{"id":234870,"date":"2025-10-30T23:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234870\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T23:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:04:07","slug":"news-corp-books-in-advertisers-in-campaign-for-a-self-reliant-australia-that-made-things-here-amanda-meade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234870\/","title":{"rendered":"News Corp books in advertisers in campaign for a \u2018self-reliant\u2019 Australia that \u2018made things here\u2019 | Amanda Meade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Hildebrand is the face of News Corp\u2019s major campaign calling for a return to the golden age of 1960s manufacturing when Australia \u201cmade things here\u201d and was \u201cself-reliant\u201d. The left should join the right in \u201cembracing, celebrating and proclaiming national pride\u201d, Hildebrand <\/a>writes in the Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n

It was the same columnist who spearheaded News\u2019s Mission Zero<\/a> series four years ago, which inexplicably flipped the company\u2019s<\/a> long-held editorial position on climate change and extolled the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

The latest campaign, rather clumsily dubbed Back Australia<\/a>, launched on Sunday across all Murdoch\u2019s brands including the metro and regional tabloid newspapers, the Australian, news.com.au, taste.com.au, Escape and Body+Soul. Spring-boarding off the front pages, Back Australia has produced dozens of articles<\/a> and videos already pleading with readers to \u201cback Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n

The strategy, which features the billionaire Dick Smith<\/a>, has baffled those who have watched the company push a free-market philosophy, in particular at the Australian.<\/p>\n

It was The Australian that just last year published an editorial warning<\/a> that Albanese\u2019s Future Made in Australia<\/a> push \u201crisks worsening the situation by favouring uneconomic or undeveloped technologies over existing industries that will be compromised but still expected to pay high royalties and taxes\u201d. It condemned the policy as \u201cold-style industry protection\u201d.<\/p>\n

And then there was Judith Sloan\u2019s passionate defence<\/a> of free, open markets and condemnation of Andrew Hastie\u2019s<\/a> \u201cbonkers\u201d pitch to revive a domestic car manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most worrying aspect of Hastie\u2019s bonkers intervention is the clear trend among conservative\/right-wing politicians to ditch their belief in free markets and open international competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening exercise<\/p>\n

The flip-flopping on economic policy may be down to the lure of advertising dollars. News Corp has made no secret of the fact that Back Australia was not just an editorial campaign but a sales one. It is supported by major advertisers Harvey Norman, Australian Made Campaign, Westpac, Bunnings, Coles, TechnologyOne, REA Group, Cadbury, RM Williams, Qantas, Vodafone and BHP. Each page is marked \u201csupported by\u201d, which denotes it is advertiser-supported editorial.<\/p>\n

Louise Barrett, News Corp\u2019s managing director of sales, told the trade press<\/a> that she took Murdoch editors to sales meetings and advertisers would \u201clisten to them a lot more than they listen to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Daily Telegraph editor Ben English. Photograph: Mick Tsikas\/AAP<\/p>\n

But advertisers are not paying newspapers to be silent on issues they \u201cmay not like us covering\u201d, assures the Daily Telegraph\u2019s editor, Ben English. \u201cWhat they\u2019re paying for is to be associated with a campaign that aligns with their values and their approach to business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toby Ralph, a global marketer, told Weekly Beast that western nations increasingly hanker for protectionism and a rebirth of local manufacturing in the face of globalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo try to swim against this tide seems a hapless strategy, but perhaps not for the good people of News Corporation<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there\u2019s no independent lift in sales beyond News\u2019s footprint, it\u2019s sentiment theatre: ad sales dressed as patriotism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ralph says brand marketers sign on to these campaigns because it\u2019s cheaper than inventing a purpose from scratch. \u201cThey get to rent News\u2019s megaphone and borrow the halo. Isn\u2019t it amazing how often civic duty aligns with inventory?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaza complaint dismissed<\/p>\n

The latest coordinated attempt to bombard the ABC with complaints about its coverage, this time about the recent Hamas executions, has failed. Despite more than 100 complaints, the ABC ombudsman found the article did not breach<\/a> the ABC\u2019s editorial standards for impartiality.<\/p>\n

It was only in June that the federal court found<\/a> that an \u201corchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists\u201d led to the ABC unlawfully terminating the contract of casual broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf.<\/p>\n

On this occasion, the ABC ombudsman received 108 complaints about an ABC News Verify article<\/a> about Hamas carrying out executions in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe complaints were based on a template and were substantially identically worded,\u201d the ombudsman reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadly, they allege that the article, through relying on limited sources, rationalises Hamas\u2019s brutality and minimises its agency and ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Complainants were concerned that the inclusion of comments from a political scientist saying Palestinians in Gaza have been subject to immense violence minimised Hamas\u2019s actions as a reaction to war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe they reference more broadly how the people of Gaza have been conditioned to violence and brutality, and how, in the current environment, this may spill over into violent vigilantism,\u201d the ombudsman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn summary, we do not consider that the article minimises or is misleading about Hamas\u2019s action and includes sufficient context and perspectives relevant to its newsworthy focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ita\u2019s wild recollections<\/p>\n

Ita Buttrose\u2019s memoir, Unapologetically Ita, was published by Simon & Schuster this week and those of us who eagerly turned to the index to get her take on the Lattouf unlawful dismissal case <\/a>were disappointed.<\/p>\n

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Amanda Meade’s weekly diary on the latest in Australian media, free every Friday<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The 83-year-old former ABC chair neatly side-stepped the reputation-damaging incident by saying nothing at all, despite the publisher\u2019s promise she would reflect on her experience at the top of the public broadcaster.<\/p>\n

You had to turn to publicity for the book, largely in Nine Entertainment outlets, for any insight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t cave in to the lobby group,\u201d Buttrose told the Good Weekend. \u201cI didn\u2019t cave in to anybody. I had a procedure that I followed with complaints, and these were constant because most people had an opinion one way or the other about the ABC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former ABC chair Ita Buttrose has been promoting her new memoir. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts\/AAP<\/p>\n

She told A Current Affair<\/a> that she did not dismiss Lattouf and neither did she play a part in deciding to fight the case in court. \u201cIt\u2019s ended up costing the ABC $2.2m<\/a> and that\u2019s appalling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow when I left, we were going to settle. So what happened between then and when the case eventually came to trial? God only knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about her sex life by ACA host Allison Langdon, the former Cleo editor answered without missing a beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to think about it more, because, you know, you might have an arthritic hip or something. You mightn\u2019t be quite as versatile in the bed as you once were, but that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t still enjoy sex,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve just got to be inventive \u2026 and throw abandon to the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stokes defiant on BRS<\/p>\n

Landing almost 3,000 words in a national newspaper to talk about a charitable cause like a telethon is quite the feat, unless you are a billionaire media mogul like Kerry Stokes<\/a> that is.<\/p>\n

At first glance an interview with Stokes<\/a> and his wife of 30 years, Christine Simpson Stokes, was a deep dive into his media empire and his recent decision to step down.<\/p>\n

But actually it was the telethon Stokes wanted to talk about and it was the telethon which took up the majority of the article: there were 47 mentions of the annual event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe highlight of the Telethon weekend was its annual ball, Perth\u2019s most coveted black-tie affair, which raised a record $21.4m, up from $16.7m last year,\u201d Damon Kitney wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen asked how Telethon has changed him, Stokes says that above all, it has given him a better understanding of the less fortunate.<\/p>\n

Kerry Stokes has said Ben Roberts-Smith deserved \u2018a little bit of help\u2019. Composite: Mick Tsikas\/Dan Himbrechts\/AAP<\/p>\n

Readers did get a few pars on the elephant in the room: Stokes\u2019s financial support of the former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith<\/a>. The Seven West chair has been ordered to pay $13.5m<\/a> in legal costs to the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times, who were unsuccessfully sued for defamation by his former employee, Roberts-Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still get angry that there seems to be some law that says I shouldn\u2019t have defended him,\u201d Stokes tells The Australian.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe served the country and won a VC. Doesn\u2019t he deserve to have a defence? With a multibillion-dollar corporation throwing every one of its resources at him, he deserves a little bit of help. That is what I did and I would still do it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stokes also used the opportunity to insist he has never interfered with \u201cany of his news outlets\u2019 independent editorial processes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never, ever spoken to a journo at Seven and said, \u2018You must do this.\u2019 I have never spoken to a journo about a news story before it goes to air. The only thing I said once to [Seven\u2019s former news director] Craig McPherson on Ben Roberts-Smith<\/a> was \u2018Make sure we are fair.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Hildebrand is the face of News Corp\u2019s major campaign calling for a return to the golden age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-234870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}