Fairfax chairman urges government to take action on media reform
Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett has again called on the government to move on the issue of media regulation arguing that the current system fails to meet the needs of the industry or community.
Fairfax has made its position absolutely clear, said Corbett. “The archaic media ownership restrictions currently in place in Australia are outdated and outmoded by technological change and shifts in how consumers now source their news and information,” he said.
“The legislation simply does not meet the current needs of the industry or the community. I will go further and say it restricts a modern media industry and fails Australian consumers.”
Corbett told the audience at the Fairfax annual general meeting that the current legislation needed to be revised and that the government should take leadership.
“We believe there needs to be decisive leadership shown by the government on this important issue,” he said. “The status quo is not good enough for the overwhelming majority of the industry – more particularly the Australian consumer – and therefore should not be good enough for the Australian Government.
“This is about doing the right thing for the country. There will be inevitable disinvestment in the sector if the legislation doesn’t change and that has potential consequences for the quality of information that flows to the Australian people.
“Australia will be left floundering well behind the rest of the world which is sprinting to keep up with global demands for better, faster and broader forms of media communication.”
Corbett is one of a number of major media figures who in recent months have called on the Federal Government to act on media reform. Others backing change include Nine CEO David Gyngell and ASTRA chair Tony Shepherd.
Corbett was today reelected chairman of Fairfax but confirmed that he would step down during his term. “I have informed the Board that if I am reelected at this AGM I would expect in the normal course of our succession plan to hand over the Chairmanship during this term and retire as a director,” he said.
Major shareholder Gina Rinehart voted against the reelection of director Todd Sampson, the remuneration bonuses for CEO Greg Hywood and also a bid by shareholder activist Stephen Mayne for the board of Fairfax.
Nic Christensen
Maybe Roger might say why there is a problem. Some if think further consolidation would be even worse than the dross we get today. In fact some if think the best competitive result is that the big gorillas be forced to live or die with their enormous empires. That way the innovators we need won’t get squashed by these BSDs in cardigans.
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Im glad Gina voted against Todd. Todd is old media and has very little online business success experience. He might act like a young cool guy but he’s still very old school in his own operations.
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Corbett was right when he told told the audience at the Fairfax annual general meeting that the “current legislation needed to be revised and that the government should take leadership.” However he is wrong in saying there should be less restrictions. There needs to be more to increase the number of business involved in the media.
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What Huh said.
Empires eventually crumble and it is happening all around us and Fairfax and News have a long way to fall.
Should the political elite be worried? Will they lose their grip? Murdoch’s Daily Tele has always been and still is an influence, as is his Herald Sun in Melbourne. Will their reach bolster with social channels or dilute?
I would love to see some projections around the future influence of the ‘media’ and how people feel it is all going to pan out.
Will Murdoch still be swinging elections in 10 years from now?
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Great questions, Nail On Head. I actually believe the Murdoch rags you mentioned have already lost most of their influence… on the public. Where they still have influence is on pathetic, spineless, media-driven politicians who still think they need to please the rags to get votes. The Tele conducted the most one-sided campaign ever seen in Australia in favour of the Libs at the last election, yet Labor maintained their western Sydney seats. And that’s where most of the Tele’s audience is.
The other influence the tabloids have is on the lazy radio and TV ‘news’ and opinion programs which go straight to their copy of the DT or HS for stories, rather than doing their own work. This gives the tabloids a bit more power by spreading their rantings.
But yes, I believe even this remaining power will fade eventually. The Murodch tabloids are doing terribly in digital. They don’t even rate in the top 10 news websites.
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@Nail + Facts: Seems to me that they all have caught the disease. In fact the Hun is less guilty these days than many others. The Tele, obviously, has the Boris illness. Which is a strain of the Mitch. Which mutated to the Stutch. And so on.
While the Tele’s bullying goes back a way and the Oz has always had that failed business chip on its shouder, the sad slide of the Age and SMH into pop and sleeze is awfully upsetting. And the purely mindless targetting of the AFR these days is astonishing.
What the public does not see is the puppeteering. The promotion of half-baked sock puppets as columnists is a window into the minds of the editors who are not content to impose their hangups on readers but nowadays use gossip columns as vendetta instruments.
These are drowning men. Best let them go.
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Both Fairfax and News Corp have been busy driving down the quality of their newspapers over the past decade. Bit by bit they have been pushing readers away and once lost they are very hard to get back.
Maybe Fairfax might be able to if they return to producing quality, but at News things look less encouraging. They now are seen to be producing right wing rubbish, which only appeals to a small section of the market. To grow circulation they would need to change editorial direction, but it would be hard for them to convince anyone they had suddenly decided to produce a decent product. We are not witnessing the death of newspapers, but the suicide of newspapers.
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Well said Lindsay – “Both Fairfax and News Corp have been busy driving down the quality of their newspapers over the past decade. Bit by bit they have been pushing readers away and once lost they are very hard to get back… To grow circulation they would need to change editorial direction, but it would be hard for them to convince anyone they had suddenly decided to produce a decent product. We are not witnessing the death of newspapers, but the suicide of newspapers.”
I was employed with APN News & Media for 15 years, and the same is true there.
Newspapers aren’t owned by interests who care about journalism and keeping the public informed anymore, but by corporates who have been prostituting and killing the media for the last two decades.
It’s about appearances, and maintaining the public perception of the newspaper and it’s practices first and foremost – i.e. that public interests are paramount and people are kept informed. BS – it’s about generating cash and “influencing perception” – instilling confusion, apathy and in some cases fear.
Nationwide for example, APN systematically disestablished the positions of hundreds of skilled, long-term employees so they could hire and replace them with cheap labour in India. The layoffs were kept very quiet but Herald advertisers who became aware of the Auckland Production Dept redundancies were outraged with many withdrawing their advertising… putting Kiwis out of jobs during a recession and giving their work to people in India – wtf?!
Fairfax Media had set the precedent – laid off their production staff in favour of outsourcing work to the same company in India years earlier, so yep our news media is Corporate-owned and to them cash is king.
I hope their lack of moral back bone costs them big, big, BIG in time.
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