Category Archives: News Corporation

There is ‘no one News Corp view’ on election, head of company’s Australian arm tells staff

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News Corp Australasia executive chairman issues all-staff memo, with scrutiny on election coverage likely to increase

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian lieutenant has told News Corp journalists there is “no one News Corp view” about the election and that individual editors are free to decide which party to endorse.

Executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, said it was important to remember that “electorate issues in Surry Hills differ greatly to those in Broken Hill” and that audiences “expect us to interrogate all parties and all sides”.

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The Australian’s coverage of Zachary Rolfe verdict condemned as ‘a national disgrace’

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News Corp paper published multiple negative stories about Kumanjayi Walker and body camera footage from night he was killed

Several high-profile Indigenous journalists have condemned the Australian newspaper’s coverage as unethical, victim-blaming and insensitive following the acquittal of Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe in relation to the shooting death of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker.

A jury acquitted Rolfe of murder and related charges on Friday over the 2019 shooting of Walker in Yuendumu. The court heard Walker was shot three times, with Rolfe arguing he acted to protect his and his partner’s safety.

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Piers Morgan parties with Sky News Australia mates after massive Murdoch payday | Weekly Beast

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Former Good Morning Britain host, who quit after a spectacular meltdown over Meghan Markle, strikes gold with News Corp. Plus: Hot Albo returns

Piers Morgan’s global talkshow is weeks away from launching but the British commentator was already handing out voting advice when he jetted in for Sky News Australia’s 25th anniversary party at the Sydney Opera House.

“Australians will want to elect the leader who they believe will move most swiftly to restore all freedom rights lost during the crisis, and who will be strong on national security,” Morgan said after arriving on Lachlan Murdoch’s private jet to celebrate with new colleagues including Peta Credlin, Chris Kenny and Rita Panahi.

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Queen wants Camilla to be Queen Consort when Charles becomes king

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Monarch expresses ‘sincere wish’ in candid message marking 70th anniversary of her accession

The Queen has expressed her “sincere wish” that the Duchess of Cornwall becomes Queen Consort when Charles becomes king.

In a candid message marking the 70th anniversary of her accession, the monarch made clear her desire, unambiguously paving the way for Queen Camilla.

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Woman who survived Auschwitz and Sarajevo siege dies aged 97

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Greta Ferušić Weinfeld survived both the Nazi death camp and the nearly four-year siege during the Bosnian war

A woman who survived both the Auschwitz death camp and the Sarajevo siege in the 1990s has died, according to representatives of Bosnia’s Jewish community.

Greta Ferušić Weinfeld died on Monday aged 97.

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Malcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’

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Systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social, has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, the former PM writes

The United States has suffered the largest number of Covid-19 deaths: about 600,000 at the time of writing. The same political and media players who deny the reality of global warming also denied and politicised the Covid-19 virus.

To his credit, Donald Trump poured billions into Operation Warp Speed, which assisted the development of vaccines in a timeframe that matched the program’s ambitious title. But he also downplayed the gravity of Covid-19, then peddled quack therapies and mocked cities that mandated social distancing and mask wearing.

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News Corp Australia won’t muzzle commentators as it ramps up climate coverage

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Newspapers to cover ‘all views’ and ‘not just the popular ones’, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial

News Corp Australia has confirmed it will ramp up its company-wide coverage of climate change next month but says its stable of commentators won’t be “muzzled”.

The executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, says the mastheads will cover “all views” and “not just the popular ones”, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial and ridicule towards climate action.

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George Pell: news organisations fined more than $1m over reporting of sexual abuse verdict

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Victoria’s supreme court fines the Age $450,000 and News Corp more than $400,000 for contempt of court over coverage of cardinal’s initial conviction

A dozen of Australia’s largest media organisations have been fined more than $1m for contempt of court over their coverage of Cardinal George Pell’s sexual abuse conviction.

On Friday the Victorian supreme court justice John Dixon ruled the 12 organisations had “usurped” the role of the court by breaching a suppression order on Pell’s now-quashed conviction for child sexual abuse.

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Red faces in Rome as street plaque misspells ex-president’s name

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President Sergio Mattarella forced to abandon dedication after officials noticed mistake on stone plaque

The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, was forced to abandon a ceremony dedicating a road in Rome to one of his predecessors, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, after officials noticed the name on the stone plaque was misspelled.

Instead of “Azeglio”, the street marker said “Azelio”. Mattarella had already turned up to the event on Tuesday, alongside members of Ciampi’s family and the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, before the embarrassing mistake was noticed, with the lettering showing up clearly through the translucent cloth covering the plaque.

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News Corp exclusive on Chinese ‘bioweapons’ based on discredited 2015 book of conspiracy theories

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Report in the Australian newspaper promoting Sharri Markson’s book on origins of Covid criticised as misleading and alarmist by China analysts

The Australian’s exclusive about a “chilling” document produced by Chinese military scientists is based on a discredited 2015 book containing conspiracy theories about biological warfare which is freely available on the internet.

Written by the paper’s investigations writer, Sharri Markson, the report last Saturday said Chinese military scientists “discussed the weaponisation of Sars coronaviruses five years before the Covid-19 pandemic” and predicted a third world war would be fought with biological weapons.

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Facebook over-enforced Australia news ban, admits Nick Clegg

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Communications chief defends reversed ban, saying it is unfair to force tech firms to pay for news content

Facebook “erred on the side of over-enforcement” in removing links to hundreds of non-media organisations in Australia, Nick Clegg has admitted, in a blogpost defending the social media company’s short-lived news ban there.

The former UK deputy prime minister, now Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs and communications, said the tech firm had been “forced into [the] position” of blocking content designated as news after the Australian government refused to back down over plans to require it to negotiate with news publishers for payment for content.

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Google and Facebook: the landmark Australian law that will make them pay for news content

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Despite protestations from both companies, the Australian parliament is set to pass legislation it says is needed to boost public interest journalism

The Australian parliament is poised to pass a landmark media law that would make Google and Facebook pay news publishers for displaying their content.

The Australian law is separate to a deal Facebook made to pay mainstream UK news outlets millions of pounds a year to license their articles, but has a similar motivation.

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More data needed before giving just one vaccine dose, says Covid adviser

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Tony Blair and others make argument for giving more people a single jab rather than two

A senior scientific adviser has said more data is needed before the government can adopt a proposal to give as many people as possible a single dose of a Covid vaccine rather than preserving stocks so there is enough for a second jab.

The former prime minister Tony Blair and Prof David Salisbury, a former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, backed the idea on Wednesday, saying second shots should be given only when more stock is available.

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Major breakthrough needed to avert no-deal Brexit, says Irish minister

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Simon Coveney warns talks may collapse amid fishing rights impasse

Brexit negotiations on a trade deal resume in a crucial week, as it emerged talks on the issue of EU access to British fishing waters have not progressed since the summer.

As the two sides re-engaged in the troubled discussions, with less than seven weeks to go before the end of the transition period, Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said the negotiations were “not in a good place” on fishing rights.

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EU vote on Brexit deal could be delayed until 28 December

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MEPs might not be able to seal any agreement until three days before transition period ends

A European parliament vote to seal a Brexit trade deal could be delayed until 28 December, three days before the end of the transition period, under an emergency EU plan.

With less than seven weeks to go before the UK leaves the single market and customs union, the negotiations remain troubled, with the talks on fishing rights in UK waters not progressing significantly since the summer.

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Q+A: Malcolm Turnbull clashes with News Corp’s Paul Kelly over climate coverage

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Former PM says Murdoch media has become ‘pure propaganda’ and is doing enormous damage to the world’s ability to respond to climate change

Malcolm Turnbull says News Corp has become an organisation for “pure propaganda” that has done enormous damage through its promotion of climate change denial.

In a heated exchange on Monday night’s Q&A, the former prime minister and the Australian’s editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, clashed over the media organisation’s treatment of climate science.

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Kevin Rudd petition calls for royal commission into News Corp domination of Australian media

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Petition set up by the former PM caused problems for the Parliament House website after more than 38,000 people signed in 24 hours

The former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has launched a petition calling for a royal commission into NewsCorp’s dominance of Australia media, arguing Rupert Murdoch’s media company employs tactics that “chill free speech and undermine public debate”.

The petition, launched on the Australian Parliament website on Saturday, had gained more than 38,000 signatures by Sunday morning, with Rudd tweeting that the popularity of the petition had caused the website to suspect users signing it were robots.

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News Corp posts US$1.5bn loss driven by sharp declines in newspaper revenue

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Revenue collapses by 16% in Australia and 13% in the UK, while Foxtel loses 12% of its subscribers in Australia

News Corp has posted a US$1.5bn loss, with its Australian and United Kingdom newspaper businesses suffering sharp declines in revenue and its Foxtel pay-TV business in Australia bleeding subscribers, new financial results for 2019-20 show.

The global media giant released its financial results for 2019/20 on Thursday in the US. The reports paint a grim picture across the last quarter and year, with the exception of its Dow Jones business.

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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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‘We will simply disconnect’: Mike Pompeo and the Australian TV appearance that caused a diplomatic storm

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A comment by the US secretary of state about Victoria’s belt and road project has ricocheted through Parliament House and the US embassy

When US secretary of state Mike Pompeo popped up on Australian television over the weekend it was not to be interviewed by the national broadcaster or indeed one of the main TV channels.

Instead he chose to appear on a fringe show with a relatively tiny audience hosted by a self-styled “outsider” who loves Donald Trump’s tweets almost as much as he loves railing against “the left”.

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