Twitter Flashback: 2010 - The Age Newspaper Sacks "Outrageous" Columnist Over Logies Tweets

Twitter Flashback.

THE AGE NEWSPAPER FIRES MOST POPULAR COLUMNIST BECAUSE SHE UPSET RUPERT MURDOCH'S THUGS AND GOONS

May, 2010: The Melbourne Age newspaper has fired one of Australia's most successful comediasn for using her Twitter feed to snark hard on the Logie Awards, and its participants.

Dullards and wankstains from 2GB, 3AW and crimelord Rupert Murdoch's Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, The Australian (media that employs people to scan celebrities Twitter feeds as a full-time job) went in hard and chanted in unison Fairfax had to fire Deveny, while News Corp created, launched and ran a Boycott The Age Advertisers/Cancel Your Subscription campaign, across Murdoch newspapers, nationwide.

Of course The Age caved in. They fired Deveny.

Deveny responded she was using satire "to expose celebrity raunch culture and the sexual objectification of women, which is rife on the red carpet".

"It was just passing notes in class, but suddenly these notes are being projected into the sky and taken out of context," she said.

This wasn't Deveny's first Twitter crime against all that was still good and sacred in Australian media, and all that they held sacred.A week earlier, Australia's conservative media got all frothy and furious because Deveny tweeted:

"Anzac Day shits me."

Deveny: "People who are offended by tweets are probably the same people who find Hey Hey funny, a show that I find deeply offensive."

Deveny said, in 2010, most of the public, and older journalists, did not understand Twitter.

"Twitter is not a news source, but it is starting to be used as one".

"Six months ago Twitter was just people saying 'Oh my God, I'm so hung-over,'" she said.

"Now really serious people are using Twitter to communicate, people like Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer, the New Scientist.

"It's about everyone assessing the information for themselves. This is a great challenge for us, to have a sophisticated response to the evolution of communication."

Murdoch media goons came over all politically correct in demanding censorship of Deveny, and Rupert Murdoch allowed his newspapers to call for Advertiser Boycotts of Fairfax newspapers if they kept publishing Deveny's work.

Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Piers Akerman, and nearly every big city Murdoch editor, chanted together subscribers to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald should cancel their subscriptions to 'show Fairfax this can't be tolerated.'

This was Paul Ramadge, editor of The Age in 2010, explaining why he caved into a Boycott Campaign run by Murdochs News Corp and fired one of Fairfax's most popular columnists.

"We are appreciative of the columns Catherine has written for The Age over several years but the views she has expressed recently on Twitter are not in keeping with the standards we set at The Age."

@Catherine Deveny 's Twitter account surged in followers after Fairfax followed the orders of Murdoch thugs and goons, adding more than 1200 more new followers in three hours. In 2010, that was a remarkable surge in Australian Twitter followers.

By midnight on the day of Deveny's May, 2010, dismissal, she had received more than seven hundred responses on Twitter supporting her, railing against The Age and asking what happened to the once legendary Australian sense of humour and love of a piss-take.

Well, the politically correct Murdoch media of the 2010s beat it out of us, didn't they?

Murdoch Media Not Pro-Murdoch Claims Murdoch Editor

Nick Cater, senior editor at The Australian, went on ABC's QandA panel last night and made hilarious claim about Rupert Murdoch's The Australian:

"...some may think the editorial judgement may be affected by the company's commercial interest. In my 24 years at (Murdoch newspapers) that was never the case."

He's saying Murdoch's The Australian has never let the commercial interests of Murdoch's NewsCorp (formerly News Limited) impact on the stories its editors publish, or the editorial line taken when publishing stories.

No, that would never happen.

Not once in the past 24 years, according to Nick Cater.

Here's just two examples of The Australian crowding its front pages with 'editorial judgements' that clearly push and promote pro-Murdoch commercial interests, or strike back against those that don't.

An absurd hyping of Murdoch media's new business model from a few years ago, while they were also firing hundreds of journalists and staff:

And the absolute bitterness of The Australian on clear display when Murdoch co-owned Foxtel didn't win a $250 million government contract for the Australia Network: 

Nope, no pushing of, or defending, Murdoch's commercial interests there. None at all.

Nick Cater said so.

How he managed to make that claim without giggling, or blushing, is remarkable.

Must be those decades of working for Rupert Murdoch.

And to further his claims that the Murdoch media are not biased, Nick Cater took a moment in the same QandA episode to threaten a Labor politician with "war" :

image via @KieraGorden

The Howardly Lion

Former, and hugely defeated, prime minister John Howard gives a speech warning about climate change "alarmism" under the title, 'One Religion Is Enough.'

That's not what he said in November, 2002. Howard:

"Australia is a nation of many religions...We are not a nation that mandates a particular faith."

In the speech John Howard, as usual, as is mandatory for all conservatives, fails to mention that his beloved Rupert "God?" Murdoch is the King of Climate Change Alarmism. Never diss 'God'.

Rupert Murdoch: "Climate Change Poses Clear, Catastrophic Threats"

BREAKING NEWS: NewsCorp Reveals NewsCorp "Least Biased"

It's a special kind of humiliation for the remaining decent journalists at Rupert Murdoch's crumbling Australian newspaper empire that they even have to think about 'crafting' stories like this, let alone having to run them all over their media (image via TomWConnell) :

  

Hilarious. The desperate attempts at credibility-salvaging and face-saving going on at NewsCorp Australia is getting ridiculous, and quite sad.

Curiously, even NewsCorp readers don't think the ABC coverage of Federal Election 2013 is particularly "Leftist." But their columnists and editors keep pumping that line about ABC being over-run by leftist hordes and its news reporting being riddled with bias against conservatives.

Not even Murdoch tabloid readers believe it.


Here's a small sample of recent tabloid front pages from Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp - "Australia's Least Biased Publisher."

The Australian's Obsession With Twitter Gets Plain Stupid - Federal Election 2013 Day 11

Twitter, or even tweets, are not mentioned in this story, anywhere. The Australian's War On Twitter is an embarrasing, hysterical spectacle.
 

The Australian couldn't look any more desperate in its daily attempts to convince older readers Twitter has nothing to offer them. Lest they cancel their subscription to the Australian and go read most of the facts and figures the Autralian hordes behind paywalls on Twitter, for free.

The Australian's earlier attacks on Twitter as being an unreliable medium for distribution of information would be a bit more convincing if The Australian didn't have dozens of Twitter accounts spam-tweeting links to its paywalled content.

Murdoch Flogs Nazi-Themed Merch

Sydney's Daily Telegraph reached peak Godwin's Law last week when editor Paul Whittaker dressed  prime minister Kevin Rudd in Nazi regalia on the front page. Such a hoot, they're now selling prints of Rudd dressed as a Nazi for only $70.

Wonder what Hogan's Heroes copyright owners Bing Crosby Productions think about all this?

The above invitation to buy prints of Australian public servants dressed up as Nazis by an American-owned media company originally appeared with this story from Adeaide Now.


RUPERT MURDOCH HAILS THE DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS: "IT'S GOING TO BE GREAT"

NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA CEO QUITS AFTER 'NAZI PM' FRONT PAGE

HOW RUPERT MURDOCH CONNED BRITISH MPS BY PLAYING CONFUSED OLD MAN

WEIRD SCENES INSIDE THE MURDOCH NEWS MINES

News Corp Australia CEO Kim Williams Quits After Daily Telegraph 'Nazi PM' Front Page - Federal Election Day 5

Less than two years after taking over Rupert Murdoch''s Australian News Corp operations, CEO Kim Williams is stepping down. Remarkably, not of Murdoch's 130 plus Australian newspapers scored this scoop.

We'll return to this dramatic news, and look back at Williams gormless attempts to demonise Australian bloggers and independent media, but here's Kim Williams e-mail to staff (somehow, Murdoch papers even got scooped on this):

Dear Colleagues

I attach the media statement about my departure from News Corp which will be effective from this weekend.

An action like this is always taken with a heavy heart and a mixed bag of feelings and reflections on a wide range of experiences with News Corp across almost 20 years. It is certainly not a decision made lightly, or without an awareness of the impact decisions like this inevitably have on many close colleagues, clients and diverse bodies within the media community.

I started with News Corp back in 1995 and have worked with the company ever since in three roles – as CEO at FOX Studios Australia, CEO of FOXTEL and as CEO at News Corp Australia. Each role has offered a diversity of challenges and wonderful opportunities. I have enjoyed the responsibility and have been honoured to work with many extraordinarily talented people.

Whilst the leadership roles and the issues encountered have at times been frankly really confronting, it has been a source of perpetual renewal and reinforcement to have worked with so many terrific colleagues both here and internationally.  It is the people that one remembers the most.   I will be forever grateful to those who have been so helpful and constructively supportive in the many matters we have mutually confronted. There have been many good wins matched with some memorable awful problems and opponents!  It has all been the stuff of a rich and varied professional life that I would never have had without the benefit of the trust reposed in me by many great colleagues at News Corp.

I wish Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson, their new management team in the new News Corp and all my international colleagues nothing but the best continued success with the product and commercial rewards that their efforts so richly deserve. I am genuinely in awe at the range and depth of talent in the company here and in the international arena and have great confidence in the future and all that it holds for the new enterprise.

Finally, I thank all my Australian colleagues for their support, understanding and commitment to the company, its products and customers over a long time. There are far too many people to single any one out – you all know who you are and what we have shared together!

With my warmest and best wishes to you all in continuing to meet the challenges of change to achieve a great future individually and corporately.

Kim Williams

More Here

Daily Telegraph Depicts PM Rudd As Nazi - Day 4 Of Federal Election Campaign

Rupert Murdoch's The Daily Telegraph couldn't wait even a week into the election campaign before they depicted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a Nazi, online and in print.

And front page of the newspaper, of course.

Does aanyone under 40 even know what TV show the Daily Telegraph's editor Paul Whittaker is referencing there?

You have to feel sorry for the good journalists still left at the Daily Telegraph who have nothing to do with the front page. How is this in any way a good thing for a newspaper industry on its knees? What more reason do you need to give for people to give up on the morning paper habit than garbage like this?

Source

Media Madness Of Federal Election 2013 Begins

Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph demands readers do what they say, and officially, foolishly, declare their hand. On Day One:

The afternoon edition, as seen kicking around Twitter:

How Rupert Murdoch Conned British MPs By Playing The Sad, Pathetic Old Man Card

By Darryl Mason

Rupert Murdoch, at first, refused to appear before British MPs to answer questions about News International's involvement in phone hacking, spying, blackmail and police corruption. But so furious was the reaction of the British public he quickly caved and announced he would appear.

And so he did.

MPs, like Tom Watson, who had been pursuing Murdoch to come clean for years about the cruel criminality of his News Of The World, were wired as the clock ticked down to Rupert Murdoch's appearance, alongside his son James. Tens of millions tuned in around the world, this was it, the Sun King was on the ropes, he was going to get it in the face with both barrels.

But then Rupert pulled off an extraordinary piece of acting. He shambled into the room, head down, slouched gingerly into his chair and struggled to answer questions, or even hear them

His first words to MPs :



Within seconds, the mood of the entire room changed. This wasn't a monster, this was a very old man, sad and sorry, apparently perhaps even a sick old man, as harmless and innocent as their own granpas. How could these MPs beat up on someone so old, so sad, so "humble", so helpless?

They couldn't, and they didn't.



But once Rupert knew he'd conned the room, he was somehow able to to recover all his faculties and defiant verve, and finished the appearance by reading out a statement written by one of the world's leading public relations companies. He might as well have simply said, "Fuck You Very Much."



So how do we know Rupert Murdoch was faking the I'm A Sad Old Man, Don't Be Mean To Me persona?

Because barely a few weeks earlier, he'd given a lively interview with his wife Wendi on how they'd met and fallen in love :



It's like a decade had passed between the above interview and his Struggling To Answer Questions performance in London. It wasn't even 3 weeks.

Within two days of his 'answers' to British MPs, Rupert Murdoch was private-jetting back to New York City, while thousands of British victims of crime waited for phone calls from police to learn if they, too, had had their grief and privacy, their most intimate moments, violated by Murdoch's goons.

Well played, you old bastard. Well played.

What do you get when you combine Australian Julian Assange and the soft porn titan who sold his Australian citizenship to get rich in the United States?

You get this - RupertJulian :






Via BoingBoing

Heath Ledger Was Right About The War On Iraq

"It's Not A Fight For Humanity, It's A Fight For Oil"

By Darryl Mason



Heath Ledger, like the million other Australians who marched against the War On Iraq, was right, as Paul Bignell details in the UK Independent (excerpts) :

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts.

Rupert 'Always Wrong On Iraq' Murdoch knew all about the deal making on Iraq's oil future, and could barely keep his trap shut, boasting a month before the war :

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be US$20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

A bit later, after publicly giving his full and solid backing to the war, Rupert Murdoch explained why, in his deluded old man fantasy world, the War On Iraq was likely to fuel economic recovery :

"We're keeping our heads down, managing the businesses, keeping our profits up. Who knows what the future holds? I have a pretty optimistic medium and long-term view but things are going to be pretty sticky until we get Iraq behind us. But once it's behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else..."

People actually believed that. They really, really did.

At least, until the truth about Australia's ongoing involvement in the War On Iraq became a little clearer in 2007 :



Amusingly, it was Rupert Murdoch's own Australian media empire that spread this bit of truth far and wide. At least they did for a few hours, until Don't Make Rupert Angry censorship survival instinct kicked in and they tried to make their own headlines disappear and went delete crazy on one of the biggest stories of the past decade.

From The Orstrahyun, July 6, 2007 :

The phone calls from John Howard's office to the head office of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in Sydney yesterday were less than pleasant.

The News.com.au website, the main portal for Murdoch's network of Australian newspaper websites, reaching some more than 1.5 million Australian readers per day, ran a number of headlines claiming John Howard had said that oil was now a key reason to stay in Iraq. Some of the headlines said the Iraq War was a war for oil. Just like all those protesters back in early 2003 claimed it would be.

By the time Howard moved to deny he said anything such thing, it was too late. The story was out, columns and articles had been written and sent to the printers for today's news racks, and there was no going back.

John Howard's office knew there was little point trying to get Fairfax newspapers to retract their stories, in print or online. Howard Admits War For Iraq's Oil was the story many journos for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had been waiting more than four years to write.

But Howard knew the Murdoch media were likely to play ball. If not in print, then at least online, where news.com.au now reaches more Australians than the same company's newspapers do, in print.

But even until the early afternoon today, almost 24 hours later, some of the Murdoch websites were still carrying 'Howard Says Iraq War For Oil' headlines and stories, even though the main news.com.au site had rewritten headlines and stories, inside its own archive, and published the following correction....oh sorry, clarification :

An earlier version of this story from the Australian Associated Press incorrectly reported the Prime Minister as saying oil was a reason for Australia's continued military presence in Iraq.

He said "energy", but as we all know, "energy" is "oil" when it comes to the Middle East, unless Howard is thinking about cutting natural gas deals with Iran sometime soon.

The phone calls from Howard's office to News Limited HQ clearly worked.

News.com.au chose to blame Australian Associated Press for supplying the wire news story that claimed Howard had admitted to a war for oil in Iraq.

Here's the pre-furious phone calls from Howard's office Uncorrected Version as it appeared online yesterday :

And here's the spiffy new Corrected Version :

Note that the sub headlines now put the words relating to 'Iraq War For Oil' squarely in the mouth of defence minister Brendan Nelson, when it was also Howard who publicly talked of needing to "secure" energy resources in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sub headlines were also edited to remove the dead giveaway line 'Another Reason Is To Uphold Prestige Of US, UK', to be replaced with the far more Freedom And Democracy Agenda-friendly 'We'll Stay Until Iraq No Longer Needs Us, Says PM'.

But perhaps more importantly, note that on both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' stories above, the byline clearly reads "By Staff Writers And Wires".

AAP may have supplied a story that claimed Howard said Australia had an interest in staying in Iraq to secure future oil supplies, which is, of course, exactly what he said, but unless the byline is a total lie, more than one journo rewrote or added to the text and headline and sub headlines before it went online. Hence "by staff writers and wires".

But to Howard's utter horror, that correction, sorry clarification, only made it onto the story on the main news.com.au site.

The calls for clarifications to the story must not have gotten through to other city newspaper editors and staff in Murdoch's network. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore the clarifications because the story didn't need any clarifying at all. It was true.

And if that was the case, then good on them for not following directions from head office, via the Howard office.

The below pages were all still online through the Murdoch online stable at 10-11am today, and later.

From the Adelaide Advertiser :



Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, ran the following editorial today, hitting the presses before it could be pulled, and staying online, unchanged, well into the late morning :



The Tasmania Mercury still had this up on their site at midday :


And the Murdoch site in Perth still had this posted after midday today :



Even though the story of Howard's Iraq Oil Slick was running up hundreds of comments an hour on websites around Australia, any mention of it was gone from the news.com.au front page by 10.30am this morning.

Over at Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper website, at least three key columnists weighed in supporting Howard's claim that he didn't say what he said, and it really didn't matter even if the prime minister and the defence minister did say what they said. Which they did.

Just to jog your memory, here's a reminder of what John Howard had to say about claims that the, then, still coming War On Iraq was about something other than WMDs and deposing Saddam Hussein back in February, 2003 :

"No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that US behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."

And here's what the Murdoch media's favourite political whipping post, Greens Leader Bob Brown had to say in that same week, in 2003 :

This is not Australia's war. This is an oil war. This is the US recognising that, as the economic empire of the age, it needs oil to maintain its pre-eminence.

Back then, 76 percent of Australians were opposed to a War On Iraq.


By midday today, the Australia In Iraq For The Oil scandal was making international news, in a big way.

And the hundreds of headlines from around the world were immune to Howard's attempt to reframe his own comments, and those of his defence minister. They went in hard, using Howard as the first leader of a Coalition Of The Drilling country to finally admit the truth about a war so blackened and poisoned with so many lies :

Herald Sun, Melbourne : PM's war for oil

Daily Times, Pakistan - Oil key motive for Iraq involvement: Australia

The Scotsman, Scotland - Oil keeps Australia in Iraq

The Independent, UK : Australian troops 'in Iraq because of oil'

RTE, Ireland : Mideast oil priority for Australia

The BBC : Australians 'are in Iraq for oil'

Turkish Press, Middle East : Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Voice Of America : Australia Says Oil Key Motive for Involvement in Iraq

The Guardian, UK : Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian MP

Xinhau, China : PM: Australian troops to stay in Iraq for oil

Aljazeera : Australia admits Iraq war about oil

Forbes : Australia says securing oil supply means no Iraq withdrawal

Press TV, Iran : Aussies in Iraq for Oil

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates : Oil 'key factor for Australia's role in Iraq'

Stratfor (key military intel site) : Australia: Oil A Reason For Iraq Presence

Alsumaria, Iraq : Oil supply is an essential factor

Zee Tv, India : Mid-east oil crucial to our future: Australian PM

Alalalam News Network, Iran : Australia: Oil Means no Iraq Pullout


Some of those same news sites ran Howard's attempts to deny that he said what he said, but his retraction was given mostly backwater coverage. Those international editors knew, like some editors of Murdoch's Australian newspapers knew, that Howard was trying to scam them.

Like he tried to scam the entire nation back in late 2002 when he said he hadn't decided whether or not he would send troops to Iraq, when they were already in the Gulf. And in early March, 2003, when Howard said he hadn't decided yet whether or not commit troops to the coming war, when some of those already deployed troops had already written letters to their children in case they died during the fighting.

Read The Full July 6, 2007 Post Here

------------------------------

So when are we going to have an investigation into the real reasons why Australia became involved in the War On Iraq?

When are we going to have an investigation into Howard government foreign minister Alexander Downer's meetings with some of the world's biggest oil companies in 2002-2004?

When are we going to have an investigation into the false intelligence circulated so enthusiastically by the Howard government and the Murdoch media back in 2002 and early 2003?

Taxpayers who were swindled of almost $20 billion over eight years for the War On Iraq deserve the truth.

The thousands of Australian soldiers who served in Iraq, the hundreds physically & psychologically wounded, those who committed suicide after they got back, the families ruined, deserve nothing less than the truth.

Murdoch Backs Gillard

By Darryl Mason

The Daily Telegraph ramps up the mockery of opposition leader Tony Abbott as the last week of the 2010 Federal Election campaign begins.





Ex-Australian Rupert Murdoch's Sunday tabloids, reaching more than one million Australians, carried front pages and lead editorials endorsing coup prime minister Julia Gillard to be officially elected PM this Saturday.

From The Australian's Media Diary :

Australia’s top-selling newspapers yesterday went for Julia Gillard, with Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph (circulation: 630,000) saying every government since 1931 has been given a second chance, so why shouldn’t the ALP get one, too? Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun (circulation: 597,000) said “the best interests of Australians are served by the re-election of Labor”.

Tony Abbott doesn't back a carbon tax, Julia Gillard, like Rupert Murdoch, does.

It's going to be an ugly week for Abbott in most of the Murdoch tabloids.

Unless, of course, Tony Abbott agrees, by Thursday, that a carbon tax "of some kind" may be necessary, after all.

UPDATE, August 18 : Both Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard have denied they plan to introduce a carbon tax in their first term. I'll wait and see on this one, but it's rare that big business doesn't get what it wants. The pressure on Gillard and Abbott to make a carbon tax part of their first term government agenda is not simply localised corporate pressure from those who stand to gain the most from a CT, it is also coming from international banking and investment institutions.

I'll be both pleased and, frankly, amazed if Australia doesn't have a carbon tax by 2013, regardless of who wins on Saturday.

Praying To The Digital Gods

By @DarrylMason

The Australian takes its column inches hogging obsession with the iPad to hilarious extremes:



How obsessed with the iPad is The Australian?

Utterly.

It's almost as if the newspaper's entire existence hangs on trying to convince 50,000 or more Australians to buy, and keep buying, its $4.99 per month (for now) iPad application. Which, of course, it does. Particularly considering owner Rupert Murdoch is planning to phase out the print edition within the next two or three years and shut down the printing presses forever, a Death To Newspapers move Murdoch described in September 2009 as "great" :

“I do certainly see the day when more people will be buying their newspapers on portable reading panels than on crushed trees.

“Then we’re going to have no paper, no printing plants, no unions. It’s going to be great.”

Mumbrella noticed how obsessed The Australian has been with the iPad, and did some Googling. Since the start of February 2010, The Australian has run more than three dozen stories about the iPad, how absolutely brill it is, why it will save newspapers and how and why you should buy The Australian iPad app.

In just two days (April 12-13) The Australian ran at least six stories on the subject, most shamelessly hawking the digital tablet to readers in pure advertorial speak. On May 24, The Australian broke its own record by running four stories on the iPad.

Good luck to them. If their launch product is anything to go by - thin on content, visually bland - they're going to need it.

More From Mumbrella Here

Nipples = Clickbait

Back in the 1970s, Rupert Murdoch's mum put her foot down and refused to let her son publish topless pics in his Australian tabloids, as he was doing to great success in Britain. That ban has stayed in place ever since, denying generations of Australian newspaper readers some nipples with their breakfast, or morning tea break.

Until, that is, the arrival of the News.com.au 'After Dark Special Edition'.

1am :



9am :



News.com.au's 'After Dark Special Edition', for insomniacs and really early risers. But only until Rupert's mum wakes up.


.

The Australian Piles On The Lawyers To Hide Its Secrets

Amazing :

...the federal government anti-corruption agency, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity....cut a deal with The Australian in which ACLEI agreed not to publish any of the information obtained about the newspaper during the investigation. ACLEI has also agreed to allow The Australian to review any future report it writes that refers to the paper or its employees.

A federal government anti-corruption agency has to allow a newspaper to review reports which discuss, or refer, to possible corruption at that newspaper. All of this results from a story The Australian ran on its front page about a anti-terrorism squad raid, a story they ran before the raid actually took place.

Your Right To Know?

Not in this case.

No wonder News Limited despises Crikey so much, they're just about the only news media company in Australia willing to report on how News Limited fights so hard to keep its secrets. And successfully so.

Actor Simon Pegg sums up the mocking outrage today in Britain towards ex-Australian Rupert Murdoch, as the owner of 40% of Britain's newspapers is repeatedly exposed for desperately trying to control, yet again, who will be elected prime minister :




An ad from the UK Independent, getting widespread exposure through non-Murdoch media, blogs and Twitter :



Murdoch's The Sun Accused Of Hiding Poll Results That Show Third Party Candidate Nick Clegg Could Become Prime Minister

James Murdoch Storms Into Office Of Rival Newspaper Editor Shouting, "You're A Fucking Fuckwit!"

Desperate Days As Murdoch's Anti-Democratic Behaviour Lights Up Internet

SpinMasters On Murdoch's Sky News "Like Watching The Live Abortion Of Democracy"

"Good Headline, Boss!"

News Limited boss John Hartigan on what is being termed The Biggest Fraud In Australia's Professional Sporting History, involving the Melbourne Storm, the rugby league team News Limited owns :

"This club has had a couple of rats in its ranks...."

It was a line Hartigan ran out for an interviews on A Current Affair, ABC News and every other encounter he had with news media yesterday.

News Limited's The Herald Sun complies on its online front page :





John Hartigan must be feeling particularly rattled by this scandal, not only for the millions News Limited will lose now its team is facing a massive plunge in merch revenue and sponsorship dollars for the rest of the season, but also because News Limited's "exclusive" coverage of all things Melbourne Storm was said to be one of the key selling points of the 'premium' paywall packages the corporation is now putting together for a launch only a few weeks away.

News Limited no longer has the Melbourne Storm as a viable attraction to entice rugby league junkies to pay to read The Herald Sun or The Daily Telegraph online.

That's gonna hurt.

Why Rupert Murdoch Loves The iPad

By Darryl Mason

Media readers, like the iPad, will effectively, eventually, shut out the free news competition :

Sweeting says he thinks many of the major media companies would love to see computers discourage people from searching the open Internet for content.

"I think the media companies will leap at this," he says. "It offers them the opportunity to essentially re-create the old business model, wherein they are pushing content to you on their terms rather than you going out and finding content, or a search engine discovering content for you."

Overhead-heavy bloated media corporations, like Murdoch's, who want to "put a tollbooth on the ocean" are betting the house that locked up media readers will save their outdated 20th century business models.

But they seem to be the only ones who believe that there will be enough people willing to pay to make it profitable enough to continue paying corporate media executives like Rupert Murdoch tens of millions of dollars a year.

Media Watch chewed through these issues last night.

Murdoch newspapers like The Australian are already planning to do away with their print versions, at least on a daily basis. It's the only way they can survive. The sums have been done and print must go. Here's The Australian's editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell :

"When you remove the fixed costs in newspapers, they become much more viable. So if you think of a newspaper without paper and ink and petrol and trucks, you're taking out between 60 and 70 per cent of the cost base....

"But I guess my view is that the core of the business is your ability to dream up ideas to create news - the things that we chase each day. "

"Dream up ideas to create news." What a curious thing to say, or to reveal about how the newsrooms of a corporate news empire actually work.

And you thought their job was to simply report the news.

September 17, 2009 : Rupert Murdoch Celebrates Death Of Newspapers : "It's Going To Be Great!"

October 2009 : The Australian Tries To Rally Support For Murdoch's War On Free News Media

Censorship By Matt Drudge

It's hard to believe that Matt Drudge was once regarded as some sort of take-no-prisoners mainstream media troublemaker.

An example follows of Matt Drudge's reaction, and censorship, when confronted with one of the most explosive media scandal stories in years.

A headline on both the Drudge Report website, and the @Drudge_Report Twitter feed :




The actual headline of the Reuters story :



Hmm, a certain name seems to have gone missing...

reposted from Your New Reality

Matt Drudge And Frank Gaffney Share The Bong Of Rampant Paranoia
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