Robert Thomson, News Corp’s chief executive, made a statement to today’s Senate Inquiry into Media Diversity designed to examine the state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy.
The full text:
Senators, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and apologise for the tyranny of time and of distance. The issues with which you grapple are profound, they are fundamental, not incremental. When it comes to diversity and sustainability and efficacy, the recent publication of the Facebook Files has presented challenges to legislators around the world - we are, at last, starting to have a more sophisticated debate about the impact of social media and the potency of digital platforms. I understand that the Committee is focused on traditional media diversity, but, for relevance, for resonance in the future, there needs to be a collective focus on contemporary creation, distribution and consumption patterns.
I left Australia’s shores in early 1985, but have vivid memories of my early days in journalism, beginning as a copy boy in Melbourne at The Herald, having been born in rural Victoria, Torrumbarry, in a pub to be precise. It is fair to say that the remit now is somewhat broader and more international, given that it encompasses, among other properties, HarperCollins books, realtor.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sun, and housing.com, a digital property company in India. The harsh truth is that our traditional newspapers have become a significantly smaller proportion of News Corp and the words “Digital Disruption” and “Big Digital” are both euphemisms. In Australia, print newspaper sales, unfortunately, have suffered a pronounced fall in the past decade. There has been a significant shift in power, influence and profitability from the creators of news content to the distributors of news content.
That shift was already evident when I was asked to give evidence as Editor of The Times to the House of Lords in 2007 about the fate of media, but the social, cultural, political and commercial consequences have become increasingly acute. For us, we could not go gentle into that good night.
That there is more diversity in potential news sources is indisputable. The Guardian, the BBC and the Daily Mail, publications against whom we compete, are now widely available in Australia to an extent unimaginable in the 1980s. Proliferation is not the issue, and yet publications are struggling to survive even as their audiences and potential audiences have grown exponentially. That is why the Australian Media Code is so crucial and has served as inspiration to countries around the world. It is a tribute to the Australian Parliament, and I can affirm, without fear of contradiction, that its worth is recognized in London, Washington, Paris, Rome, Brussels and beyond. That legislation, your legislation, and the ACCC’s digital reports will be cornerstones of global content policy far into the future.
While on the subject of diversity, it would surely be remiss not to mention the inherent diversity within News Corp. The Times and The Wall Street Journal have widely differing policy positions, and, within the same London building, The Times and The Sunday Times often disagree with each other. The Times was strongly in favor of Remain and The Sunday Times argued for Brexit.
That diversity echoes through the company and is clearly present at HarperCollins, which publishes Ilhan Omar and Ben Shapiro and the Dalai Lama. We recently reached a landmark agreement with the estate of Dr Martin Luther King Junior to publish his archives across the world, including in all formats and all languages. Across News Corp, across the globe, there are contrasting concepts, diverging views, a contest of ideas.
It should be of concern that the contest of ideas is not cherished by all, and that a movement to silence, to censor views, to shame and to ostracise has gained momentum in much of the world. We should all be wary of a seemingly insatiable quest for indignation, on right and left, a holier-than-thou theology that demonises deviation.
On the environment it is worth stressing that, corporately, we have pursued a policy consistent with Rupert Murdoch’s statement in 2006 that “the planet deserves the benefit of the doubt”. We were the first large media company in the US to commit to science-based targets for carbon reduction - from 2016 to 2020, they were cut by 30 percent and further reductions are well advanced. In 2011, we created what was one of the largest industrial solar projects in the United States at our Dow Jones print centre in New Jersey. HarperCollins announced this week that it would be carbon neutral next year and that is not just from buying carbon offsets. You will no doubt have noticed the campaign ahead of the Glasgow summit by many of our papers in Australia - to be clear, the initiative came from the local editors. It is important that there be rational responses to the energy challenges - ersatz energy is not a fuel, and working class Australians will certainly be most vulnerable if costs rise dramatically. It’s also important for the credibility of science that scientists resist the temptation to be social engineers - neo-Malthusian ramblings are not research.
Two closing points on matters digital. Firstly, the digital eco-system is dysfunctional and while there is undoubted diversity, there is not yet sustainability even in new media. Ten smart women and men could launch a news website in Birmingham, England, or Birmingham, Alabama and no matter how clever, how canny, they would be doomed because content is not properly valued and the digital ad market lacks transparency. Secondly, the impact of so-called social media on sensibility, on personality has to be challenged. The most brilliant software engineers in the world are making products more compelling, more compulsive, leveraging human instinct, harvesting our insecurities and our children’s insecurities. The puissance of Artificial Intelligence is real and that influence is growing.
Thank You.
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