also] drive[s] the industry agenda during interviews with key policy makers".
Bias
The problem with the establishment media goes much deeper than endorsements or a lack of criticism of corporate giants. Money and power always talk the loudest.
When was the last time you saw alternative or progressive candidates given the same amount of coverage in the media for an election? Anyone involved in a campaign to save forests or stop uranium mining soon finds out that their opinions are less important than those of industry; they are more likely to be portrayed as whining hippies than given a fair hearing.
Rupert Murdoch has lately been more overt in making his own political views known. He spoke publicly in favour of a republic and was accused of "extraordinary bias" in his newspapers, such as the Australian, by Liberal Senator Nick Minchin.
His papers also reported favourably the Productivity Commission's recommendation that the cross-media ownership laws be scrapped, which would allow Murdoch to further increase his share of the media market, and his newspapers criticised the Howard government's unwillingness to change its media ownership policy.
Murdoch's latest comments, reported at length in his newspapers, have rejected the idea that "a nation's foreign policy can be driven purely by humanitarian or moralistic concerns, divorced from attention to national interest". Given this attitude, it is no wonder that it took the establishment media 23 years to give any decent coverage to East Timor's struggle for independence.
On November 9, the ABC board announced that it had appointed former Liberal Party staffer Jonathan Shier as its new managing director. Can we be assured that his political views will not affect the programming?
Ruling-class propaganda
Sexism, racism, homophobia and all types of reactionary and right-wing ideas are still common in media coverage because the media serve a conservative agenda. The media are supported financially through advertising and owned by multimillionaires. It is no wonder that they reflect the interests of big business in keeping ordinary people divided and sedated.
This is why alternative newspapers, such as Green Left Weekly, and community radio stations, such as 2SER and 3CR, with no big sponsors or corporate interests, are so important. While there might be some differences of opinion within the ruling class, overall its members are united in their aim of keeping profits up and protecting their interests, not ours.
As a result of the ABA inquiry, the media industry is now on the defensive. Since the inquiry began in October, there has been a spate of articles in which various newspapers have defended their own codes of practice. The Australian's Media supplement on November 4 reported that the Sydney Morning Herald will no longer accept any donations from businesses in the form of paid trips or goods, in case this affects its credibility. While other papers haven't taken this "hardline" approach, they have denied that such donations have any bearing on their editorial decisions.
In another article in the same supplement, the Australian blamed "spin doctors and PR people" for misinforming journalists and hiding information. Yet another article bemoaned the difficulties of journalists in wartime finding out the truth, such as during the war in Kosova.
But with Fairfax and Murdoch's News Corporation owning the vast bulk of Australian newspapers, there is no reason for them to reflect any interests other then their own.
Murdoch shared his vision during a speech at the Gordon Sachs annual media conference in New York: "Our view is that the successful media company of the future is one that will touch consumers' lives throughout the day, in every phase of their lives. We have structured our company to meet those needs. We are reaching people from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep."
He then outlined all the different forms that this would take. Interestingly, as pointed out by Media Watch on October 18, this speech was not reported by any of Murdoch's own media outlets.
If he is correct, then the future of our media looks a lot like the propaganda machine of George Orwell's "1984". The "cash for comments" scandal raises questions of media bias that must be clearly exposed and not just restricted to a few scapegoats, however much we might enjoy seeing John Laws and Alan Jones squirm.