Although it would be an awesome spectacle, it wouldn’t solve the underlying problem: the overall collapse of the media industry.
When he was communications minister in the Howard years, Richard Alston accused Labor of having a “mogul-centric media policy”. Rarely has a blacker pot criticised a kettle: media policy in Australia under Labor and Coalition governments has been mogul-centric for the best part of 100 years.
In recent decades, free-to-air television owners have dictated policy because of their control over what images voters see during election campaigns.
More latterly still as the media industry has collapsed, News Corp — which could make no headway against the free-to-air oligopolists in the 1990s and 2000s — has been able to dictate the government’s policy towards Facebook and Google and the cowing and destruction of the ABC.
Keep reading about what needs to be done about News Corp’s dominance.
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