Concise background:
Book came out a few weeks ago: Claims Fairfax is dead, Murdoch killed it. Follows massive layoffs earlier in the year.
Claims that since internet freed classified ads from newspapers, print is dead, as classifieds paid for all journalism.
Murdoch (News ltd) made the jump by buying realestate.com, carsales.com, and other key internet classifieds.
Fairfax didn't and is now dying fast if not dead. Apparently
Fairfax hit back with some angry articles in AFR, SMH etc.
It seems they've hit back today in a big way, shining a light on Murdoch's war against the ALP and the reasons behind it.
This article came out today and caused a lot of waves
www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/murdochs-vicious-attacks-on-rudd-its-business-20130803-2r65x.htmlIf you've followed alternative news streams, sites like Crikey, Independent Australia, Hoopla, New Matilda, etc as well as Twitter & other social media, then this article isn't really news. It's thoroughly discussed outside of the main 2 news streams into people's living rooms.
The big shock here is that Fairfax has weighed in. Much like BP hypothetically pointing at Caltex and saying "they fix prices" it's a big big step for them to take. It both legitimises the independent media stories and also gets them out to a much wider audience. It also opens themselves up to scrutiny, and also breaks the industry code of silence or whatever you want to call it. It's a major step for them to take.
This is the big conspiracy theory all you CT nuts are waiting for. All these guys over in the 9/11 thread arguing about secret forces at work, shadowy evil figures controlling governments, etc. This is happening. Here. Now. Murdoch wants a change of government and Murdoch is dead set on getting it. He's been working hard for 3 years and at the moment the outcome is in doubt. Watch News Ltd dial it up with increasing desperation in the next month or so. What you're watching in an 82 year old billionare buying a puppet government to do as he wants. Using the 70% of australian media he owns to change the government of a democratic country.
