Little Book Of Blog & اقتصاد

At the moment it appears to be impossible to post comments on my blog (I know you’re all dead keen) so you can do what Dave did and email them to me, and I’ll put it up as a post.

‘It¹s an interesting call by the old duffer Beattie. I¹m pretty sure that if
Fairfax thought another daily in Brisbane was a viable commercial prospect
they would be up there quicker than a rat up a drainpipe.

But the sheer fact that one man (Murdoch) owns two thirds of Australia¹s
metropolitan newspapers is food for thought. Media diversity is good for
democracy. A near monopoly is not.’
David Harrison

In today’s SMH there is an article in the business liftout regarding the future of the Brisbane Courier Mail. Owned by News Ltd and the state’s only daily paper, this broadsheet has been scheduled to become a tabloid in the first half of next year. Oh the humanity! My old mate Beats (”the premier” as we called him at school) has put out a call for assistance to Fairfax to establish a “quality paper” in Queensland. As Queensland celebrates its 4 millionth member, Beats reckons that the state is now more than a one paper town.

Apparently News Ltd is doing this across its global network of print publications, similar actions having already taken place in London and somewhere in America. It has come about to counter dropping circulation figures. Curran (2002) in ‘Rival narratives of media history‘ wrote of how many view the media “primarily as a source of consumer pleasure”. Changing the entire format of a daily newspaper in response to the perceived wants of the public sits at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum as compared to the early days of the BBC radio programmes and their attempts at ‘cultural evangelism’ .

GWACHEON, South Korea (AP) — South Korean antitrust regulators Wednesday ruled that Microsoft Corp. abused its market dominance, fined it 33 billion won ($32 million) and ordered the software giant to offer alternative versions of Windows.

Read more

This article from Drive (SMH) shows how businesses can attempt to doctor media reports. More later on.

a few links (I’m still trying to figure out how to make categories)

http://www.xmedia.org.au/

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/sp/media_regulations.htm

http://www.smh.com.au/specials/crossmedia/

http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/fop/fop_subs/crossmedia.html

I am appalled at such dishonesty in business

ok this isn’t going to be very relevant as im just getting down some initial thoughts to expand on throughout this …. thing. Blog, if you will. Yes… that will work, I shall name it, ‘the blog’.

the one.tel case- could anything possibly be more relevant? Two of the biggest media men to have been around the block having it out, tears in kitchen. In one corner News Ltd, in the other, PBL. Will the support of their respective ‘corporations’ (a dirty word if you’re a right winger) influence the outcome of the whole sordid affair? Can one out muscle the other? Until the new media ownership laws come in, PBL has the airwaves covered, while News has the print under its thumb. More when I have a chance to think about it in a critical context, but for now keep yourself up to date here.

Industrial Relations Reforms- Oh my, it appears I have chosen a topic with ample information to fill these bloggy, bloggy pages. See the link on the front page, or force me to make the effort on behalf of you, my lazy lazy reader, and click here for info straight from the horses mouth.

Objectivity- In my illustrious opinion, I would think that if you were writing primarily about business, the task of maintaining a degree of objectivity wouldn’t prove to be as much of a hassle as writing about gay marriage and surrogate mothers, to use a flippant, random example. The moral dilemmas of business are rather limited, with the added bonus that many people who are actually concerned with business and read the Australian Financial Review can understand the pointlessness of including a contradictory point simply for the sake of ‘balance’. The biggest moral dilemma I can think of off the top of my head would be something along the lines of the James Hardie case (sweet I can use that too). Come to think of it there aren’t many moral dilemmas there either… nobody is really disputing the fact that they are guilty.

Ah but wait, there are some moral issues at hand. Media ownership, globalisation, etc. On media ownership, it appears according to articles such as this that the public doesn’t hold much interest. If there’s no audience, then there’s little chance the issue will have much coverage.

Rightio, between now and a followup posting I think I’ll read what I’m actually meant to be doing, so fear not, relevancy is on the way.