WEBVTT - ‘Getting Murdoched’: How the Murdoch media attacks its targets

0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:10.880
<v Speaker 1>I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. For decades,

0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.280
<v Speaker 1>Rupert Murdoch's Betty V Empire has helped shape politics and

0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:18.120
<v Speaker 1>public debate, and in doing so has often left lasting

0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.120
<v Speaker 1>consequences for some of the people coordinate sites, from politicians

0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:27.080
<v Speaker 1>to public figures to everyday people. The consequences can be devastating.

0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.360
<v Speaker 1>Journalists Matthew Richardson and Andrew Dodd have a name for

0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.680
<v Speaker 1>what happens when the attention becomes a campaign. They call

0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:39.200
<v Speaker 1>it getting murdocked. Today, co author of their new book

0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.400
<v Speaker 1>Getting Murdocked, Matthew Richardson on the people who found themselves

0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.000
<v Speaker 1>on the receiving end and the media culture that could

0:00:46.040 --> 0:01:01.200
<v Speaker 1>outlast Rupert Murdoch himself. It's Friday, August fourty eight. Matthew,

0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.960
<v Speaker 1>thanks so much for speaking with us in seven AM.

0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.920
<v Speaker 1>You've witnessed up close and you've even experienced it. So

0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.760
<v Speaker 1>what exactly do you mean by getting murdocked?

0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.720
<v Speaker 2>Getting murdock is when a person is the kind of

0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.760
<v Speaker 2>subject of hostile attention from the Murdoch media, usually based

0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.320
<v Speaker 2>on what you say or you believe that doesn't accord

0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.480
<v Speaker 2>with what they say or believe. You can get monstered

0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.280
<v Speaker 2>by one media outlet owned by Murdoch, or you can

0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.959
<v Speaker 2>get monstered by what Stephen Man calls the full Murdoch symphony,

0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:37.960
<v Speaker 2>the tabloid newspapers Sky after Dark, And since the late

0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:42.840
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighties, Rupert Murdoch has owned around about two thirds

0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.600
<v Speaker 2>of the daily and Sunday newspapers in this country. Now

0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.920
<v Speaker 2>newspapers are not as influential or as large a part

0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.800
<v Speaker 2>of the media ecosystem these days as they were, but

0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.840
<v Speaker 2>they all have online editions, they all have kind of

0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.040
<v Speaker 2>reached into social media and so on, and so it

0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.920
<v Speaker 2>fair to say that Murdoch, along with the ABC, has

0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.520
<v Speaker 2>the biggest media footprint in the country.

0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.640
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so let's talk about some of the targets of

0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.440
<v Speaker 1>some of these prolonged campaigns, some of whom people would remember,

0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:18.160
<v Speaker 1>like Britney Higgins and Yasmin abdul Mage, Scott McIntyre. What

0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.440
<v Speaker 1>are the stories out of all the people that you've

0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.040
<v Speaker 1>spoken to for this book that stay with you the most.

0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.960
<v Speaker 2>Well, the Britney Higgins story has stayed with us. I

0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:31.000
<v Speaker 2>mean it has its origins back in twenty nineteen when

0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.160
<v Speaker 2>she claimed and then was proven in a civil court

0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.240
<v Speaker 2>to have been raped on a minister's couch in the

0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.040
<v Speaker 2>Federal Parliament. When I say it's a complicated story, it's

0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.760
<v Speaker 2>because it's spawned a kind of almost a cottage industry

0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.160
<v Speaker 2>of legal actions. And what we were interested in, not

0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.919
<v Speaker 2>to the exclusion of the other, but to investigate how

0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.760
<v Speaker 2>one newspaper and in particular one columnist one newspaper that

0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.519
<v Speaker 2>is The Australian. The newspaper and the columnist is Robertson,

0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:05.640
<v Speaker 2>have focused inordinately on the Britney Higgins case.

0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:07.760
<v Speaker 3>I think at The Australian we have done such a

0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.320
<v Speaker 3>tremendous job of making sure that we have covered this

0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.680
<v Speaker 3>case from just about every angle that we could, because

0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.280
<v Speaker 3>it seemed to us that much of the media we're

0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.080
<v Speaker 3>not interested in hearing from other women in this case,

0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.160
<v Speaker 3>that believa all women only applied to Britney Higgins.

0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.440
<v Speaker 2>What happens in the process, as she writes about one

0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.480
<v Speaker 2>hundred and twenty three articles over two and a bit

0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.359
<v Speaker 2>year period, is that most of the articles are very

0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.880
<v Speaker 2>critical of Brittney Higgins and treat Bruce Lehman and his

0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:40.920
<v Speaker 2>claims and so on very lightly.

0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.640
<v Speaker 3>From the moment that this case started. I was never

0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.400
<v Speaker 3>and I don't want this to sound callous, but I

0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.480
<v Speaker 3>was never terribly interested in what happened that night. I

0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:51.720
<v Speaker 3>was interested in whether there could be a fair trial.

0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.480
<v Speaker 3>And I think the moment that it became trial by media,

0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.800
<v Speaker 3>trial by parliament, trial by just about it every institution

0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.680
<v Speaker 3>in this country that coalesced against the presumption of innocence,

0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.480
<v Speaker 3>including a Prime Minister at the time who got up

0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.040
<v Speaker 3>in Parliament and said that he was apologizing for things

0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.080
<v Speaker 3>that had happened that night.

0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.320
<v Speaker 2>The effect of that is to tilt the scales very

0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.880
<v Speaker 2>heavily against Brittney Higgins and in favor of Bruce Lehman.

0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.520
<v Speaker 2>And then at a more human level, there's a question

0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.960
<v Speaker 2>of what impact that coverage has had on Britney Higgins.

0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.840
<v Speaker 2>And we interviewed her partner, David Sharaz, and he told

0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.280
<v Speaker 2>us that it has had a profound impact on her

0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.000
<v Speaker 2>mental health. I don't think that's all that surprising. I mean,

0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.000
<v Speaker 2>we're talking about not only the volume of articles, but

0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.000
<v Speaker 2>you know, we're talking about front page news stories and

0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.480
<v Speaker 2>long columns, investigations and so on.

0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.320
<v Speaker 1>What about some of the longer term impacts on some

0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:48.920
<v Speaker 1>of the other people you spoke to you, Matthew.

0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.680
<v Speaker 2>Well, in the case of Yasmin abdul Majid, there was

0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.760
<v Speaker 2>a period and it's died away a little bit, but

0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.440
<v Speaker 2>not entirely, where anyone who said anything that News Corp

0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.039
<v Speaker 2>people didn't agree with on Anzac Day got it in

0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.719
<v Speaker 2>the net. Let's go back to this Shla Yasmin abdil Margid,

0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:07.160
<v Speaker 2>I've mispronounced, but her kids.

0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.919
<v Speaker 1>So she posts less we forget on Facebook?

0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.880
<v Speaker 2>Can we show this again? So she posts less we

0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.080
<v Speaker 2>forget manis Narrusiria, Palestine, kubboom.

0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.680
<v Speaker 1>I got that one in there, all the lefty talking points.

0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.359
<v Speaker 2>She tweeted, lest we forget, and she added she was

0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.560
<v Speaker 2>thinking also about refugees on Manus Island and other places.

0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:28.520
<v Speaker 2>A friend of hers said, oh, you know that's not

0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.239
<v Speaker 2>going to work out. Well, it looks like you're hating

0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.360
<v Speaker 2>on the diggers, and she said, oh, okay, I hadn't

0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.200
<v Speaker 2>really seen it like that, but I'll take that tweet down,

0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.960
<v Speaker 2>which she did. Didn't stop the pylon. Then she became

0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.440
<v Speaker 2>a target, if you like, and so just about anything

0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.440
<v Speaker 2>she did was put under the microscope.

0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.680
<v Speaker 4>Abdil mcgid was invited to the Australian National University to

0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:52.239
<v Speaker 4>discuss leadership if no, she's no leader, and she joined

0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.320
<v Speaker 4>a panel of professors and department heads even though she

0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:00.880
<v Speaker 4>herself is no academic. Again, identity politics being invaded had

0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:02.760
<v Speaker 4>she not been a blacks and a woman.

0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.800
<v Speaker 2>So she was onder Council for Australian Arab Relations, which

0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.520
<v Speaker 2>is a government related body. She was tasked with going

0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.800
<v Speaker 2>overseas and talking about, you know, both the virtues of

0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.120
<v Speaker 2>democracy and trying to take that to various countries that

0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.000
<v Speaker 2>weren't democracies in the Middle East and elsewhere. That got

0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.520
<v Speaker 2>turned into this is a kind of a taxpayer funded

0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.920
<v Speaker 2>jaunt where she's going to go over and spread propaganda

0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.480
<v Speaker 2>about Islam and so on.

0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.880
<v Speaker 5>Thousands of dollars of taxpayers money by the Department of

0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.200
<v Speaker 5>Foreign Affairs and Julie Bishop to send her all around

0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.760
<v Speaker 5>the Middle East to preach from her book about how

0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.080
<v Speaker 5>wonderful Australia is to women and Muslims and a whole

0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.760
<v Speaker 5>range of other things. She then says it's a feminist religion.

0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.000
<v Speaker 5>She does all of this, I mean, she is absolutely

0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:47.920
<v Speaker 5>without credibility.

0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.720
<v Speaker 2>I mean, this was a very smart, energetic, vivacious vibrant

0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.560
<v Speaker 2>young woman. She described herself as a smart mouth and

0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.680
<v Speaker 2>a hejab. That was her phrase. Not a sin or

0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:02.839
<v Speaker 2>a crime as far as as far as I can see,

0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:07.120
<v Speaker 2>to be either vibrant or to express yourself fully and

0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.280
<v Speaker 2>briskly and violently and so on. And she got the

0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.120
<v Speaker 2>full Murdock symphony. She got it from a range of outlets,

0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.240
<v Speaker 2>and she got pounded over a period of time, and

0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:23.560
<v Speaker 2>she eventually left the country. And this happens to ordinary

0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.640
<v Speaker 2>people as well. The worst example is the thirteen year

0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.800
<v Speaker 2>old schoolgirl Millie Dawlo. She went missing in two thousand

0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.880
<v Speaker 2>and two and her phone was hacked by a private

0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:37.560
<v Speaker 2>investigator operating for News of the World. This was happening

0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:42.480
<v Speaker 2>while her parents were absolutely devastated and desperately anxious to

0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.760
<v Speaker 2>see whether she was alive or not, where she was

0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.240
<v Speaker 2>and so on, And as it turns out she had

0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.360
<v Speaker 2>been murdered during this period. At around this time, one

0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.320
<v Speaker 2>of the senior editorial executives at the News of the World,

0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.120
<v Speaker 2>he spelt out very clearly what the practices of the

0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.160
<v Speaker 2>paper were at this time when he was talking to

0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.920
<v Speaker 2>a reporter who was kind of asking questions about why

0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:07.960
<v Speaker 2>he had been asked to do a particular story, this

0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.600
<v Speaker 2>executive said, Listen, what we do is we go out

0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.840
<v Speaker 2>and destroy people's lives. That's what we do. Be it's

0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.400
<v Speaker 2>rare to see it all put that bluntly, but that

0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.600
<v Speaker 2>kind of level of cruelty and disregard for other people,

0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.680
<v Speaker 2>for other people's lives and for the effect of their

0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.120
<v Speaker 2>coverage on other people's lives.

0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:49.640
<v Speaker 1>Coming up? Can you still get murdered without Rupert? So,

0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.560
<v Speaker 1>given the lives you've seem destroyed by this global empire

0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.240
<v Speaker 1>which for decades has struck fear into the hearts of

0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.200
<v Speaker 1>even the most powerful, aren't you poking the bear with

0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.360
<v Speaker 1>this book? What makes you decide to write it? Risk

0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.520
<v Speaker 1>the empires of rash.

0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.240
<v Speaker 2>Look, there is a reason why a book of this

0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.760
<v Speaker 2>kind has not been written before. There are now about

0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.840
<v Speaker 2>nine biographies of Rupert Murdock out there probably forty other

0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.800
<v Speaker 2>full length studies of Murdoch and News corporation. And what

0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:22.000
<v Speaker 2>it does, very little of It pays attention to the

0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.760
<v Speaker 2>effect of what the Murdoch media outlets have been doing

0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.360
<v Speaker 2>now for seven decades plus, and as you say, across

0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.960
<v Speaker 2>three major countries Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States,

0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.160
<v Speaker 2>and even less attention has been paid to the impact

0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.400
<v Speaker 2>of their murdocking as we are calling it on individuals.

0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.000
<v Speaker 2>We were particularly concerned about the impact on ordinary people

0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.120
<v Speaker 2>who whether it's because they have a view that doesn't

0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.360
<v Speaker 2>line up with what news corps view is on a

0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.880
<v Speaker 2>particular issue, who they are, that is, they might identify

0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.200
<v Speaker 2>as a trans person, and particularly if they've identified as

0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.640
<v Speaker 2>trans younger in their earlier years. These are people who

0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.000
<v Speaker 2>are in a vulnerable state, and if nothing else, you

0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.320
<v Speaker 2>would hope that the media's coverage of that issue would

0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:14.360
<v Speaker 2>recognize the complexities of the issue and the sensitivities around

0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.079
<v Speaker 2>it for both the individual and their family and others.

0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.160
<v Speaker 2>We are not in the heads of either Rupert Murdoch

0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.200
<v Speaker 2>or his family or his editors, so we don't know

0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:29.160
<v Speaker 2>why exactly they do what they do, But consistently, going

0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.600
<v Speaker 2>back decades now, Murdoch's media outlets have been hostile towards

0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.160
<v Speaker 2>and targeted vulnerable and minority communities.

0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.240
<v Speaker 1>Matthew, in the book you look at how much of

0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.320
<v Speaker 1>this murderch culture is actually driven by Rupert Murdock himself,

0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:44.280
<v Speaker 1>So can you tell us a bit more about that?

0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.320
<v Speaker 2>It is in the sense that he has said. He

0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.319
<v Speaker 2>said this at an annual general meeting of News Corporation

0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.600
<v Speaker 2>in the mid ninety nineties, that the company is an

0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:59.240
<v Speaker 2>expression of his views, his beliefs, his ideas, and he's

0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.480
<v Speaker 2>proud of that. He's not kind of, you know, Lord

0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.000
<v Speaker 2>Voldemort sitting in the corner somewhere directing every single person

0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.120
<v Speaker 2>in that sort of way. What has happened is that

0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.640
<v Speaker 2>over time he's moved from hiring editors some of whom

0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.600
<v Speaker 2>disagreed with him, who he then sat, to hiring people

0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.200
<v Speaker 2>who either agree with him already or come to agree

0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.840
<v Speaker 2>with him. A former editor of The Sun newspaper in

0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.880
<v Speaker 2>the UK, David Yelland, is on the record saying that

0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.280
<v Speaker 2>as a kind of Murdoch editor, one of the things

0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:31.800
<v Speaker 2>you do is you wake up in the morning and

0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.080
<v Speaker 2>you say, what would Rupert think about that? Or what

0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.160
<v Speaker 2>would Rupert think about this? So it's become a kind

0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.320
<v Speaker 2>of self reinforcing company now in that sense, that doesn't

0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.480
<v Speaker 2>mean that they're all doing everything identically. Possibly a better

0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.199
<v Speaker 2>way to think about it is to think of News

0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.600
<v Speaker 2>Corp As a federation in that sense, which holds together

0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.079
<v Speaker 2>but has different kind of aspects and needs and purposes.

0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.079
<v Speaker 1>How much has this way of doing news impacted the

0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.000
<v Speaker 1>media landscape more broadly, do you think MESSI.

0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a really good question, because I think that's

0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.480
<v Speaker 2>actually the way in which Murdoch's tabloid outlets in the

0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.079
<v Speaker 2>UK operated, I'm talking about The Sun and the News

0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:14.840
<v Speaker 2>of the World, had the effect of dragging other tabloid

0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.120
<v Speaker 2>newspapers further down with them. And the reason that's a

0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.600
<v Speaker 2>critical point is that they're so aggressive and they're so

0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.920
<v Speaker 2>dogged in pursuing sensational material, often with a very cruel

0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.200
<v Speaker 2>edge to it. I mean, the phone hacking scandal is

0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.600
<v Speaker 2>the most egregious example of that. There's a moment that

0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.120
<v Speaker 2>we're now living in a social media age where so

0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.600
<v Speaker 2>much of the newspapers, as we talked about earlier, a

0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.640
<v Speaker 2>smaller part of the media ecosystem. There was an opportunity,

0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:47.480
<v Speaker 2>it seems to myself and Andrew, where Murdocks outlets could

0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:53.120
<v Speaker 2>have led a some kind of more considered and purposeful

0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.439
<v Speaker 2>and positive way of doing media in the mid two

0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:01.120
<v Speaker 2>thousands to combat the kind of flood of misinformation disinformation

0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.960
<v Speaker 2>that you see on social media, which was starting then

0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.000
<v Speaker 2>and is now rampant. They chose not to. They chose

0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.880
<v Speaker 2>to both perpetuate it and to be in the swill

0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.559
<v Speaker 2>alongside it. And so there's a sort of feedback loop

0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.800
<v Speaker 2>often between either Mrrock's media outlets put something out there

0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.240
<v Speaker 2>which gets picked up by social media and amplified and extended,

0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.160
<v Speaker 2>or vice versa. Some troll in social media will pick

0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.720
<v Speaker 2>something up, say some small item about a climate scientist paper,

0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:34.720
<v Speaker 2>a minor error. It'll be brought to the attention of

0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:36.840
<v Speaker 2>it Andrew Bolt or someone like that, and they will

0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.880
<v Speaker 2>then start to bloviate about it. As a result. We're

0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:45.000
<v Speaker 2>in a media ecosystem now where people think about notions

0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.880
<v Speaker 2>of whether it's balance or fairness, or simply investigating and

0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.920
<v Speaker 2>putting out a range of perspectives on an issue as

0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:57.520
<v Speaker 2>somehow quaint or old fashioned or whatever. And I'm absolutely

0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.800
<v Speaker 2>not persuaded that it much value. Would that in fact,

0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:02.840
<v Speaker 2>we need more of that and less of this kind

0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:07.080
<v Speaker 2>of intense anger and rage and yelling and screaming at

0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.640
<v Speaker 2>people on a personal basis. I don't see how that

0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:10.680
<v Speaker 2>is helping us at all.

0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.160
<v Speaker 1>I mean, are we stuck with this permanent changes part

0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.040
<v Speaker 1>of a new outrage industry, Matthew, or is there something

0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.840
<v Speaker 1>that can be done in a regulatory sense to stop

0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.040
<v Speaker 1>this type of pylon, given the impacts it can have

0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.400
<v Speaker 1>on people's lives, health, and reputations.

0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.200
<v Speaker 2>The short answer on regulation is that there should be,

0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:30.880
<v Speaker 2>but there hasn't been, and it's not for want of

0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:35.160
<v Speaker 2>various people advocating for it, including myself, but also many others.

0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.800
<v Speaker 2>It's an area where there's few votes because politicians are

0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:41.840
<v Speaker 2>very wary about doing it because they don't want to

0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.120
<v Speaker 2>upset various powerful media people. People in the media don't

0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:47.920
<v Speaker 2>want you to do it because you know, at the

0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.920
<v Speaker 2>basic level, nobody likes being regulated, nobody likes being scrutinized.

0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.120
<v Speaker 2>But most people in their saner moments, except that some

0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.240
<v Speaker 2>level of scrutiny and regulation is needed because that's how

0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.160
<v Speaker 2>you make various people and institutions accountable for what they're doing.

0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.400
<v Speaker 2>So it hasn't worked, unfortunately. I would love it if

0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.560
<v Speaker 2>it did, but it hasn't. I think if we've got

0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:13.360
<v Speaker 2>to the position we're in now, we should be able

0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.280
<v Speaker 2>to get out of it. At least partly, though, it's

0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.480
<v Speaker 2>got to come down to individual people actually making their

0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.000
<v Speaker 2>views known that this is not the kind of media

0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.280
<v Speaker 2>they want. If you're not shown other ways in which

0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.000
<v Speaker 2>to do media, you know. I mean, I'm obviously talking

0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.440
<v Speaker 2>to you on this podcast, and there's there are other

0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.480
<v Speaker 2>ways of doing media than simply looking at the ABC

0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.520
<v Speaker 2>or the Sydney Morning Herald or whatever. Then those need

0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.880
<v Speaker 2>to grow, those need to be supported, and there is

0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.280
<v Speaker 2>some attempts by government to do that, but it's partly

0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.000
<v Speaker 2>at least our own responsibility to kind of make our

0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.120
<v Speaker 2>views known. And what we hope is our book makes

0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.440
<v Speaker 2>some kind of contribution to people being both informed about

0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.440
<v Speaker 2>the issues, you know, debating the issues. I mean, like

0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:57.520
<v Speaker 2>this book, like any other, is open to debate and

0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.920
<v Speaker 2>argument and contest and having a proper discussion about these

0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.760
<v Speaker 2>things rather than yelling and screaming at each other.

0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.760
<v Speaker 1>Well, Matthew, the book is a value to contribution to

0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.720
<v Speaker 1>a national conversation on these very important matters. And we

0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.120
<v Speaker 1>thank you for coming on seven AM.

0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.400
<v Speaker 2>Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.640
<v Speaker 1>Also in the news, What's the Blower, David McBride has

0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.720
<v Speaker 1>been released from a Canberra prison, granted parole after more

0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.000
<v Speaker 1>than two years behind bars. The former Army lawyer was

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.320
<v Speaker 1>sentenced to five years and eight months jail for leaking

0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.360
<v Speaker 1>the classified documents behind the Afghan files. What's exposed alleged

0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.960
<v Speaker 1>war crimes by Australian special forces. He'll serve the rest

0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.520
<v Speaker 1>of his state to under supervision in the community, and

0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.280
<v Speaker 1>it's revealed he's been treated for lung cancer and will

0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:01.080
<v Speaker 1>need an extended period of recovery. Thousands of high school

0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.520
<v Speaker 1>and university students have walked out of class today protesting

0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.679
<v Speaker 1>Pauline Hanson and One Nation. Organizers say One Nation's stance

0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:13.040
<v Speaker 1>on issues like immigration, multiculturalism and student debt is harmful

0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.280
<v Speaker 1>to young people. Politicians, including the Victorian Premier our liberal

0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.760
<v Speaker 1>senator alexanderik have criticized the walkout, saying, Kingschen stay in school.

0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.440
<v Speaker 1>I'm Daniel James, thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll

0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:26.879
<v Speaker 1>be back tomorrow