James Murdoch’s move out of the executive chairmanship of News International and his confirmation as deputy chief operating officer of News itself superficially keeps him on the succession track, but the reality is the track no longer exists.
His role inside News’s head office on Sixth Avenue in New York has been more narrowly defined than it was when the move was first announced in March last year.
And his candidacy to replace News’s chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, has been sidelined by the scandal in Britain.
News tapped phones and made what look to be corrupt payments to British officials before James Murdoch took over at News International. But News’s insistence that the hacking was not widespread continued while he was there.
He was either in charge in Britain and unaware of the extent of the scandal or he was aware of it and not responding.
Both conclusions undermine him and News Corp president and chief operating officer Chase Carey will take over as chief executive if Rupert Murdoch steps down in the short to medium term.
James Murdoch moved across from running News’s partly owned British pay television business, BskyB, to lead News International in December 2007. And at the end of March last year News announced that he would take up a new role at the group’s Sixth Avenue headquarters in New York, as deputy chief operating officer and chairman and CEO, international.
Carey was put in place in mid-2009 to step in if Rupert Murdoch went under a bus. He was appointed chief operating officer and given a new title of deputy chairman.
James Murdoch’s job description in March last year sent a signal however that James was being positioned to take over and, perhaps, to leapfrog Carey. He would work across News’s entire asset portfolio, News said, to ”develop and execute strategies and plans that strengthen and further evolve businesses, extend brands, and build new franchises”. He would also maintain direct responsibility for News’s businesses in Europe and Asia.
Yesterday’s announcement that he was stepping down as executive chairman of News International was more circumspect.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/is-murdoch-the-ultimate-insider-now-on-the-outer-20120301-1u5yw.html#ixzz1ntsCHUiw
• Media Inquiry calls for single watchdog, ABC Online here
• Greens welcome Finkelstein’s News Media Council
Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown today welcomed the Independent Inquiry into Media and Media Regulation undertaken by former Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, Mr Ray Finkelstein QC, with the assistance of Dr Matthew Ricketson.
“The Greens are very pleased with the recommendation that a News Media Council be established to set journalistic standards for the news media in consultation with the industry, and handle complaints made by the public when those standards are breached,” Senator Brown said in Canberra.
“We applaud the government for enabling this very important inquiry outcome.
“The report vindicates the Greens’ push for a media inquiry and we look forward to action by the government in the public interest, this year. This is a good strong outcome for both the media and the public interest in Australia,” Senator Brown said.
Senator Brown, in Green Magazine, recently:
The Murdoch papers have gone apoplectic on the Greens’ proposed media inquiry. They, who inquire into everyone else, can’t stand the spotlight on themselves. Here’s a fraction of the insults these papers have disgorged against the inquiry or the Greens in recent times:
Brown’s call is “disgraceful and opportunistic slander” (Herald Sun), “an attempt to limit public scrutiny of the privileged few who strut the halls of power” (Adelaide Advertiser), a “first step to totalitarianism” (NT News), “a golden opportunity to smear local journalists” (Daily Telegraph),“accusatory denunciations … made by Brown and his mindless sycophants against those who question their … extremist agenda” (ibid), “the media inquiry flagrantly designed by the Government and the Greens to punish only media organisations whose newspapers [such as this one] have most embarrassed them and exposed their mistakes” (ibid), “You’d think you were in the Soviet Union. Truly” (Herald Sun), “a witch hunt against the News Ltd newspapers which don’t pay him enough respect” (Brisbane Sunday Mail), “We said Senator Brown and his Green colleagues … should be destroyed at the ballot box … we have been pilloried for it” (The Australian, as victim), “the Greens are salivating at the prospect of muzzling their critics” (Herald Sun), and “This is the green face of fascism” (The Australian).
• The Australian: Media fears for freedom as watchdog unleashed
PRINT and online news will come under direct federal government oversight for the first time under proposals issued yesterday to create a statutory regulator with the power to prosecute media companies in the courts.
The historic change to media law would break with tradition by using government funds to replace an industry council that acts on complaints, in a move fiercely opposed by companies as a threat to the freedom of the press.
The proposals, issued yesterday by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, also seek to widen the scope of federal oversight to cover print, online, radio and TV within a single regulator for the first time.
Bloggers and other online authors would also be captured by a regime applying to any news site that gets more than 15,000 hits a year, a benchmark labelled “seriously dopey” by one site operator.
The head of the review, former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein, rejected industry warnings against setting up a new regulator under federal law with funding from government.
The major newspaper companies were unanimous in opposing a statutory regulator under federal law, with Kerry Stokes’s Seven West Media declaring it was inconsistent with the notion of a free press.
Media companies also warned that government funding for the new regulator would undercut the workings of a healthy democracy, with APN News & Media bluntly opposing any increase in regulation.
But the Finkelstein review found flaws in the way complaints about newspapers were handled by the Australian Press Council, which has four staff funded by the industry to adjudicate on disputes.
The review concluded that a new regulator empowered by federal legislation would give complainants a faster way to seek redress such as corrections, clarifications or apologies.
“There must be some effective means of raising standards of journalism and of making the media publicly accountable,” the report said. “What the media have lost sight of is that they accepted the idea of press regulation by having set up the APC to make a positive contribution to the development of journalistic standards.
Mr Finkelstein and his colleague on the review, former journalist Matthew Ricketson of the University of Canberra, acknowledged the danger of creating a new law as a check on the print and online media.
“The real objection to statutory backing is about how the power might be misused in the future – that, even if the law when originally enacted does not interfere with press freedom, inevitably the law will soon change to have that effect.”
Yet the review concluded that its proposed News Media Council would have the power under the law to act on complaints about news and current affairs in print, online, radio and TV.
The report calls for “secure funding” from Canberra to pay for the News Media Council and suggests about $2 million a year, twice the budget of the Australian Press Council.
“News Media Council should have power to require a news media outlet to publish an apology, correction or retraction, or afford a person a right to reply,” the report states. It says this would be enforced through the courts.
• Alan Kohler: Scrutiny will weed out shonks
PUBLISHERS and practitioners of quality journalism should have nothing to fear from regulation, as it provides a distinction between serious journalism and the foot-in-door end of the market, one independent publisher says in response to the Finkelstein review.
Alan Kohler is part of a small circle of independent proprietors in digital media who face greater regulation. As chairman of Australian Independent Business Media, publisher of Business Spectator and The Eureka Report, Kohler said he was not against regulation. “The media is powerful, it does have an impact, and it is reasonable for it to be regulated by an independent body,” he said.
“Media and journalism is a funny industry where you have someone of the quality of Paul Kelly . . . called journalists while someone who hacks a phone for celebrity gossip is also called a journalist. This sort of regulation might reinforce the importance of great journalism and put more pressure on what we would consider bad journalism. There should be greater distinction between yellow journalism and quality journalism, and those practising quality journalism should have nothing to fear.”
