Journalist Anthony Klan resigned from the News Corp-owned paper and website The Australian a few weeks ago in May 2019 and the reason he cited is that he didn’t want to be treasonous by continuing to work for them. Mr Klan hasn’t been the only News Corp journalist to criticize the company in the last few months and former 7.30 Report host Kerry O’Brien used his recent Logie Hall of Fame induction speech to claim that Australian journalists had failed to hold politicians to account.
Below is a brief edit of the key points that Kerry O’Brien made about journalism in his speech.
It is good to see people like Kerry O’Brien who has a long history in the journalism industry finally acknowledging its failings.
News Corp
Below is part of the story of Mr Klan’s recent issues with News Corp but it’s worth noting that former News Corp journalist Tony Koch wrote an article on the 9th of May 2019 titled “For 30 years I worked for News Corp papers. Now all I see is shameful bias” and said:
About six weeks ago I cancelled my subscription for The Australian newspaper after getting it for more than 30 years. As soon as this election is over, I will do the same with the Courier-Mail.
I worked as a journalist for some 30 years for those papers and loved every minute of it. They were quality newspapers that cared for their employees and cared more for the product – concerned with breaking real news stories that were as accurate and true as could possibly be established.
The Australian, in particular, was a big-impact paper which regularly set the news agenda for media throughout the country.
But no longer. No editor I worked for would have put up with the biased anti-Labor rubbish that, shamefully, the papers now produce on a daily basis.
If it is not anti-Labor it is anti-Green or, quite ridiculously, anti-ABC. Anything except a story negative to the Liberal or National parties. (Click here to read more)
The Tony Koch article had a political focus which is no surprise given it was published just before the federal election which was on the 18th of May 2019.
A day after the Tony Koch story was published Rick Morton, who at the time worked at The Australian, was quoted as saying at a university talk for journalism students “journalists at the Australian are increasingly uncomfortable about its political stance and there is ‘guerrilla warfare’ in the newsroom”. (Click here to read more)
Rick Morton was gone from News Corp’s The Australian only a few weeks later. Whether he was sacked or resigned I don’t know but without a doubt his comments displeased the News Corp management.
I think what Tony Koch and Rick Morton said in May 2019 helps support what Anthony Klan alleges he experienced at News Corp.
The exact reasons Mr Klan resigned were revealed this week as “News Corp bosses muzzled his investigations, including this expose into secret Chinese plans to establish a mega-pilot training facility on an Australian airforce training facility.”
Anthony Klan said in an article published on the 25/7/19:
Virgin Australia may have misled all levels of Australian government and has made dubious public claims about the true identity of its shadowy Chinese partners in its secretive proposal to take control of the nation’s biggest military pilot school, at an RAAF training facility in Tamworth NSW.
It can be revealed that the nation’s second-biggest airline failed to inform the NSW Government, the Federal Government, the English speaking media – and even Tamworth council – about any foreign involvement in its proposal whatsoever, despite that mega-project being “certified” by the Chinese Communist Party a year ago.
It can also be revealed that Virgin Australia has made dubious public claims, denying the involvement of one of its two key partners in the project, despite those claims being easily disproved by conducting relatively simple company searches. (Click here to read more)
It needs a federal government inquiry to investigate the cover-up exposed by Anthony Klan.
Newscorp’s internet trolls
News Corp employs numerous people led by the likes of Andrew Bolt to push their propaganda. You’ll see these people in News Corp’s papers, on Sky News and running their own accounts on Twitter all singing the same tune. They are really nothing more than glorified trolls. Some people actually argue with the News Corp Trolls thinking they have opinions. But the likes of Bolt etc don’t have opinions at all. They are just there to push Rupert Murdoch’s agenda.
You won’t see the News Corp Trolls pushing stories like the $80 million #Watergate fraud involving Angus Taylor, Banbay Joyce and David Littleproud which has the potential to do long-term damage to the government
A lot of people already know has biased and corrupt News Corp is and how bad other media have become. But it helps greatly to drive change when people like Anthony Klan, Tony Koch, Rick Morton and Kerry O’Brien go public with their inside knowledge and views.
I could write about Kerry Stokes and Seven but regular readers know that I have been in a long-term legal battle with them since 2014 as they try and silence me which says it all.
That leaves us with Nine Entertainment which owns Channel Nine, The SMH and The Age etc. The Chairman is the former federal treasurer Peter Costello which casts suspicion on all their reporting. Costello needs to resign or be sacked.
The above is why it is important for new media, like this website and others, to grow and fill the void as the failing old media contracts and in some cases disappear.
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