Murdoch involved in yet another inquiry -- in Australia.

[pacalo]

Paper work … Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd was a focus of the Finkelstein
inquiry in Australia. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Australia's news media faces regulatory crackdown by government
- Broadcast of sex scandal story involving Labor MP focuses fresh attention on standards and political influence -


The prospect of tighter regulation of the Australian media has drawn closer after it emerged last week that a TV network aired a prostitute's lurid claims against an MP despite knowing the woman wanted to retract the allegations.

MPs called for the government to "enforce higher standards" and introduce "greater government regulation" of Australia's news media when the woman revealed on Channel Seven that she had retracted her claims to have been paid for sex by the Labor MP Craig Thomson, several days before the rival Nine Network then broadcast the story.

(...)

The episode has exacerbated an already tense relationship between the news media and the embattled Labor government of Julia Gillard. An inquiry into media conduct and regulation, set up in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in the UK and headed by the retired judge Ray Finkelstein, recommended a government-funded News Media Council with compulsory membership across all platforms, including blogs, and powers to impose a statutory right of reply and dictate the placement of corrections.

(...)

One focus of the Finkelstein inquiry was on whether News Ltd, the Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, with about 70% of newspaper circulation, uses its influence to serve its political ends. Witnesses told the inquiry of bias in Murdoch newspaper coverage of issues such as climate change, and vicious and sustained personal attacks on critics that have had a chilling effect on free debate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/10/australia-media-regulatory-crackdown-government

[RKP5637]

1. Excellent!!! More and more attention needs to be focused on these brokers of

hatred, misinformation and tabloid news. IMO too many still think these outfits provide factual news when in fact they are a scandalous rag.

[malaise]

2. Time to cross the pond

Fuck Fox!

[global1]

3. So Murdoch Is Being Investigated In The UK And Now In Australia....

so there's no way he would break any laws in the U.S. (sarcasm)

[spanone]

4. when is that u.s.a. inquiry supposed to take place????