Australia’s official media watchdog has found more than two-thirds of all complaints upheld for violations of the media code of ethics in 2021 were against one organisation – the Murdoch family’s News Corp.
The clear message from last year’s adjudications by the Australian Press Council (APC) is that Australians will be safer, healthier, happier and much better informed when this evil media empire eventually disappears.
Examples of malevolence
The Herald Sun ran a story in late 2020 headlined ‘Allergy warning over Pfizer COVID vaccine’. The dramatic sub-heading in bold type asserted ‘SIX PEOPLE DIED DURING PFIZER TRIAL’. Those who read further were told that two of the deceased had taken the vaccine, but the other four had taken the placebo.
After a complaint that such deception puts community safety at risk, the APC ruled that ‘by implying in the headline that the deaths were or could have been due to the vaccine, the publication failed to take steps to ensure factual material is not misleading ...’
The Australian ran a cartoon in August 2020 which drew then US presidential candidate Joe Biden saying “It’s time to heal a nation divided by racism” followed by “So I’ll hand you over to this little brown girl while I go for a lie down”.
The APC smacked down The Australian concluding that ‘the prejudice to women and particularly women of colour which the cartoon contributes to is substantial ...’
The Sunday Telegraph ran an appallingly racist article in June 2020 dealing with the Black Lives Matter protests and black deaths in custody. The article said: ‘The reality in this country – and the US – is that the greatest danger to aboriginals and negroes is themselves’ and that until ‘we address this issue, protests damning white police officers are nebulous’.
The Council found that ‘the article drew on factual material about deaths and family violence amongst Indigenous people not related to police behaviour or deaths in custody’. Further, it omitted ‘reference to well-documented societal factors contributing to Indigenous community and family dysfunction including unemployment and poverty, poor housing and overcrowding, and poor education and health ...’
The APC concluded that the Murdoch newspaper ‘failed to take reasonable steps to avoid causing substantial offence, distress or prejudice, without sufficient justification in the public interest.’
Murdoch the main offender
Once again, most of the APC’s time last year was spent on complaints against just this one media group.
Of the 27 complaints fully investigated, 19 were against Murdoch publications. That’s seventy per cent. Of the twenty articles found to breach the standards, 14 were from News Corp. Also seventy percent.
The last time Independent Australia analysed APC outcomes, in September 2020, only 62 per cent of adverse findings were from Murdoch outlets. So it appears they may be getting worse, not better.
This is part of a longer article published earlier today by Independent Australia.
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The original article is available here in full for free:
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/news-corps-shoddy-journalism-again-dominates-press-council-complaints,15994
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“Alan Austin is a great Australian journalist and,
I think, a pirate. I steal Alan Austin’s findings all the time.”
~ Jordan Shanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtV-2X4BjQI