Thursday, September 11, 2014

Can you pick the inconsistency?

Media concentration/diversity was big news in Australia last year. The ALP proposed a "media diversity test" (under the name public interest) be included in laws controlling mergers and acquisitions.

Its sternest critic was News Ltd (as it still was) headed by CEO Kim Williams.

The good gentleman was on QandA this week, He said two things about media that are worth noting.

On print media he said

And one of the things that I personally have difficulty with is that as media, particularly print journalism, which is still the major generator of news and news coverage in our media - all of the electronic media tend to be clients on the print media, in terms of story sources and investigations, with some notable exceptions, but I don't think even Tony would disagree with that...

On media diversity he said

I don't agree with Sam at all about there being fewer voices because there has never been such a proliferation of voices in relation to the vast array and empowered array of bloggers, of social discourse that occurs in all manner of things.

So the world according to Kim Williams has a proliferation of voices, but it is still print which is the major generator of news coverage in our media.

And he is absolutely correct. What he is saying is that the proliferation of outlets doesn't create diversity - it does the reverse. It generates even more voices to amplify the messages of the print media - despite their declining circulation.

I still stand by my analysis that the Murdoch media is not as influential as it claims.

However, out of his own mouth we have the admission that the Murdoch media is as dominant, if not more so, than it has ever been.

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