Gina Rinehart’s buying spree at Fairfax Media will win her no favours in the newsroom.
The idea she might use a substantial shareholding and possible board position to influence editors, especially at a company steeped in a near 200-year tradition of editorial independence, is to fundamentally misunderstand Fairfax.
It was put to me by a journalist on the day of her swoop that she was “buying the company because she did not like a recent profile piece on her”.
Such a theory was beyond my powers of logic.
She was “going to teach them a lesson”, said the journalist.
I could only respond, “well, bloody good luck to her on that because she’s got no chance”.
Her so-called raid on Fairfax’s share register gave Senator Stephen Conroy the oxygen to voice his concern about ownership diversity of media assets.
He doesn’t need much excuse to express his dislike of newspapers these days and he takes any chance to rattle the sabre.
The Minister for Communications claimed she was “clearly seeking to exert her influence”.
Senator Conroy and the Greens – constantly in the firing line of newspapers these days – seem to believe that by addressing ownership of newspapers you can manipulate or silence editors.
A mood appears to exist in government that reforming cross-media ownership laws will end the barrage of criticism, scepticism and cynicism from the Canberra press gallery and newspaper columnists around the country.
The recent Media Inquiry and the ongoing deliberations of the Convergence Review, headed by former IBM chief Glen Boreham, have each considered the question of ownership and diversity.
Mr Boreham and his Convergence colleagues believe the current rules are outdated in the era of internet-based media.
Their interim report signals a desire to recognise the reality that the cross-media regime doesn’t mean much when publishers are streaming video to phones and tablets, and delivering content to smart TVs.
This, of course, opens up a discussion about ownership rules that will not necessarily be contained by the boundaries set by the Convergence Review.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam indicated this in the Australian Financial Review, stating Ms Rinehart’s raid “must be a catalyst for serious reform of cross-media ownership laws”.
That’s rubbish.
But it is a convenient event to put on the agenda as an issue that potentially offers a bit of payback for what the government and its partners see as continually negative newspaper coverage.
It might be convenient but it is way off base.
Even with a near 15 percent ownership and a seat at the boardroom table, Ms Rinehart has as much chance of influencing Fairfax editors such as Peter Fray, Paul Ramadge and Amanda Wilson as I do.
That is, no chance.
If this really is her singular purpose in owning Fairfax shares, then she’s sadly mistaken.
From a reader perspective, it is easy to imagine all sorts of conspiracies that might go on in the newsroom but the working life of a journalist isn’t like some Le Carrè plot.
Having spent more than two decades pumping the keyboard in newsrooms, I cannot remember ever being told what to write or put in the paper. I would be criticised or over-ruled by an editor but only because their news judgment was different (and often better).
Like most News Limited journalists, I never got the lecture about how “Rupert really wants this story . . .” and I never saw it happen to others in my long stint at various Murdoch papers.
The hammering the government continually receives at the hands of Murdoch newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun would be based in part on how any newspaper in a democracy holds political leaders to account, and the editors’ belief that their readers have had a gutful of the Gillard government.
The most significant factor is not who owns media but how readers and advertisers respond.
Mark Hollands
Chief Executive
Newspaper Publishers’ Association
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