Politics

Junk Explained: What Does The Murdoch Media Senate Inquiry Actually Mean?

Here's what you need to know about Kevin Rudd's petition-turned-senate inquiry.

by Rashna Farrukh  12 November 2020
murdoch

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On Wednesday, the Senate voted to hold an inquiry on the dominance of Murdoch-owned media in Australia, and its effects on democracy.

The inquiry comes off the back of Kevin Rudd’s record-breaking petition that was submitted to parliament earlier this month with more than 500,000 signatures. Rudd described the Murdoch media empire as “abusing the media monopoly” and threatening “the future lifeblood of our democratic system”.

The petition was signed by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who earlier this week slammed The Australian’s editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, on Q&A for “offensive”, “biased” and “destructive” journalism.

What’s A Senate Inquiry?

A senate inquiry is a committee of senators from different political parties, established to investigate a certain issue. For this issue, the Environment and Communications References Committee will inquire into “the state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy”.

Inquiries seek submissions from the general public, which means once the inquiry into Murdoch-owned media is opened, anyone who has an opinion or experience they would like to share on the topic can submit their thoughts.

Lots of businesses, lobby groups, former politicians, and everyday citizens make submissions.

If the committee would like to hear from someone who has made a submission, they can invite them to a hearing, which is generally public.

Based on their findings, submissions, and hearings, the committee will then make recommendations to the Senate.

How Much Power Does The Murdoch Media Really Have?

Lots.

Murdoch-owned media in Australia is anything under the masthead of News Corp. News Corp is the biggest newspaper owner in Australia, owning an estimated 65% of print newspaper readership. It has a newspaper in every state and territory, controls Foxtel, owns Sky News, as well as the second-largest online newspaper news.com.au.

Rupert Murdoch is the patriarch of this empire, and his son, Lachlan Murdoch owns Nova FM and Smooth FM under the masthead Nova Entertainment.

Murdoch media’s various news outlets reach 16 million Australians each month. That’s 16 million out of 25 million Aussies.

In 2017, two media laws which made monopolising harder for giants were scrapped, making media concentration more likely.

The first prevented a company from owning a newspaper, radio and television station in the same city — only two out of three could be owned. The second prevented a single TV broadcaster from reaching more than 75% of the population.

Does Reach Mean Influence?

Not necessarily.

As former News Corp executive Kim Williams put it, “News Corp has no influence with the public but an acute influence with politicians”.

This is an important distinction to make.

In Parliament House, TVs everywhere from the cafe to the press gallery to minister’s offices are tuned into Sky News. Similarly Sydney’s 2GB, previously headed by shock-jock Alan Jones, is influential because “it is treated as influential”.

Why Is This Inquiry Necessary?

News Corp has been controversial for a while. But in recent years, it has come under fire for biased coverage and the spread of misinformation.

News Corp papers repeatedly and falsely claimed that the 2019-20 bushfires were caused by arson. This led to an employee speaking out against the “irresponsible” coverage, as well as Rupert Murdoch’s other son, James Murdoch who criticised the papers’ “ongoing denial” of climate change.

In August last year, The Australian launched a page called ‘gender issues’ comprising almost exclusively of pieces spreading misinformation about trans individuals. ABC’s Media Watch called out the paper for its discriminatory, “one-sided” coverage.

The empire has also faced criticism for its Islamophobic coverage, with over 8 articles per day being published in 2017 which presented Muslims in a negative light, along with 152 front page covers that year doing the same. It’s hard to forget the treatment Muslim writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied received following a Facebook post on Anzac day which read “lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria and Palestine)”. 100,000 words were published by News Corp attacking Abdel-Magied after the post. In the end, she left Australia for the UK.

Most recently, their misinformation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic and the US election has come under scrutiny.

So, What Result Can We Expect From The Inquiry?

All we know so far is former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull will be called forward to give evidence in the inquiry, as they have been outspoken on the issue.

The committee will be chaired by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who won support for the inquiry in the Senate.