The wonderful thing about a good media campaign is that soon enough it becomes self-sustaining. Take a look at the most recent content merry-go-round at News Corp, which has has reached it’s logical conclusion: its target, Wiradjuri, Gurrawin and Dharawal man Stan Grant, has stood down, allowing some chin-stroking and reflection in the papers about how this happened, and what it all means.
With grace and remarkably little rancour, the veteran journalist signed off from his final show for ABC flagship Q+A last night. He spoke of love and hope, invoked the Wiradjuri concept of Yindyamarra — “It means that I am not just responsible for what I do, but for what you do” — to express sorrow at whatever he must have done to inspire the level of hatred he’s recently received, and said the mainstream media “must ask if we are truly honouring a world worth living in”.
The News Corp tabloids have given the speech appropriately reverent coverage. A “powerful statement”, said the Herald Sun, while The Daily Telegraph reflected on what it saw as an “impassioned, sincere message to both his supporters and critics, reflecting on his Indigenous culture and the racist abuse that drove him off the air”. The primary framing from this section of the media has emphasised the role of “online racist abuse” in Grant’s decision to step away from the media. And well it might.
This, after all, would be the same Daily Tele that greeted Grant’s initial announcement that he was stepping away by calling on one-woman defamation lawyer support fund Annette Sharp, to remind everyone that in the ’90s Grant changed jobs a few times, had an affair, and that colleagues had said he was “vulnerable” to criticism. Her piece concluded: “At last his grievances have found a captive audience in an era of unquestioning modern wokeism when a good celebrity bellyache can generate enough clicks to make you believe you’re relevant again.”
The Hun, likewise was happy to republish carnival barker James Morrow’s response on Sky News’ Outsiders (speaking of irrelevance): “I’m very sorry if you feel like your feelings have been hurt over the things people said, but it is not all about you.”
Meanwhile, The Australian‘s coverage noted that Grant had “expressed his ‘disappointment’ in the lack of support offered to him by his employer after the public broadcaster received intense criticism for its coverage of King Charles III’s coronation earlier this month”. Intense criticism, the paper failed to mention, that was almost completely led by the Oz.
After Grant’s appearance on a panel before the coronation, which had the temerity to discuss the impact colonialism in the name of the British Crown had had on Australia’s Indigenous peoples, there was a sustained conservative media campaign, which racked up more than 150 mentions of the ABC’s coronation coverage in the pages of The Australian and on Sky News alone.
And having explicitly rejected Noel Pearson’s recent characterisation of its readers as “borderline casual racists”, the Oz, for no reason at all we’re sure, disabled comments on coverage of Grant’s sign-off.
Senate Inquiry into the state of Australian media now. Time to take the gloves off and go for the News Corp jugular.
Completely agree – only a strong, sustained grass roots public campaign has any hope of removing the stranglehold on Aust media that News Corp has enjoyed. Our politicians have been so gutless for so long.
It’s barely worth bothering now – they’re sinking rapidly into complete irrelevance and will be effectively gone before the end of the decade.
Wouldn’t bet on it. Lots of believers out there.
Doesn’t the Stan Grant affair suggest that they’re not yet, not quite, irrelevant? They’re doing a good job of helping Dutton to galvanise that large section of the population which believes first nations people have forgotten their station and need reminding they ought to ‘know their place’. If the Voice referendum is successful I think we’ll be able to celebrate their complete irrelevance.
‘Before the end of the decade’ is not soon enough.
We need to stop the stain spreading any further across our cultural fabric, these phone hacking trump loving liars should be chased into extinction now.
And we should take careful note of the businesses who fund all this race-bating bile by advertising their products and services with News Corp – list?? – just like the sporting teams that bang on about ‘grassroots’ and ‘community’ while their fans hurl racist abuse at players in the arena, same shit with the same lowest common denominator here: News Corp.
Any ‘journalist’ working for this Sinister Dynasty could claw back some respect by quiting now and doing something honourable, and distinctly more reputable, like stacking shelves at Aldi. Go on, do it for your grandchildren if not for your country.
Accountability, however it comes, can’t come soon enough.
citing “Accountability, however it comes, can’t come soon enough.” – tooo true!!!
No, we want them outed and shamed. With a senate inquiry, they won’t be able to buy a muted response as they did with Sky News in the US.
YES, and take their blow in hacks with them.
News Corp – to borrow a recent phrase from the excellent Alex Greenwich… they’re just disgusting people aren’t they. It’s always so incomprehensible to me that the apparent defenders of freedom of speech get so incredibly upset when they hear speech they don’t agree with or speech that offends them, and do everything they can to cancel whoever or whatever made the speech. Mind blowing
Watching the SBS doc “The Murdochs .Influence of Power” this man and his family’s desire for power and influence has for years afforded nothing but pain and anguish throughout out the world through its lies and deceit.This disgusting treatment of Stan Grant is just another example.
Yes, the ones who complain loudest about ‘cancel culture’ are the ones perpetuating it the most. Hypocrites to the end.
Hoe can the Oz pretend to be a quality paper when it goes in for vicious ad hominem attacks? (This one, Yasmin El-Majid, Gillian Triggs… can anyone think of an example not aimed at someone from a vulnerable group?)
Let’s face it they’ve had so much practice at pretending to be something they are anything but…..
Bruce Pascoe is another example, and on the international level, Greta Thunberg. But no, I can’t think of anyone in answer to your question other than Dan Andrews.
Adam Goodes, Bill Shorten, Julia Gillard, Jeremy Corbyn, Hugh Grant, Megan Markle, AOC, …. the list is endless especially if you look at their broader international footprint. Not all from vulnerable groups, but all ad hominem.
The level of double-standard is breathtaking. But when you’re the most powerful media operator in the world, you don’t have to worry about irony, or hypocrisy, or contradiction; you just print what you want, and your aging, white, loyal serfs will lap it all up and ask no questions.
Obviously I’ve been living under a rock. I didn’t watch Charlie’s coronation so missed all the hoopla involving Stan Grant and I’d sooner bite off my own arm than read anything News Corp related. I will say that Stan Grant is a far more gracious person than I could ever be coping with such sustained bile and hatred.
I have been critical on occasion about his interrupting guests but I’m truely sorry that he has been driven to leave media altogether. I only hope he and his family can heal together and that he returns to media in the future.
Conservative media in Australia is filled with such hate. I hope they or perhaps a government Royal Commission take a long hard look at themselves/them. I hope they are proud, NOT. They have just cancelled Stan Grant.
Agree. I too have been annoyed by his interruptions of Q&A guests and his pushing of his agenda or perspective on others, but he has every right to do so in an attempt to get us all to consider different views and an understanding of different experiences. His commentary during the coronation was perfectly appropriate as was that of other commentators and guests, each of whom presented a different perspective of the issues as they saw them. It was a wonderful contrast to the British propaganda on the monarchy. It balanced the presentation.
Sadly I don’t think it’s hate News Corp is peddling but an attempt to boost their readership, which is dwindling rapidly.
After all, they’ve given Sky free to regional tv stations, which means that’s often the only access some people to anything resembling news (and I use that term very loosely, you understand). They also issue free newspapers at airports to try to pretend that they actually have readers.
But hysteria sells and enough of it frightens small people into reacting with their worst instincts, which invariably leads to a pile-on of ignorance against someone a little bit different (in their eyes), who dares to critique ‘our Australia’.
How ironic that so many have implied that Mr Grant’s criticism of Australia’s racism is ‘unAustralian’, when his ancestors have been here for 60,000 years…..