Laurel Papworth

Lord Monckton told Mining executives to buy up big in MEDIA and use the Super Rich to exert control over media messages. Gina Rinehart (mining family) has started buying up shares in Fairfax. And taking out injunctions to stop social media “crowdsourcing” about her, her family and her business. Which is mining and media. What should we do?

Lord Monckton explains why Mining should control Australian Media.

Here is “Lord”Monckton talking to a room of mining executives about buying up traditional media and dominating the channels with their dogma.

Quotes from the piece:

“Is there an Australian version of Fox News?… No,” Monckton told the gathered group, which included Manners himself.

“Frankly whatever you do at a street level – which is what you are talking about here – is not going to have much of an impact compared with capturing an entire news media.

“You look at the impact that Andrew Bolt has had since he was rocketed to fame and – without giving away too many secrets – Joanne [climate sceptic Jo Nova] is going to end up doing quite a bit more on that channel if all goes according to plan.” (from )

And my personal favourite:

“it seems to me that putting some time into – encouraging those we know who are super rich to invest in perhaps even establishing a new satellite TV channel is not an expensive thing, and then get a few Jo Novas and Andrew Bolts to go on an do the commentating every day – and keep the news free and fair and blanced, as they do on Fox. That would be a berak through and give to Australia as it has for America a proper dose of free market thinking. “

In other words, all shows except the News will beat the Super Rich drum wherever Mining owns media.

Sources: DeSmogBlog, Graham Readfern The Drum,

Gina Rinehart controlling Media, The Courts and Social Media

Gina Rinehart is part of the Super Rich – she heads a mining family, and has been gobbling up shares in one of our two main newspaper groups, Fairfax. Trying to increase her stake further to have more of an impact on Media. Gina Rinehart Eyes Bigger Stake In Fairfax.

Gina Rinehart extends her influence to wherever she can. Take this article that attempts to use the legal system to gag any discussion about her in media or social media:

The report also claims that the Rinehart family could be at risk from “citizen journalists” who could use “crowd sourcing” techniques to subject the Rineharts to dangerous scrutiny if there is extensive public reporting of their wealth and family conflict.

Crowd sourcing is where individuals using mobile phones to track the movements of high-profile individuals and upload video of their activities to social media sites. (The Australian)

I tweeted this last sentence when it went up, because it was amusing, given the millions of things that crowdsourcing could be, and how it can change the world.  I assumed it was the journalist Natasha Robinson‘s error. It got retweeted a lot, mostly also as amusement.  But what if there are colder, more nefarious hands at work here? If this is genuinely the tack the Gina Rineharts lawyers are taking with non-tech non-social media courts? What if the judge hadn’t understood crowdsourcing except as a tool for Citizen Paparazzi, and therefore blocked discussions of Gina Rinehart in social media sites by Australians? Luckily that didn’t happen … this time.

Social Media and Mining

Crowdsourcing is so much more than gossiping about family troubles of the Super Rich. One thing crowdsourcing can do is raise the money for an Ad to stop Mining from owning majority stakes in Media. GetUp are trying to do this, albeit a bit outdated:

GetUp CAN YOU CHIP IN?: We’re running this ad in newspapers so that all Australians will know what’s at stake. Can you chip in to help get the message out?

Donate at GetUp, $6,000 so far. They won’t raise a lot, except from their own little community – GetUp has a community but does not give them tools to push this the same way that say, Kickstarter or Pozible do.

Crowdsourced funding saw one guys Kickstarter project request for $75,000 net him $1.5 million in a couple of weeks. What could we do if we really crowdsourced a Stop Mining Owning Media campaign?  I was joking when I tweeted:

If we put Fairfax up on social media fundraising site @Pozible, d’ya reckon we could raise a $billion or 2, and buy it? #WeThePeople

and

I’d be Big Chief Editor of #WeThePeople Fairfax- of course. You vote on articles. ‘cept no boring Sports or Khadashians :p

I’m no longer joking.

I’d like to see crowdsourcing activism tell the Government what media laws are right for the Australian community and which ones aren’t. I’d like to see crowdsourcing used to pull ALL journalists together, to send a strong message not to mess with sacred trust that is pure journalism. I reckon World Press Day on May 3rd should be our Freedom of the Press from Mining Day. What d’ya reckon?