Category Archives: Australian media

Victoria’s coronavirus spike: what’s causing it, and is anyone to blame?

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We ask health experts whether what we’re seeing in Melbourne is a ‘second wave’, and why it’s happening there

Victoria is experiencing a concerning rise in Covid-19 cases, with 75 new cases announced on Monday which were identified over the preceding 24 hours, one of the largest overnight jumps for the state since the pandemic began. For almost two weeks, the state has seen a double-digit rise in cases every day.

Many are now trying to identify a source of blame for the spread. According to the Australian, overly prohibitive lockdown laws implemented by the Victorian government early on in the pandemic were seen by the public as excessive given the low number of cases at the time. The report suggested this led some people to relax, and to question government warnings that they needed to keep socially distancing.

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Facebook blocks and bans users for sharing Guardian article showing Aboriginal men in chains

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Social media site incorrectly removed historical photo on grounds of nudity, then for three days blocked and even banned users who posted link to article

Facebook has blocked and in some cases banned users who tried to share a Guardian article about the site incorrectly blocking an image of Aboriginal men in chains.

On Saturday, Guardian Australia reported that Facebook had apologised for incorrectly preventing an Australian user from sharing the photo from the 1890s.

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Andrew Bolt’s column mocking Greta Thunberg breached standards, press watchdog finds

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News Corp columnist accuses Australian Press Council of sabotaging debate and doubles down by repeating slurs about Thunberg’s autism

Andrew Bolt’s mocking column about Greta Thunberg, which referred to the young climate campaigner as “deeply disturbed” and “freakishly influential”, breached standards and was likely to cause substantial distress, offence and prejudice, the press watchdog has found.

The Australian Press Council ruled that the language in Bolt’s August 2019 article breached standards because it attempted to “diminish the credibility of Ms Thunberg’s opinions on the basis of her disabilities and by pillorying her supporters on the basis of her disabilities”.

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Facebook and Google to be forced to share advertising revenue with Australian media companies

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Mandatory code being developed by ACCC will create ‘level playing field’ in media landscape, Josh Frydenberg says

Facebook and Google will be forced to share advertising revenue with Australian media companies after the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, instructed the competition watchdog to develop a mandatory code of conduct for the digital giants amid a steep decline in advertising brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

In its response to the landmark digital platforms inquiry in December, the federal government asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to develop a code between media companies and digital platforms including Google and Facebook.

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ICYMI: Australian news you may have missed during the coronavirus crisis

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From the final verdict on George Pell to devastating Great Barrier Reef bleaching, here’s our roundup of important stories

As Australia’s coronavirus outbreak continues, a lot of important news has slipped under the radar.

Here are the most important stories you may have missed over the past week. From the statement of George Pell’s accuser to the worst coral bleaching the Great Barrier Reef has ever seen.

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How Spanish flu nearly ripped apart Australia’s fledgling federation | Paul Daley

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A nation supposedly forged in the hellfire of war almost crumbled in the face of a virulent threat at home

Newly federated Australia, with its population not yet 5 million, was still enduring shocking fatalities on the European western front when its authorities began paying attention to the virulent strain of pneumonic influenza sweeping Britain.

Early Australian awareness of the “Spanish influenza” – an epidemic in Britain by mid to late 1918 – came with an acknowledgment that the new states grown of old colonies would need to stick together should the virus reach this isolated continent.

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Rupert Murdoch says ‘there are no climate change deniers around’ News Corp

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Murdoch was responding to a question at AGM about time given to ‘climate deniers’ by News Corp outlets in Australia

News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch has said “there are no climate change deniers around I can assure you” after he was asked at the corporation’s AGM why his company gives them “so much airtime” in Australia.

Murdoch was speaking in New York on Wednesday when he received a question from a proxy for Australian activist shareholder Stephen Mayne.

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Beautiful one day, pitiful the next: is ‘philausophy’ a new low for Australian tourism ads?

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As the concept of philausophy is unleashed on an unsuspecting world, please share your views on the good, the bad and the frankly odd campaigns in Australian tourism history

The word “philausophy” did not exist until Wednesday and, depending on its reception, may not exist for much longer.

The latest international campaign from Tourism Australia has landed, with its awkward, crow-barred pun already dividing audiences in the same way that it inelegantly divides the word “philosophy” itself.

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Australia denies Cameroonian journalist visa for press freedom conference

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Authorities believed Mimi Mefo, an award-winning journalist who works for Deutsche Welle in Berlin, might try to stay

A Berlin-based journalist who was due to speak at a press freedom conference in Brisbane has said she was denied a visa by the Australian government because they believed she might try to stay.

Mimi Mefo, an award-winning Cameroonian journalist who currently works for Deutsche Welle, was scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Integrity 20 conference on Friday.

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Mystery of the doctored documents: Angus Taylor and the climate attack on Sydney’s lord mayor

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Exclusive: story published in Daily Telegraph was based on false figures for travel expenditure purporting to be from council’s annual report

Angus Taylor baselessly accused Sydney’s lord mayor of driving up carbon emissions by spending $15m on travel, a claim that was later backed up with a doctored council document provided to the Daily Telegraph, which reported the figure.

On 30 September, the Telegraph reported on page three that the “City of Sydney Council’s outlay on flights outstrips that of Australia’s foreign ministers”.

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PM’s department evades question on Brian Houston’s White House invite – politics live

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ALP requests documents about Barr investigation into the Mueller report. Plus, new AFP commissioner faces Senate estimates, and media companies unite against secrecy laws. All the day’s events, live

Scott Morrison adds to the answer to Warren Snowdon’s question:

On 13 September of this year, I can confirm that the tender was awarded to Australian company Oricon an engineering company that, will lead the Kakadu road strategy and they’ll work in a consortium with PwC, and PwC Indigenous consulting, beginning the work immediately.

The roads of strategy will be developed in.conjunction with the tourism master plan, access to key sites and planned upgrades. I thought the member would be interested in that additional information.

The folders are stacked.

We are done as soon as Greg Hunt finishes this dixer.

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Australian newspapers black out front pages to fight back against secrecy laws

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United campaign by media companies highlights government moves to penalise whistleblowing and criminalise journalism

• Lenore Taylor: Concrete action rather than nice words are needed on press freedom

The front page of every newspaper in Australia was blacked out on Monday as part of a campaign against moves by successive federal governments to penalise whistleblowing and, in some cases, criminalise journalism.

The campaign, by the Australia’s Right to Know Coalition, follows raids on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters and the home of a News Corp journalist in June, the legality of which is being challenged in the high court.

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Australian politicians urge donations and spending caps – while putting boot into media

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Three-quarters of MPs want the caps, with 23% saying misrepresentation by media their greatest dislike

Three-quarters of federal parliamentarians want caps placed on both donations and election spending to help restore Australians’ trust in the democratic process.

On Wednesday, Democracy2025 will release the results of a survey of 98 out of 226 politicians in the last term of parliament, which shows while most politicians are satisfied with Australian democracy (61%) compared with the public at large (41%), they are still concerned about lack of trust and a growing disconnect with the public.

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Ronan Farrow book on sale in Australia despite legal threat from journalist Dylan Howard

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One online distributor has withdrawn the #MeToo memoir, but other stores have stocked it, and the publisher insists it will not be withdrawn

Ronan Farrow’s book on the #MeToo movement has been withdrawn from sale in Australia by one online bookseller but was available in bookstores on Tuesday despite a legal threat from an Australian journalist who Farrow has previously alleged helped to protect the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein from negative publicity.

The book, Catch and Kill, was released in Australia on Tuesday and was on sale in some shops, including Readings and WH Smith in Melbourne. But customers who ordered it from the online seller Booktopia were told it had been “withdrawn from sale” and had their payment refunded.

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Q&A: Tim Wilson defends joining Hong Kong protests

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Coalition MP accused of hypocrisy for disparaging Australian Extinction Rebellion protesters

Government backbencher Tim Wilson has defended his decision to join pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and said environmental protests in Australia have a right to operate “so long as they stick within the law”.

Wilson joined protesters in Hong Kong last week but was accused of hypocrisy because of previous comments disparaging protests in Australia.

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Murdoch University sues whistleblower after comments on international students

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University also demands names of journalists who spoke to Gerd Schröder-Turk, after comments on Four Corners

Murdoch University is suing an academic whistleblower and demanding the names of journalists he spoke to and the dates of their interactions, court records show.

One of Australia’s leading integrity experts, AJ Brown, says the university’s actions highlight the “huge imbalance” in power between whistleblowers and large employers and shows protections for those who speak out “remain something of a mess”.

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When Donald met Scott: a reporter’s view of Trump and his White House wonderland

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Australian PM Scott Morrison received a full-blown welcome from the US president. Katharine Murphy was on hand for an inside account

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Scott Morrison has made his first visit to the United States as prime minister. It was a trip that included a close encounter with the unpredictability of the Trump White House, a foreign policy pivot, and a backlash about a lack of climate policy action. Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, travelled, with the prime minister. Here is what she witnessed:

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Scott Morrison says Australia’s record on climate change misrepresented by media

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PM trumpets his country’s achievements in address to UN general assembly

Scott Morrison signalled that Australia is unlikely to update its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris agreement before a speech to the UN in which he declared that the media was misrepresenting the country’s climate change record.

During a press conference before his UN speech at a recycling facility in Brooklyn, the prime minister said he wouldn’t characterise “misrepresentations” about Australia’s climate stance as fake news.

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Guardian Australia’s The Killing Times wins prize in NSW premier’s history awards

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The Indigenous massacres project produced in collaboration with the University of Newcastle wins digital history prize

Guardian Australia has won the digital history prize in the New South Wales premier’s history awards for its Indigenous massacres project, The Killing Times.

The collaborative series with the University of Newcastle’s colonial massacres research team found there were at least 270 frontier massacres over 140 years as part of a state-sanctioned and organised attempt to eradicate Aboriginal people.

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China’s conduct in Hong Kong comes under cautious scrutiny on Q&A

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Panellists debate whether Australia ‘turning a blind eye’ to China’s rising power

As demonstrators shut down Hong Kong’s airport on Monday in protest against police brutality, Chinese official said “terrorism” was emerging in the city.

Meanwhile, on the ABC’s Q&A program, the “people’s panellist” guest suggested he shared China’s view, prompting one of the more cautious political discussions ever held on the show.

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