Dual Post: The Pussy Riot Debacle

Hi all,

Sorry, I've been a little slack on the whole Blog thing of late.

I'm calling this one a "double post" as the story at the centre of the post is somewhat suited to both this blog and, my music blog The Sound and the Fury (http://thesoundandthefurypodcast.blogspot.com).  I will be posting it in both locations.

I have been following the buzz surrounding the Russian feminist-punk group Pussy Riot and their current trial for "Hooliganism".  If you've missed the story, the group performed a balaclava-clad mime to a song advocating people NOT to vote for incumbent president Vladimir Putin.  They just happened to do it in the biggest Orthodox cathedral in Moscow.

The story is somewhat interesting on a number of fronts.

For a start, they are charged with "Hooliganism motivated by religious hatred".  That's a trumped-up charge if ever there was one.

Secondly, they have been held since March in custody without charge.

Thirdly, isn't there something in the Geneva Convention that says that people defending themselves in a court of law can't be held and restrained in a cage?  Russia is supposed to be democratic now, right?

Take a look at the video of what they did.   Looking at the footage there seems to be nothing to suggest they were blaspheming in their actions.  It was pretty mild.  Even their genuflections seemed authentic as they prayed to Mother Mary to dispose of the President.

As the accused have said themselves, their motivations were political, not religious.  They had no intention of being blasphemous.  Still, if you wanna annoy the establishment, there's no better way to do it than by being (even mildly) outrageous in a religious building.

The charge is clearly ludicrous and if there is a misdemeanor at all, it would be trespassing.  Protesting is not a crime in a democracy, even if it is done in a church.  Besides that, the House of the Lord is supposed to be open freely to all who wish to use it.  Punk prayers too, if that's what it takes.  It appears that they were asking for divine intervention to overthrow the president.  They're not the first people in the world to ever have done that!

We could argue the merits of such an action in the first place.  If it took such an action for the point to be heard, then just how stifled is free speech in Russia?

It's hard to imagine that sort of thing in a country like Australia, where we regularly get loud-mouthed shock jocks telling the Prime Minister she's a liar or threatening to tie her up in a chaff bag and throw her out to sea; and then they get away with it with barely a hint of outrage.  I'd like to see how some of our shock jocks would fare in Russia when a punk group cannot play a song of protest against Mr Putin!

Watch the clip on YouTube and decide for yourself.  The dancing is ordinary, the song isn't great, but that's just my opinion.  Musical and artistic merits aside, freedom of speech appears to exist in a vacuum in Russia and Pussy Riot are learning that first hand.

A comment on a story posted on The Guardian's website indicated that since the fall of Communism in Russia, very little has changed.  When the verdict is handed down in this case later this week, we'll see for certain.  Vlad has been lukewarm in his reaction to this case in the press, but he doesn't want too much bad press on the issue.  Whatever the result, he can sure the world is watching...

Dumb, drunk and racist?

Hi all,

It's good to be back, and I apologise for not posting for so long.

Probably the most compelling show on television in recent weeks hasn't been The Shire, but rather, a topical little program put together by a Daily Tele journalist named Joe Hildebrand.  It is a snapshot of Australian life that has been put on display for a handful of Indians.  The show is called "Dumb Drunk and Racist" and it is one hell of an eye-opening program.

Joe doesn't shy away from exhibiting as many sides of the Australian psyche as he can, either by design or by accident (there's plenty of both).  Certain episodes left me feeling very sober and, in some cases, ashamed of the culture I grew up in.

Growing up in rural NSW as I did, I can't help but feel sometimes that I am a "bogan" by default.  I've tried hard to shed as much of that as I can by broadening my mind, but I couldn't help but feel that certain aspects of the Australians shown on the screen were reflected in versions of myself from years gone by.  The program made it seem blindingly obvious just how insular we can be as a nation and how, as one of the Indians in the program put it, "we don't know how lucky we are".  Agreed.

This is one program that shined a light on our nation and showed us for what we are.  We're not all dumb drunk and racist as some people overseas would believe.  Some of us are probably guilty of not stopping often enough to think about issues deeply enough before we speak our minds.   As a result, we can probably come off as looking less intelligent than we really are.

This was one program that left me speechless and shocked at what I saw.  Not in a way that say, a disaster documentary would, but in a way that caused me to stop and think about who I am and what my culture is, and what my place within it all is.  It also helped and hindered the battle of my contradiction - being a default-bogan and yet trying to get away from being one all at once.  That alone makes it spectacular television.

The Findings of the Leveson Enquiry

Does the Leveson Inquiry have any teeth? Or is it just a metaphorical gummy shark? Reading the phone hacking coverage in the Guardian, it seems increasingly clear that there may be more of an agenda behind the process and the findings. They report that there is a 17 page section of the 85 page report that one side of the political divide (The Conservatives) refused to support. One quote even suggested that Tom Watson MP was so hell-bent on making the headline that "Rupert…is not fit to run a major company" that the entire committee was divided basically down the middle. Some points ring true from my cursory investigation in all this. 1. News Corporation did act improperly or, at least, did not act decisively enough in dealing with rogue criminal behaviour. Rupert admitted this much in his response this morning. 2. The management of News Corp have not admitted to sponsoring the behaviour from the outset. And really, as if they would. To do so would attract serious criminal punishment for those responsible and, even worse for the Murdochs, negative press. 3. Having said that, there is plenty of evidence that a great deal of dodgy dealings were afoot within the organisation, and it is arguable that the upper echelons of management knew about it. How much they knew, we may never know. 4. Partisan or not, there is no doubt that the report has landed some major blows to the Murdochs. Not a knockout blow as such, but one hard enough to leave them winded for a brief moment. How much of this was a response to the outrage that the phone hacking scandal caused is a matter for debate, and you can bet than within certain media circles, it will be a hot discussion topic. It appears to me that this may very well be the case - that outrage, in part dictated the findings of the enquiry. There's no doubt that the hacking the phones of celebrities and the parents of a murdered school girl is bad practice, and the outrage at the invasion of privacy of these people is well deserved. But should this be allowed to taint the view of an inquiry? What's more, if those who have been called to testify to the enquiry have misled parliament, what teeth does it have to call them into account? What powers does it have? Could this set a new precedent, considering that the House of Commons has not imposed a fine on an individual for contempt since 1666? It's one thing to point the finger at the Murdochs for publishing the rubbish they do. I also think that the "Great British Public", to borrow a phrase from Nick Park, should take a long hard look at themselves. Anyone who has ever bought a copy of News Of The World during the period it was a NewsCorp paper in effect contributed to the notion that scandal was what the people want, and if it becomes lucrative through increased sales and revenue, then why not keep going with it? Up the ante, make more money, and on and on it goes… It will be very interesting to see where this goes in the coming weeks...

James Murdoch resigns...

This quote from a friend of mine on Facebook really got me thinking

The fact that none of the Murdochs are sitting in gaol cells in the U.K. - while Julian Assange is under house arrest and Bradley Manning rots in a U.S. miltitary prison on suspicion - speaks volumes about the state of justice in the world.

- Glenn D.

It's a valid point. Julian Assange has been charged with supplied information that was obtained illegitimately, and yet News Corporation does it via mass phone-hacking and their directors don't get any punishment (as of yet) at all.

What's the difference? The Murdochs have money and power. They have so much influence in the media that they can write a news story, true or not, about a politician or public figure and the public will believe it. The power is right there to destroy a politician's career or a celebrity's good standing in the community. The fact that James resigned right at the time of the handing down of a report into the scandalous news collection practices at "News of the World" reeks of suspicion.

All Assange has done is create a conduit for leaked documents - he gets them submitted to his website. He doesn't solicit them or obtain them through illegal channels - people in possession of this information volunteer it to Wikileaks. How the leakers got hold of it is another story, and that's their cross to bear, not Julian's. News International has been the instigator of the illegal access to information and then publishes it - vastly different in behaviour to the Wikileaks problem.

The world needs change...and fast.

Leadership crisis over

Finally the leadership debacle in Canberra is over! Julia reigned supreme, for better or for worse. Maybe now, Mr Rudd will stop poking his head in the spotlight and just let people get on with running the country.

The Federal 3-Ring circus

All we've heard about in the news over the last few days in the leadership battle between the current and the former Prime Ministers of this country. It's driving me absolutely bloody crazy.

JUST SORT IT OUT ALREADY, PEOPLE!!! Get back to running the country, and do it as soon as possible.

All this reported* argy-bargy is doing major damage to the ALP brand, to the point where a lot of people, who wouldn't normally vote Liberal, will do so at the next election to prove to the Labor party that this kind of behaviour is wasting our time and wearing out your welcome.

* I flagged the term "reported" because I fear that most of this rubbish has been perpetuated by a number of media outlets who need to "drum up", or "invent" news in order to sell newspapers. Getting leaks from inside parliament, reporting on posts from Twitter, reporting opinion as fact - there's bigger issues to report on, rather than throwing Mentos into the metaphorical Diet-Coke bottle that is parliament.

Australia Day revisited...

I have just finished watching Media Watch on the ABC. Sure enough, they took a look at the drama that unfolded after Tony Abbott's statement to the media regarding the Aboriginal tent embassy.

I meant to write a piece about this at the time. The major issue is that Tony Abbott never said the words he was attributed as having said. As much as I'm not much of a fan of the guy, I will go into bat for him and defend the fact that he didn't say "tear down the Tent Embassy".

So who twisted his words? Ironically enough, it was the right-wing conservative talkback radio station 2UE in Sydney who did. Then, to make matters worse, it was later revealed one of the Prime Minster's media advisors told a union official who told a member of the tent embassy and then it all ended in a riot.

No-one is advocating that the Tent embassy should be removed. The indigenous people of this country are still fighting for their rights and much of what they wish to see discussed in the halls of parliament still hasn't been discussed. They have a right to peaceful protest like anybody else.

Also, no-one is supporting the behaviours of the protesters on Australian Day either. Or the actions of the police. Both sides say the other was violent, and that the other started it, so we'll never know the real story behind that one.

The one thing that Media Watch did pull out of this entire sorry saga was some of the comments left on the Yahoo7 web page about the story, by people who think that anonymity on the internet gives them the right to be racist. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. Free speech comes with a responsibility to use it wisely. It is not an open slather-fest to slander one and all because you think you can. But more on that later.

It was a sad chapter in the history of Australian race relations and one that I think is far from over....

Mega-upload's mega crash

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Convergence of Media in Australia

Ok, first of all I must disclose, before I start this rant, that I support Australian music 100% and I always will.

I have been following closely the progress of, and submissions to, a media review panel set up by the Australian Government into the convergence of distribution methods used by media organisations in this country.

By convergence, we mean that the various media organisations now have a variety of means in which to disseminate their content - through terrestrial broadcasting, the internet, digital broadcasting and the like. Convergence largely means that using all of these outlets, radio stations can almost be regarded as something more than just a radio station, because of the various other ways they can deliver their services now. Newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald now disseminate their news via the internet. They even have WebTV set up and also they show video news on alot of their stories. The internet has allowed far more methods of communication for newspapers that just in print.

I have been reading a few of the submissions to the review panel (which can be found here), and while some submissions make some good points, some, like the Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) submission and the Austereo submission make one particular point that is highly laughable and somewhat disturbing:

That the Australian content quotas should be dropped.

I, for one, think this is a ridiculous proposal, however I will examine the issues for and against.

As pointed out in the submission from the Music Council of Australia, Australian music quotas exist purely because of the behaviour of Commercial radio programmers. Local content quotas were first introduced in the late 1940s and have steadily increased over the years to a minimum of 25% locally produced music across all music played, and 6.5% of that must be new or recently produced Australian music.

These quotas exist because commercial radio just did not play locally produced music. Things have not changed at all over the years. Commercial radio has always lauded the new release from America before a local release. Most Australian music that gets played on Commercial rock stations has been played for months prior by the ABC's station Triple J.

Listening back to the history of Triple J and you will find that Australian music wasn't played on radio when the station started, and if it was, you probably couldn't tell it was Aussie. For example, the biggest Oz band in the 1970s was Little River Band, or LRB for short. They were huge in America, because they sounded American. And with lyrics like "Can you guess where I'm calling from? The Las Vegas Hilton...", you'd be forgiven for thinking they were based in LA instead of Melbourne. And yet, this was the standard for Aussie music on commercial radio in those days. Triple J changed that, by actively seeking out new local music and putting it to air. By the time Triple M in Sydney had started playing Midnight Oil (whose music it now plays heavily every day), they'd been featured on JJJ for over 3 years.

The argument against the local content quota, according to Commercial Radio Australia is that all the other content platforms do NOT have local content quotas, and yet commercial radio is bound by legislation to play local music. Fair point. So why not expand the legislation to cover all media outlets? Internet radio streams based in Australia and online content providers in Australia included? I think that'd be great, but it would difficult to police. For example, any Australian resident can start up an online radio station with the US based Live365.com and, being based overseas, could escape the local content rules. Additionally, any Australian can listen to hundreds of radio stations online from the same place and never hear an Australian song in any of it. Keeping track of it all would be a nightmare.

The other argument they make is that the Local content rules often don't fit the station "format". Considering that the local top 50 singles chart has only 5 Australian songs in it, I can see why "hit music/top 40" stations feel this way. However, it should be Radio, more than any other media's job to seek out and promote new music as music, apart from advertising and stupid people who think they're celebrities trying to be funny, is the other core part of their programming.

Southern Cross/Austereo also make the point that, even without the quotas, audiences will still seek out Australian music and then they, the radio stations, will respond to what the listeners want. This is complete and utter rubbish. The core audience of radio stations don't want to research music and discover for themselves. They want to hear it on the radio FIRST before they buy it. If radio don't plug it, there's every chance it won't get heard. To Austereo's credit, they have started a digital radio station called "Radar Radio" which plays unsigned local music, but of late it has seen established overseas bands like Amy Winehouse and Snow Patrol creep into the playlists which means that it could decide to take the overseas music option as a preference, as history shows it has done in the past. It needs to work both ways - listeners tell the station what they like, radio plugs music that the listener hasn't heard and the cycle perpetuates.

It could also be argued that the Australian content quotas don't work anyway. Inevitably Austereo's Triple M get around the local content quotas by playing INXS and Cold Chisel's greatest hits ad nauseum every day, at the expense of local bands. But, there are other stations that have taken the lazy way out, and avoid the Australian music rules by not playing music on air at all. Once great rock stations like 2UE (the first radio station in Sydney to play rock 'n' roll music) and 2SM have both been converted to talkback stations, with grumpy old men ranting and whining across the airwaves 24-7.

There are, of course, a number of barriers to the expansion of the local content quotas, talkback radio notwithstanding. Namely, the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement stipulates that local content quotas are NOT to be increased for the life of the agreement, thus giving ample opportunity for US imports to succeed in our marketplace. I don't see why this is necessary since the commercial media mindset has been for years that anything cultural that has been imported is automatically superior to anything created here. And if that hasn't been the case, then why did (now legendary) local acts like The Seekers, The Bee Gees, The Saints, The Triffids, The Go-Betweens and The Vines all have to go overseas in order to get noticed back in Australia?

It's my view that media can create the audience, and by extension, can create the buzz around a band, if they plug it enough. If radio make the effort and play a record a lot, it can get in peoples heads and then it becomes a hit. But, like it appears to be on most stations in England (except the top 40 ones) and America, that locally produced music is a top priority, over and above anything else. There is no reason why mainstream media in Australia cannot muster the same sort of confidence in the local music scene while still keeping an eye on what's happening overseas....

...and if Commercial radio think they are already doing that, then they are sorely mistaken.

Dear Mr Murdoch

Dear Mr J. Murdoch,

Based on your testimony at the Commons Enquiry yesterday (UK Time), can you please write me a cheque for £700,000? I won't complicate things by telling you what for, or by giving you any legal documents to read.

Seriously. How blind do you have to be to be authorising payments that large to people who complained to you about privacy intrusion, and having documents from QCs detailing illegal activity within your own organisation and then not reading them?

I can concede that News International is a very large corporation with many subsidiaries, and that it is hard to have a handle on everything that could possibly go on within it on a daily basis. But, when the alleged phone tapping was taking place, for a time, you were the Head of the business unit conducting the breaches, and handing large sums of money to high profile victims of the aforesaid breaches. How could you not know what was going on?

Probably a wise question to ask at this point would be "What is your responsibility in this scenario and where does your personal governance of the company extend to?" In other words, when does the buck stop? It's pretty clear some dodgy dealings have been going on, and there's no hiding from that. Even blind Freddie knows that. But, for some reason, you have no idea about any of it? It doesn't make sense.

So, maybe if you could just make out the cheque as soon as possible, and then, by this time in 2013, you'll have no knowledge of it and it will all be sweet?

Thanks,

Me.