An industry goes to the ACCC.
“I got good news and I got bad news,” says the ACCC.
“Gimme the bad news first,” says the industry.
“Well,” says the ACCC, “you got six months to live. But the good news is, I’ve recommended the government think about subsidising you a bit more.”
Throughout the sixty dense pages of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms preliminary report devoted to the media and journalism, the competition regulator builds from first principles the case for why journalism — particularly quality journalism — is an unusual business model, how it has been affected by the shift in advertising revenue online, and how that has led to fewer journalists.
Numbers are down 20% in print/online publications between 2014 and 2017 alone; in regional areas, the decline since 2006, off a lower base, has been even worse. As a diagnosis of the state of journalism in Australia, the report is rich and detailed, based on both data collated by the ACCC and provided by media companies, who naturally were reluctant to identify themselves.
But what, exactly, is the ACCC doing looking at journalism? It is the competition, not the media, regulator; media-specific issues like diversity interact with competition, though they’re not the same thing. Nor is it the government’s independent policy thinktank, the Productivity Commission. There is a good basis for the ACCC to be investigating the market dominance of the digital giants, but why does it devote so much effort to examining journalism?
Because journalism, the regulator believes, is special: “news and journalism provide significant contributions to the public interest. Plurality of editorial voices contributes to the public interest. News and journalism risk under-provision for a number of reasons, including the public nature of news and information and the general inability of commercial news media businesses to monetise societal benefits of journalism.”
And the dominance of the digital giants is increasing the risks of under-provision, to put it mildly.
This isn’t entirely outside the remit of the ACCC, which is consumer welfare, but this is not natural territory for the competition body. That may be why it felt the need to traverse ground much covered in other reports and reviews of recent years; it may also be why its proposed remedies are so limited. Its suggestions — bearing in mind this is a preliminary report — are confined to increasing the tax deductibility of costs associated with producing journalism, making the costs of news consumption tax deductible, and more direct government support via programs such as the regional and small publishers scheme set up by the government to help pass its media ownership changes.
Tax deductibility of media company costs only works if the company is profitable, or cross-subsidises its journalism in a way that makes, say, a 150% deduction valuable. Making a subscription to Crikey or News Corp or the Financial Review tax deductible is only fiddling at the margins; it’s not that people can’t afford to pay for news, it’s just that they don’t.
The ACCC is also strangely reluctant to press an issue you’d think was much more in its wheelhouse: the Daily Mail’s constant theft of stories from other outlets. “The fair use provisions in copyright law have been interpreted variously by media outlets,” it says. “Arguably, the internet and related technologies have allowed media outlets to exploit fair use to a much greater degree than had previously been the case.”
Nothing to read here, then. Instead, the problem is that Google can’t adequately distinguish the original story from the Daily Mail rewrite in its search engine results, and it is probably impossible to do that anyway. It’s all too hard, the ACCC says, washing its hand of the whole business.
Also mentioned less than you’d expect are the ABC and SBS. These are two expressions of societal concern about the importance of journalism, though the ACCC, ostensibly concerned about under-provision of the latter, makes no mention of the government’s constant cuts to ABC funding, and political interference, which have directly led to under-provision of national broadcaster journalism. On the other hand, nor does it suggest the ABC and SBS somehow worsen the problem by competing with commercial media outlets — a key argument by commercial media companies like News Corp and Nine for legislative constraints and funding cuts to be imposed on the national broadcasters.
It’s an interesting omission at a time when a key Liberal party assault on the ABC and SBS — its Competitive Neutrality of the National Broadcasters inquiry — is still lumbering away trying to find an excuse to punish the broadcasters.
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Peter Fray
Editor-in-chief of Crikey
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Australian journalism is a victim of its own poisonous bite, by its subservience and cowering to Murdoch it has sealed its own fate because only the brain dead and rusted on rednecks of society read, watch or buy their rabid right wing propaganda, the intelligent public have long ago dismissed them and their news limited inspired bullshit and the sales and advertising revenue is suffering accordingly and the business community is now aware of this and spending the advertising dollars elsewhere hence 2GB now working to be shed of Allan Jones and his like.
You have unfortunately hoisted yourself on your own petard.
“The intelligent public ” Who the hell are they.
Are these the ones who don’t read the Ugly Aussies crap or watch it on TV.
The intelligent public represents about 0.01% of Australians or in absolute terms, about 3000 people and that may be an over-estimate.
I have to listen to them at work, they read the Sun Herald and carve up the Sudo’s, the boat people, Muslims, gays, welfare recipients, Rocket Man etc etc. I once took issue with them over North Korea and pointed out that the American empire dropped more bombs on them than they dropped in the whole of the US WWII Pacific campaign and that this might have something to do with North Koreas’ nuclear ambitions. They either looked embarrassed and made jokes about it. In the case of the right wing, reactionaries they looked at me like I was something that had crawled out from under a rock. I bet the North Koreans who suffered this imperialist aggression didn’t see the funny side. They saw what happened in Iraq and figured getting some nukes was good insurance.
What these same people say about our indigenous people is equally egregious. Don’t you know it’s all their fault? Not that any of them know any indigenous people or are friends with any. But they know all about how they are welfare cheats and are living a life of luxury at the expense of us Anglo White Bastards.
I would council that you never over-estimate the intelligence of the Great Australian Public. Most of them are like our Prime Minister, Sco-Mo the Moronic even more moronic. Sco-Mo probably has the edge on most of them.
Bernard writes “… which have directly led to under-provision of national broadcaster journalism …”. And many people would be very interested in the internal ABC figures you have used to back-up this statement. Funding has been shifted away from other ABC departments in favour of the news department since the introduction by Mark Scott and Kate Torney of the complete folly of a supposed 24-hour news in 2010 without adequate planning or funding. It is the rest of the ABC that is now “under-provisioned” due to the need to constantly feed this one greedy, obese part of the national broadcaster. That’s why it’s not “mentioned” by the ACCC because it’s only so-called “journalists” who keep harping on it as if it were true.
You are quite right. News ABC is a bloody disgrace.
The radio version is polluted with that stupid headline music making its coverage of Federal Parliament more interesting, and tolerable than its diabolical news program.
The dickheads it gets on TV News, Drum and the topics that are covered are basically fairy floss designed to avoid any blowback from the right wing reactionaries of the Liberal and Country parties. It’s so fucking balanced it says nothing and challenges no-one.
I don’t know where it rakes them up from. And why they have the IPA on which is the propaganda arm for Big Corp is beyond me. You know what they are going to say before they open their mouths as we get the message chapter and bloody verse from the Ugly Aussies Australian and Sun/Herald et al every day.
Stan Grant’s coverage of the China issue on ABC TV a few months ago, whilst not a tour de force was so far above the crap they put on ABC News TV and radio that it makes you wonder whether the two belong to the same organization.
I used to think the ABC was useful. I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that it has been stuffed by the right wing reactionaries and their camp followers just like everything else.
I watch YouTube if I want real information and debate about real issues; yes I can hear the sneers about this, but in terms of Australian media and it’s content, just about anything is better, even YouTube.
We had two exceptional Chairman of the ACCC, Fels, and Samuel, They were great. The current incumbent Sims is a wimp.
Rod is a corporate lizard who believes in neo-liberal economics and has spent most of his time in Big Corp developing strategies to rip off Australians not protect them.
The first thing a Labour Government should do is give him the arse and get someone who actually believes in the remit of the role.
The banks are a typical example. The government and economic commentariat are all wringing their hands about what can be done to stop the rot. It’s easy; if they steal they go to jail just like us poor people. Why does Rod Sims find this so hard to understand?
Ralph Nader would be a good option as ACCC chair. He has been totally frozen out of the game in the US, and I reckon he could be persuaded. He does actually believe that Big Corp should be held to account for its civil and criminal breaches, unlike Rod who doesn’t know what to do with the bastards. It’s just all too hard for him.
Additional,
I reckon if Ralph turns it down, Malcolm might be willing to step into the beach. Whilst the Liberal Party is in power he would just love to cause it as much pain as he can.
Only Joking. Malcolm’s one of them. Not really one of us.
Journalists in general pissed in their audiences for so long – at least since their HawKeating bromance – that few feel the slightest sympathy for their now feeling the joys of the red-in-tooth & claw neolib B/S they pushed for so long.
Mentioning no names, BK.