The starter’s gun has been fired and once again, we’ve got a political election in Australia coinciding with the corporate AGM season when more than 2,000 public company directors will face a poll of their own.

While the journalists working for our commercial media companies will no doubt be quick to lash cynical practices by our politicians, the electoral tactics of these very same companies leave a lot to be desired.

First cab off the rank will be News Corporation in New York this Friday, where Rupert Murdoch is facing his first election to retain a News Corporation board position in decades. He’s also facing the first ever vote about his gerrymander, which sees 70% of shares denied the vote, as was explained in this series of radio interviews last week.

Meanwhile, West Australian Newspapers have shown complete contempt for their shareholders by last week declaring they’ll have to sack chairman Peter Mansell if they wish to appoint yours truly to the board. How a five-person board with sod all media experience can claim there is no room for another director from their industry is hard to fathom.

The rort of companies declaring the number of vacancies after seeing who has nominated is yet to be reported in the mainstream press, partly because the likes of Fairfax and Southern Cross Broadcasting have used the same stunt when I’ve run for their boards in previous years.

Then you’ve got the issue of AGM timing. Can you imagine the media outrage if the Prime Minister had delayed the election until after Christmas, or held it on a really inconvenient Saturday, such as AFL grand final day. Well, sadly our media companies are becoming experts at delaying their AGMs and holding them on inconvenient days.

I’ve done a special video at YouTube on Fairfax chairman Ron Walker who seems to have really lowered standards at Australia’s most venerable media company. Since becoming chairman, Ron has joined the “Friday AGM club”, knowing full well that this will attract a smaller crowd and generate less media attention. This year, Fairfax is waiting until the last legally available day to have its AGM: Friday, November 30.

Southern Cross Broadcasting have also joined the Friday club for its farewell shareholders meeting this week – and it just happens to coincide with the News Corp AGM in New York. What a surprise! Never mind, I’ve done them a farewell tribute video from outside the original Crikey bunker which they took away on Steve Price’s behalf in early 2002.

James Packer has also joined the cynical Friday club this year and will be hoping that having the PBL AGM on election eve, 23 November, will ensure minimal scrutiny and coverage. The WA News AGM also starts at 3pm on a Friday.

When you consider that Fairfax, PBL and Seven all released their annual reports on AFL grand final eve, you could be forgiven for concluding that the companies which profit from scrutinising others work damn hard to minimise scrutiny on their own activities.