Thursday, July 2, 2009

Corrupting Serious Debate

Is that the truth? Or was your News Limited?

John Hartigan is the chairman and chief executive of Murdoch's News Limited, owner and publisher of The Australian, the foreign editor of which is Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan. Hartigan spoke yesterday to the National Press Club in Canberra. Among other things, he said, "several newspapers, notably the Wall Street Journal and The Australian... had prospered by investing in quality reporting." Just click on the 'Greg Sheridan' tag at the bottom of this post if you'd like to see what "quality reporting" means in action.

Hartigan had something else on his mind at the NPC: "Mr Hartigan... took aim at the blogosphere and so-called 'citizen journalism'. He said bloggers lacked the resources, training, skills and contacts to produce reliable news. 'Blogs and a large number of comment sites specialise in political extremism and personal vilification', he said. Mr Hartigan dismissed the claims often made by bloggers that theirs was a fresh, more democratic medium. 'Amateur journalism trivialises and corrupts serious debate', he said. 'It degenerates democracy into mob rule and rumour'." (Future of our newspapers is bright, Paul Maley, The Australian, 2/7/09)

Long live political extremism, personal vilification, the trivialisation and corruption of serious debate, mob rule, and rumour!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I clicked the tag for the Greg[Jerusalem Prize] Sheridan archive.Why is he still employed?Propaganda needs at least an element of truth, this needs to be published as a book.