Why should you care who owns the Fraser Coast Chronicle?
Because they also own The Observer (Gladstone) and The Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton). And daily newspapers on the Sunshine Coast, in Mackay, Bundaberg, Gympie, Ipswich, Warwick and Toowoomba, along with dozens of free community papers.
And all those papers will soon be owned by one family: the Murdochs. Just like the vast majority of large-scale newsrooms across the country. Including The Courier-Mail across Queensland. APN News & Media has confirmed the sale of its Australian Regional Media business to News Corporation — subject to shareholder and, importantly, regulatory approval.
There were only two bids for ARM, not surprisingly; nothing much adds up in print-based media, especially in rural and regional areas. So don’t expect the competition watchdog to say much.
Which leaves Murdoch to save the day, reaching his liver-spotted hand even further into Australian society, strangling the diversity of reporting and opinion to asphyxiation.
There’s only one winner in the decline of the news media business in Australia. The rest of us are losers.
Why does Murdoch continue to punish us, what did Australia do to warrant it?
Christ. That means that on the Fraser Coast there will be newsagents that sell only Murdoch papers, 4 or 5 varieties.
So you’d rather that in a tough period for journalism, that some of the papers might go under rather than the journalists keep their jobs and continuing to report on local issues?
If only the Murdoch owned media could bee relied upon to report on local issues – rather than make it up.
There is not another country in the world that would tolerate such concentration of new media in one identity which is owned by a foreign national. Especially not one that has such a negative reputation for their partisan view of the world and their loose attachment to the truth.
@ Michael J: You appear to argue that it is better to have something rather than nothing i.e. a complete regional Murdoch monopoly.
Crikey’s conclusion appears to be that a single source media is dangerous; more so given the track record of News Ltd. Given media business models worldwide are in flux and undergoing rapid and radical change is it not possible that future entrepreneurs will evolve alternate business models to fill a temporary vacuum and competitively deliver broad choice/interpretation of why and how events occur?