With the Government’s media bills under debate in the Senate, GetUp! has launched a Say No to Media Monopoly campaign where voters can email Coalition and crossbench Senators.

Everyone’s quoting the Crikey Morgan Poll that found an overwhelming majority of journalists oppose the media ownership proposals – and GetUp! is cutely reversing a usual news paradigm. Rather than journos chasing comment, GetUp! is chasing comments from journos on how they believe the bills will affect them. Here are a few:

  • It’s another sad news story for regional areas. We are a country of many voices and we want that reflected in our media.
  • For a government that talks the talk about freedom of choice, you guys sure don’t walk the walk.
  • If anything governments should be working proactively to promote media diversity by encouraging new entrants to the market and contributing to the health of our democracy. This bill will not achieve either.
  • I am particularly concerned for regional areas – it is vitally important that newspapers and radio are not owned by the same company.
  • Stop lying to yourselves. Cross media ownership will mean the death of public debate, and the victory of the Official Fiction.
  • Media monopolies silence country voices. The Sydney news is not our news. Regional cities are not branch offices of the State capital.
  • We already have lack of voices and opinion. Please do not make it worse. Pity the government and its people who are subservient to a media lord.
  • No convincing arguments have been put for the proposed legislation.
  • Less media diversity will not only mean fewer jobs in the industry for aspiring young journalists but also a narrower range of opinions and stories told about Australia. Cash for comment will become the norm in the new media landscape, Please don’t let this happen!
  • It would seem that Packer has more power from the grave than he did while alive.
  • The first requirement of democracy is a free and diverse public media. Limiting the number of media voices is a threat to the very values the government says it wants to uphold.
  • I work for the largest media organisation in the world, and am proud to do so. But to allow one organisation, one man, to control the media is wrong. The suburban newspaper I work on is without question the best in town. One of the reasons for that is because we have competition: our readers can compare our news with several others in town. That is just one reason why we work so hard to get it right and get to the truth.