Coincidence in media-land?
By Sean Healy
The editors of the establishment newspapers — especially the "quality" broadsheets — claim that their editorial decisions on what is, and isn't, news are not influenced by the business interests of their proprietors. So the following story must be pure coincidence.
The Australian, the flagship of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited holdings in this country, carried a story on November 30 damning a joint venture between US firm Acxiom and Kerry Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Limited. The venture would create a database on individuals from information collected from banks, stores, electoral rolls and post office lists, enabling targeted advertising by retailers.
The Australian's editors titled the story "Packer sets up Big Brother data store" and gave it half of the cover of their "IT" supplement, along with a front page lead-in. Prominent coverage. They ran a page 4 follow-up the following day, headlined "Privacy law targets data collectors", which alleged that new privacy legislation due next year would constrain the Acxiom-PBL database.
Across town, the Sydney Morning Herald gave the story substantially less coverage. The original revelation of the joint venture warranted no comment at all. The editors did allow a follow-up story and gave it a page 2 position, but the story said the opposite to the Australian's piece: that privacy legislation would not affect the database.
The Sydney Morning Herald's owner, John Fairfax Ltd, makes no secret of its desire to sell the newspaper to — you guessed it — Publishing and Broadcasting Limited.
The Sydney Morning Herald has, however, given substantial coverage to News Limited's attempts to heavy federal cabinet into ruling in its favour on digital television. News desperately wants a digital TV protocol which would allow it entrance into TV broadcasting, even sending leaflets arguing its case to residents of Coalition marginal seats.
On November 29, the Herald ran a story, "Murdoch pressure on digital TV backfires in halls of power", which quoted extensively Coalition MPs' condemnation of Murdoch's heavy-handed tactics.
The following day, it ran a quarter-page story, "TV's fate divides media moguls", which concluded with Coalition Senator Nick Minchin's accusation that "News Limited's the Australian newspaper [was] compromising its credibility for Mr Murdoch's other interests".
The Australian's editors deemed Coalition denunciations of their proprietor's TV interests unworthy of coverage.