The Federal Government has made it clear that it intends changing the media laws in Oz. Many have expressed their grave misgivings about such a move - especially as it would deliver more control to 3 "players", Murdoch, Packer and possibly Fairfax [if it hasn't been taken-over]. If proof was ever needed that there needs to be more diversity and less restrictions on media-ownership it comes from News Ltd's [that is - Rupert Murdoch] Australian newspaper proudly crowing last Friday that News Ltd. has lifted its major newpaper market in Oz to 68.5%. Do we really want Rupert Murdoch controlling most of what we read, hear and see?
There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
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