Greed, Unlimited

Jacob:What’s your number?

Bretton:Excuse me?

Jacob:The amount of money you would need to be able to walk away from it all and just live happily-ever-after. See, I find that everyone has a number and it’s usually an exact number, so what is yours?

Bretton:More.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Gina Rinehart wants several seats on the board of Fairfax and the ability to hire and fire editors. The billionaire miners, who already have so much more than every other Australian, don’t want to pay any more tax, and some – like 'Twiggy' Forrest – pay no tax at all. Rupert Murdoch launches a takeover bid for Consolidated Media (major stakeholder of Foxtel), which will give him complete control of pay TV in Australia; while his newspapers dominate the market, their agenda-setting, right-wing opinions flooding the media landscape. Yet, unbelievably, this isn’t enough.

The narrative of Australian public life has become dominated by the greedy. By those who seem, above all else, simply to want more. And it’s this greed that is destroying the diversity of the media.

This desire for more looks increasingly hard to stop. Here stands Gina, richest woman in the world, who wants more influence on public debate. There stands Fairfax, a once-proud and influential media business now in a terminal fiscal and circulation decline. You hear that reader? That’s the sound of inevitability.

But before we get into this, let’s look at the numbers. 65 to 70 per cent of the newspaper circulation in Australia is owned by Rupert Murdoch. A lot of the major cities in Australia – Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin or Brisbane– are single-newspaper towns. We have the most concentrated newspaper media in the developed world. The Murdoch papers are avowedly conservative, and some – like the Australian or the Daily Telegraph – are rabidly so. Sort of like a right-wing versions of the protest group Get Up. But, unlike GetUp, The Australian and the Tele have ample money to run their campaigns and the capacity to set the news agenda.

You’d think the vested interests with a conservative agenda would be happy with this state of affairs. They are getting heard: their economic and political leanings are reflected every day by the vast majority of the press. They’re getting richer: the Australian mining magnates are shooting up the Forbes list of richest people in the world. There are upwards of 500 billion dollars worth of mining projects in the pipe line. Things are looking peachy.

But no, Gina Rinehart wants more. Power, it seems, without any checks or balances. You know, like an independent media would provide. So she’s bought 19 per cent of Fairfax. It’s known that she’s not out to make a profit (how could she, when Fairfax shares are in precipitous decline) she’s out for more influence and the respectability that that the old mastheads of The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Australian Financial Review will bring. And don’t doubt that Gina will get her wish. She’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.

Then the inevitable will happen: the great Australian institution of Fairfax, with its 180-year history, will implode. Andrew Bolt will become Editor-in-Chief, Lord Monckton will chief science reporter and Sarah Palin will write the crosswords. Benito Mussolini will have a regular history column and John Howard will write a weekly article about Don Bradman and Don Bradman only. Willie Mason will ghost write the social pages and Pauline Hanson will be given space to dispense practical day-to-day advice: how to make tasty home-made fish and chips, how to spot a secret Muslim, how to improvise a shiv in prison. And yes, I know you’re thinking: ‘wow, The Age’s crosswords will be so much easier now’, but if you’re thinking that you’re really missing the point.

Of course, in the end, if a right-wing billionaire wants to own a newspaper, well, that’s their prerogative. If the mega rich want to influence public life, well, that’s life. It’s not a crime to be conservative. In fact, it is good that there is conservative or right-wing (the two are not always the same) media in this country. It’s right that those voices are heard and enrich public debate.

The problem arises when diversity disappears. The problem is when the mega-phone of the mega-rich drowns out all other voices. The problem is when self interest overrides the public interest. In the words of billionaire Warren Buffett: “there's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Certainly, you can make arguments about the rise of the digital age and how we’re entering a brave new world of social media and blog-driven news. Sure. But let me tell you something – that blog that gets five thousand hits a week isn’t influencing the national debate. It’s just reinforcing the opinions of the people who actively search out the blog because their opinions match the dude writing it. Yes, there are news media somewhere between the mainstream and the micro – media like Crikey – but whether this can take a substantial role in the new media landscape remains to be seen. The professional media has (or should have) the money, the time and the professional staff to go out and tell us – as a public good and in an objective way- the news of the day. You can’t get that from a Facebook update. You can’t explain complex public policy in 140 characters on Twitter (though some dullard journalists seem to think this is the case). You can’t shape public opinion in a meaningful way through partisan blogs.

More numbers: Gina’s personal wealth is 29.17 billion. The total of wages and salaries for everybody working in the information media and telecommunication industry in Australia in 2010 (177,000 people) was 11.6 billion. The total wages and salaries of every person working in accommodation or food services (886,000 people) was 17.5 billion. The before tax profit of the entire retail sector combined was 18.8 billion. At some point you’d have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, 20 billion was enough.

But that’s not the attitude. An American comedian recently described the mentality of the conservative ultra-rich as such: “imagine a hundred people get together and order a 100-slice pizza, the pizza arrives they open the box and the first guys goes and takes 80 slices. And if some suggests ‘why don’t you just take 79 slices?’ THAT’S SOCIALISM.”

I guess there was a time that if I could have had 80 slices of the 100 slice pizza, I would have taken them. Or eaten all the chocolate when someone bought the Neapolitan ice-cream; or a time when I wished I could control the minds of all Australians. But, you know, I was fucking seven years old at the time. But when I grew up, I figured, like most people, that we live in a society, and there has to be limits on greed.

Seriously, how much is enough? For some, the answer is simple: never. There’s always more – more money, more power, more influence; more radio stations; more newspapers; more compliant columnists, more obedient editors.

The noises we are hearing in the media about Fairfax are the last strains of a requiem for an industry. Independent print newspapers are dead in this country. The only thing left to debate is the funeral arrangements.