Media inquiry a waste of time – but News Corp’s governance must be examined: Kohler

An inquiry into the Australian media will quickly discover a couple of awkward facts.

One is that, in general, diversity of ownership and competition doesn’t lead to greater responsibility, but less. Another is that the most influential media – print – is the least regulated.

That diversity and competition are anathema to responsible journalism is plain to see. The most competitive corner of the Australian media – television current affairs – is also the most frequently cited on Media Watch for its lack of ethical behaviour. The phone hacking in Britain was a result of the tabloid competition in that market, as well as a failure of ethics and governance within News Corporation.

The most “responsible” media are state-owned monopolies, but a free press – free to be irresponsible as well as free to attack ruling elites – is a foundation of democracy and must be protected at all costs.

The problem is that the market doesn’t work when it comes to the media. The commercial TV industry code of practice, enforced by S.123 of the Broadcasting Act, requires that news is presented fairly and impartially, that factual material be distinguished from comment, that errors are corrected, and that they don’t present material in a way that “creates panic”.

Why is this needed? Because when it comes to the media, the usual principles of the consumer marketplace get turned on their head: the lower the “quality” the more you sell.

It simply isn’t true, unfortunately, that consumers will punish a media outlet that transgresses the Code of Ethics. If anything the reverse is true, which is why standards of behaviour have to be a condition of the licence to operate.

The producers of Today Tonight and A Current Affair have learnt from experience what produces ratings, and they would do far worse things if they could get away with it. The News of the World sold 2.6 million copies a week because of its intrusive, hysterical, irresponsible journalism, not in spite of it, and the fact that there were no external controls on the editors led to the hacking of the phones of celebrities and victims of crime.

Broadcast journalism – television and radio – is the only form that has its behaviour regulated, yet print journalism is unarguably the most powerful.

Why? Simply because the printed word is not ephemeral like radio waves; it hangs around. Books are powerful for the same reason.

Would there be anything wrong with a licensing system for written, as opposed to broadcast, journalism? Perhaps one that embodied and gave some teeth to the MEAA Code of Ethics. That code contains 12 excellent, unarguable, points, with an “out” at the end: “Only substantial advancement of the public interest or risk of substantial harm to people allows any standard to be overridden.” In other words, the standards can be overridden.

In theory there would be nothing wrong with that being backed by legislation, but the advent of online publishing and the lowering of the barriers to entry have made that very complicated.

Should Twitter and blogs be caught by such rules? Obviously any print licensing system could not just apply to those who publish on paper but defining the regulated universe would be a nightmare, and probably impossible.

So any media inquiry in Australia will almost certainly be a waste of time: extending the regulation of ethics to include print is now probably impossible, and there is no legal mechanism to force more diversity of ownership, even if it was agreed that this would be a good thing.

But what can and will be inquired into is the governance and behaviour of News Corporation and in particular its ruling family, the Murdochs. The British Parliament is doing it, and the independent directors of the company should do it as well.

The arrest of Rebekah Brooks last night brings the rising waters of consequence closer to the feet of the Murdochs themselves, but whether or not James Murdoch is arrested as well, Rupert’s spell has been broken.

His enemies are now having what John Oliver on The Daily Show last week memorably called a “schadenfreudagasm”.

In response, the independent directors of News must now conduct their own inquiry into what happened and also undertake a proper, transparent review of succession planning.

Nepotism is simply unacceptable for a public company. The directors have a clear duty to ensure the best people are running News Corporation and its subsidiaries, whether their name is Murdoch or not.

This article first appeared on Business Spectator.