Dear News Ltd Journalists,
I’m writing you this letter on behalf of all Australians. That includes everyone who can vote in the upcoming election, as well as those too young to have a say in their own future. I wanted to let you know that your behaviour throughout the election campaign has been appalling. I know you know as well as I do that it’s not the role of a journalist to campaign for a political party. Journalists often justify their bias by saying that opinion pieces can be whatever they want them to be – whether or not they’re biased, unbalanced, untrue, or part of a conspiracy on behalf of your boss to get rid of the NBN, which threatens his business interests. But you’re not just contributing opinion pieces and amateur PhotoShopped front page images, denigrating the target of your smear campaign. You’re also contributing news articles, designed to bring about a certain result, a result you’ve allegedly been instructed to manufacture to help your boss make money. Doesn’t this make you feel dirty? Doesn’t the 17 year old aspiring journalist in you feel even a little bit sad about finding their middle-aged-self behaving in this unethical way? Don’t you care about the impact your work has on the country you live in?
I’m sure many of you justify your blind obedience in the ‘get Rudd’ campaign to the fact that you need a job. You have to do what you’re told so you can keep working as a journalist. I know there’s not many jobs out there for journalists, but this doesn’t justify you doing the wrong thing. There are hundreds of examples throughout history of ‘employees’ doing the wrong thing on behalf of their bosses, and justifying this wrongness by saying they were instructed to do it. That doesn’t make it ok. If Murdoch told you to hit your wife, would you do that too? Where exactly is the line that you wouldn’t cross, no matter what your boss wanted? Is there a line? When you write puff pieces about Tony Abbott, when you do glamorous photo shoots of Tony Abbott’s daughters but don’t actually ask them a question, when you choose not to scrutinise Abbott, and omit news that is damaging to him, when you support Mal Brough’s campaign to destroy Slipper and then ignore the news that you were part of the Ashbygate conspiracy which a Federal Court Judge has revealed, when you cover your front page with blatant propaganda to help Abbott win government, but don’t tell your readers what his real plans are, when you give a candidate a free run and create the misleading impression that the Labor government is unsuccessful, you are failing Australia. Your job is not more important than your responsibility as a journalist. How are you ever going to get another job with this sort of behaviour in your background?
I actually think it’s an absolute outrage that not one of you has resigned in protest during this election campaign. Not one of you has stood up for journalistic integrity and said ‘enough’. Not one of you has said your pay cheque isn’t more important to you than your ethics. And what about all the jobs your readers will lose because of your campaign? You know Tony Abbott has proudly announced that he’ll sack 12,000 public servants. These are people doing important work in our communities. They help people. They support the disadvantaged in society. How is your job more important than their jobs?
No doubt many of you are Liberals yourself, having been hand-picked by your boss to make sure you’re on his side. But even if you think Tony Abbott deserves to win the election, and even if you like his policies and are completely in favour of his plans for this country (assuming you know what these are), don’t you think the Australian people have a right to hear both sides of the story before making up their own minds? Don’t you think it sounds a little bit like Fascism for your boss to decide that he wants an Abbott win, and then for you, his minions, to do his dirty work in the most blatantly dishonourable and immoral media campaign this country has ever seen?
Perhaps you read letters like this, and you are so hardened to the world that you let it roll over you, like water off a duck’s back. But I just hope that somewhere, deep down inside you, there’s a little voice reminding you that you’re doing the wrong thing. If you even have the ability to feel guilty, to feel ashamed, even if it’s just at 3:00am in the morning when you can’t sleep, I hope you feel awful.
It’s also important for you to know that we won’t forget what you’ve done. If your boss gets his way, and you do manage to deliver Australia the most conservative, austerity obsessed, downright mean and selfish government we’ve ever had, it’s very likely most of your readers, especially those in areas like western Sydney who’ve you’ve conned most successfully, will not be very impressed with you. They might ask why on earth Abbott is cutting spending on services they need, like health and education, when they didn’t hear about it before the election. They might be disappointed to hear their work rights are being undermined by the same front bench who came up with Work Choices. And they might be really pissed off when the surplus they’ve been promised is actually a gigantic $30 billion dollar black hole. No doubt you’ll do your best to blame all these woes on Labor, as this is your unthinking knee-jerk reaction to everything. But how long can this work? I know you like your readers dumb, but don’t underestimate how quickly people work out that they’ve been screwed over. I hope your precious job is worth it then. I would have thought your entire industry was in enough trouble without you putting another dozen nails in its coffin through your own arrogance and incompetence.
Media Inequality 
Another good contribution Victoria. The standard of journalism in this country is abysmal. Apart from the directed bias to which you refer, the more I see and read the more I wonder about the intelligence of the average journalist, the institutions in which they lean their “profession” and the people who teach in those institutions!
I have shared this on fb …..its appalling and I totally agree!!!!! Hang in there ……I really cant contemplate the future of oz in the hands of, someone like him!!! Ugh!!
Richard Ackland recently used the term “performing seals” to describe these journalists. I would like to think some would be embarrassed, but suspect they don’ t give a stuff, living in their own world.
I have a few News Ltd workers as friends but I have lost all respect fro them. I doubt I can speak to them again. When i started work at age 16 it was for one of this countries richest men and he drummed into me that rot starts from the top and seeps down until everyone and every thing is infected. He advised me to never work for a corrupted business and I never have. I have been happy working only for ethical businesses and it’s always worked out well. It won’t work out well for News Ltd journalists and they will be dispensed with when all used up.
I think that you have encapsulated the opinion of many of us.- the way journalists behave , the way they do not scrutinize- they way they report ‘selectively’ .’ Journalistic integrity’ is an oxymoron and ‘ journalistic standards’ an anachronistic joke.. Balance? Objectivity? gone. I had hopes that The Guardian may be different- but when I heard they had employed from the current crop of journalists my heart sank. No different.
Agree. The likes of Lenore Taylor and Katherine Murphy are just as woeful as they were at the SMH. The Guardian has been a huge disappointment.
agree. The Guardian a huge disappointment. Why did they bother ?
These so called journalists from News Ltd. are low life scum. Just like Murdoch and Abbott they are liars, bullies and cowards. Is it any wonder these so called journalists are ranked lower then used car salesmen. I think this is a slight in used car salesmen. I think they are lower then the shit on your shoe and we won’t forget their gutless cowardice ever.
A wonderful post straight from the heart, Victoria. Thank you so much. Unfortunately, it is not just News Corps’ supposed “journalists” who are being so biased & mendacious but also the alternatives such as Fairfax, the ABC & the commercial TV news rooms plus their various chat shows. It has become a race to the bottom. The others just seem to source their “news” from Murdoch media especially the taxpayers’ ABC.
The sheer pettiness & nastiness of it all is contemptible. The over-the-top-treated-as-fact totally unprofessional & uncorroborated assertions from a make up person about Kevin Rudd were the pits. Same with Annabel Crabb’s (of all people) story on how Kevin Rudd allegedly put aside important security briefings,in Canberra & “VIP jetted” to Brisbane to appear in a cooking show. How puerile was that. Thought she was above such things.
Today I made a decision & will no longer look at or read any news source which is at all political. It is far too depressing & gut-wrenching. They are all so biased & do not give us the truth any more. This means even trying to assess from the headlines whether or not a Guardian or The Conversation article leans towards the tabloid way of expressing news as opinion. Thank goodness for The Global Mail though. Shall still tweet, hehe. 🙂
Thank you for writing this. The way the media, Fairfax and News, treated Julia Gillard, has left me totally contemptuous of them. I have refused to resubscribe to The Age, for the first time in thirty years; it’s not because of the internet but because of their prolonged and vicious campaign against our first female PM, and I didn’t vote Labour.
Since Fairfax insist they are independently bigoted as compared to News Corp’s sycophantic motives I put it down to a kind of blokey media groupthink from which female journalists are obviously not exempt. I suppose adopting it is a condition of joining the Canberra Press Gallery but at present I have absolutely no qualms about my tiny symbolic contribution towards sending them all down the gurgler.
My thoughts exactly. I was just about to post a similar blog article myself. Currently very disgusted with the transparent salacious one-sided political attacks in the media. It’s almost as ridiculously propagandistic as what you’d expect from a regime leader against a coup faction leader.
Reblogged this on austriaal and commented:
Excellent post and my thoughts exactly. The current state of Australian media really has been dumbed down to simplistic herd brainwashing. I feel sorry for anyone that truly takes what Murdoch and his wrecking ball crew are taking to heart, because we will all regret the repercussions further on.
Wonderful letter,spot on the mark I agree with its contents completely and I appreciate you going to the trouble of writing and sending it but these people have one mission in life and that is job preservation and nothing you or I say or write will make a difference to these perverted scribes. I don’t know what the answer is except to hope that one day the majority will come to their senses and work out they are being conned into voting against their best interest. The Americans woke up to what Fox News and Murdoch were up to and voted accordingly, lots of people say the American voters are dumb,but I think they are a lot smarter than we are and these past three years have proven it.
I love writing so when I left school I chose to study journalism. While the course was brilliant, after two years my desire to work in such a disgusting industry devoid of ethics withered.
I am disgusted by journalists who seem to forget all the ethics and morals they were taught all for a job under at one of the handful of media companies in Aus.
News Ltd, or Limited News, is the serial offender here and I attribute my lack of desire for journalism to their drivel. I switched to a Law degree this year and havent bought a newspaper all year. Thank heavens!
Noise Limited also vowed to Destroy the Greens. Such lovely people. Not journalists or even journalists’ arseholes, but I’m sure they’re still lovely people.
Couldn’t agree more
There are journalists at News Ltd?
Totally agree with you Victoria, have you noticed that in the local newsagent & supermarkets, that the newspapers are not selling!! Hopefully people are starting to reject their biased views. Saw Katter & Palmer on ABC, Journalist club luncheon. They had some very good ideas for rural Australia & small business, would love for them to win some seats, we may end up with a minority parliament again!!, not such a bad thing, this minority government has achieved quite a lot.
Just come home from hospital today. Talked to a lot of people both hospital staff, patients &I visitors. They don’t like TA, are sick & tired of media propaganda especially Murdoch press. Interestingly its the young ones that start to get fired up because they really know what has happened.
Many, many people both young & old haven’t got a clue as to the power of the owner of this media empire & just how much & what Murdoch owns & how he has tried to get rid of a duly elected government, along with TA & his mob & some of the ALP Rudd supporters.
Kerry Anne Walsh was right about how Julia got totally whiteanted. I just hope that Tom Watson on Q & A tonight, will expose these dreadful people for what they really are.
Once again Victoria great article.
Thanks again Victoria for your dedication into the basic truths regarding Australia’s main stream media publications that has and still is effecting all our radio and television news broadcasting with Abbott’s propaganda backed by Murdock diseased media power. All the way with Abbott they go without the balanced accountability, who can never stop the refugee boats from coming here to Australia and never will. Now the latest Abbott is going to buy up all those 78,000 Indonesian fishing boats. Ah what a laugh that is, just like those costings gurgling their way down the drainpipe, like the rats they are.
No wonder newspapers don’t sell anymore, the standards just aren’t there anymore.
Well said again, Victoria. I liked to think Australia had a healthy scepticism of all political figures. And that we prided ourselves in basic notions of fairness.
Yet Abbott, following a long history of political thuggery, continued right up to the present, is daily presented as some sort of great guy, they way he wears a fire uniform, drives a truck or fillets a fish. It’s hard to conceive something more false, daily paraded before us. The approval ratings for him have barely risen despite all this. Possibly all the stunts/charades are not so much to win approval as to stifle the grave reservations most people have of him. As Mr Tony Windsor said, he has neither the temperament nor the trustworthiness to lead the nation.
And almost the mirror opposite, Julia Gillard, who consistently showed herself to be a person of integrity and a superb leader/negotiator, has constantly been vilified as the opposite of that.
That Mr Rudd should have contributed to that false image by undermining via the media, does not make it just that he should now be victim of the same misleading.
We are entitled to much more integrity from our media than we have been given. Monopoly of opinion-setting is as dangerous to freedom of expression and ideas as government control.
That is the position of News Ltd through controlling nearly 70% of our print media. Talk radio depends entirely on it for its talking points. Daytime television likewise. Only the evening TV news services have reporting staff independent of this cycle, but often the day’s events have taken hold before their time on television.
Reblogged this on My Other Blog and commented:
Victoria says what I feel too but much better.
Thankyou Victoria, for saying what I feel, how I feel, the outrage & disgust in which I hold the media, all the media including “”our ABC””! There has never been anything fair about it, nothing. Its all been about power, power by the right, for one of the richest men on the planet.
We know that what you have written will resonate with many, it is just sad & frustrating that it will have little or no impact on the broader electorate, who have allowed themselves to be treated like dickheads, brainless twerps, who care little for the truth, the underdog, the country, just for their own little patch of turf, called “‘bugger you Jack, I’m OK”. The dumb & dumber, who have allowed themselves to soak up the Abbott stew, served up to them every night for dinner!
They will only find out the hard way, & the ,media, well they should be very ashamed of themselves & their lack of decency & backbone, lack of moral calibre.
In days gone by, News Ltd journalists went on strike, when the Whitlam Govt was under seige, they refused to be a part of the lies. But not this time, these journalists are headhunters of a different kind, they beat to a different drum, the drum of corruption, under the guise of free press! Heaven help us all, but more so, heaven help those journos, because their day too will come!
Heard a promo on ABC radio this morning for tonights 4 Corners, they will be talking to the candidates in the seat of Brisbane and a seat in Western Sydney, both marginal and are also talking to some voters, and guess what? they just happened to find all these ex Labor voters who have lost faith and are going to vote for the LNP you know the type””’ I always voted Labor ””But” ” They also interviewed a nice young well mannered Liberal voter which im sure she is, then a male Labor voter who sounded a bit rough but a good bloke by the sound of him,and the inference was plain, young Libs are nice and refined and sensible but young Labor voters are just dumb bogans. I really don’t think I can take much more of this ABC bullshit, especially when my taxes are paying for it. Does anybody know of another planet I can go and live on? There is just 6 days till the election so be warned”’ The Barbarians are at the gate.
Bickbob Read your comment & now the LNP are in Govt, we are a bad situation. The media haven’t improved at all in my opinion, but I find I need to go to alternative websites like this one to get my news & truth! In particular the Independent Australia, for good rounded articles, & comments, giving me info I could never get anywhere else. Try it if you haven’t before.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/category/politics/
It is times like these that I am reminded of an old Leunig cartoon with the words ‘Hooray ……. f u c k’.
I think it had his sad little characters marching to the cliff edge and dropping off.
Liberals vs labour supporters, chalk and cheese. The feeble human mind is twisted in one of two political directions by our media, so i’d like to propose an alternative. The democrats tried, the greens have made some inroads but Australia deserves a generation X idealist with the technical knowledge & enthusiasm to cut through the awful polluted politcal enironment left behind by the self serving baby boomers.( sorry mum & dad..but seriously)
Most importantly Australia would have an opportunity to vote for a politician who’d make lobby groups declare all their interests and negotiations publicly at their own expense, ban political donations & make quality of life a priority.
Naive Regards,
Gen X
Si vous etes toujours au courant de decocher la facon de regarder gratuitement des films en ligne, tapez des mots cles precis a venir
a travers les websites dont vous. Si vous
voulez telecharger gratuitement des films a partir d’Internet, vous
devez d’abord connecter votre PC avec l’Internet et tapez dans les films gratuits en ligne ou telecharger regarder des films pour les pictures libres ou juste regarder en ligne
gratuitement, des films gratuits. En tapant ces mots cles,
vous viendriez a travers des milliers de sites Web.
精准医疗又叫个性化医疗，是指以个人基因组信息为基础，结合蛋白质组，代谢组等相关内环境信息，为病人量身设计出最佳治疗方案，以期达到治疗效果最大化和副作用最小化的一门定制医疗模式。因此相较传统医疗，精准医疗具有针对性、高效性及预防性等特征。
美国医学界在2011年首次提出了“精准医学”的概念，今年1月20日，奥巴马又在美国国情咨文中提出“精准医学计划”，希望精准医学可以引领一个医学新时代。10月8日，2015全球创新论坛纽约峰会在纽约穆迪总部大楼举办。乐土投资集团CEO刘如银在峰会上介绍了他的精准医疗生态圈的想法。
刘如银介绍了乐土投资在美国的国际化实践，包括在美国的地产投资拓展，以及最新投资的医疗健康项目。乐土投资集团(CLIG)定位以硅谷的高科技投资为引擎，以科技医疗和互联网金融为两翼，链接最具价值的深科技健康项目，服务国际大健康和科技发展。
美国财政预算计划在2016年拨付给美国国立卫生研究院(NIH)、美国食品药品监督管理局(FDA)、美国国家医疗信息技术协调办公室(ONC)等机构共2.15亿美元用于资助这方面的科学研究与创新发展。
刘如银说：美国的精准医疗主要是围绕着基因组、蛋白组等方面的检测，也就是围绕分子生物学的特性，针对个体化的病理特征进行治疗。而我们所关注的不仅如此，更是系统化的，全过程、全要素、全局性的对医疗过程和临床实践进行优化。我们所指的精准医疗也是针对每一个病人的具体病情，正确选择并精确的应用适当的治疗方法。刘如银认为：精准医疗的最终目标是以最小化的医源性损害、最低化的医疗资源耗费去获得最大化的病患的效益，其前景不可限量。
精准医疗要做到个性、高效及预防的关键在于筛查和诊断，因此基因测序等检测诊断技术的发展是关键。成本的下降让基因测序商业化市场的打开成为可能，基因测序技术的成熟和商用经过了多年的发展，1980 年自动测序仪出现，2001 年完成了人类基因组框架图标志着这一技术的成熟，2007 年二代基因测序技术大幅降低测序成本，使得这一技术应用出现可能，以走在前列的Illumina 公司为例，该公司自2007 年起把当时每个基因组的测序成本费用从1000万美元降到了当下的1000 美元， 根据Illumina 公司数据，全球NGS(二代基因测序)的应用市场规模预计为200 亿美元，药品研发和临床应用是增速最快的领域，增速超过15%，肿瘤诊断和个性化用药是最有应用前景的领域，市场规模120亿美元。乐土投资与Illumina以及新一代的基因检测公司Genalyte, Centrillion都有着合作关系。
刘如银说：精准医疗作为医疗模式的革新对提高我国国民健康水平有重要意义，将在基因测序技术发展和国家政策的推动下迎来黄金发展期。精准治疗是下一个新兴朝阳行业，我们关注基因测序、肿瘤诊断及个性化用药等相关投资机会。
全球创新论坛纽约峰会由全美华人金融协会(The Chinese Finance Association, TCFA) 主办。全美华人金融协会于一九九四年在美国成立。分布在世界各地的会员来自华尔街投行、基金、监管部门、和学术界，已成为联系中美金融界最重要的桥梁之一。协会定期举行学术年会。协会本部设在纽约，并在波士顿，华盛顿，旧金山，伦敦，香港，北京和上海等金融中心设有分会。
原招商银行行长马蔚华，中信银行美国分行行长文兵，汉世纪投资管理有限公司合伙人吴皓，联合国南南合作办首席经济与投资专家杨庆宏等参加了本年度会议并发表了讲话。