Reporting the News (Corp)

In the business world, profit result time comes but once a year - twice if you count the intermediate half-yearly results, and about 52 times if you count the regular, almost weekly profit "updates". But never mind the mind-numbing frequency of information required in a deregulated economy, finance reporters still manage to pull out their pokadot ties and extra-fine pin-stripe suits and make a party out of the auspicious annual event. It's a chance to listen to analysts wax on about your favourite company, and a chance to listen to your favourite finance pundit give their honest account of the market's honest account of how well any given company has performed. But as if it wasn't already tough enough trying to pick your way through information about the various blue chips, how much they've made, and whether the market thinks they should have drawn more blood, we're forced to decipher and unravell how well our national media companies have performed. Unless you're lucky enough have a business degree it's almost impossible to get something even close to an objective idea of how well the papers are moving into the new media market.

The most obvious and noxious offender, at least as far as I can tell, is News Limited, although the Murdoch media conglomerate is by no means the only one guilty of the practice. So don't be fooled by Mark Day's attempt at impartiality - "News to surf net to more records", written with the help of Nic Hopkins, and published in Thursday's Australian. Don't let the title fool you, what follows is a legitimate news report, in so much as it has a lead - penned by Day, with a little help from the folks in the News Limited PR department; an extrapolation of the lead - less Day, more News PR; followed by another 500 words or so of salient information, most of which comes from the people at News PR. Don't worry about reporting the market's reaction to the $5.1 billion profit, just add some congratulatory adjectives, a few select quotes from Murdoch and News Corp's chief operating officer Peter Chernin and you have yourself a business story suitable for the front page of The Australian's Media section. This sort of approach is not at all surprising if you're at all familiar with the News modus operandi, which states that every News Limited newspaper, magazine, website, television station, television show and film - and there are literally hundreds of them littered all around the globe - should be able to advertise the company or any of its subsidiaries whenever the chance presents itself. When you own as many media outlets as News Corp does, or you have your fingers embedded in as many media pies as Mr Murdoch, there's a huge opportunity to not just to report the news but to twist it your way.

As I said at the top, this is not just an affliction that affects Murdoch or News, but something that eats away at the credibility of every media company - including the ABC, who has at least a fleeting interest in seeing its commercial competitors fall flat on their faces. But it's just that News Corp casts such a wide net - a net that reaches across the entire globe, and now across the internet thanks to the recent purchase of MySpace. No doubt this will soon extend beyond the confines of this planet, but hopefully not for a few years at least. And sure, when pressed, and when they look deep into their souls, most media companies - at least the ones who concern themselves with the fourth estate - will probably admit they're more interested in earning cash than in their civic responsibility, or the notion of a free, fearless and responsible press. It's just that Rupert Murdoch doesn't need to be pressed, prodded or even asked before he's willing to admit it is the money that is keeping him in the game. Nobody with a claim to serious journalism would have even considered placing topless women inside the fold just to sell a few British tabloids, now would they? But Murdoch doesn't make a claim to pursue serious journalism; never has, and probably never will.