This is one time you and I may see eye to eye John.
There was a time when almost anyone could get a letter to the editor published.
Now the space for the public contribution is not only severely limited, but, it seems, regularly censored as well.
Not all that long ago, I submitted an article on essential tax reform.
Reform is absolutely essential on any number of grounds, be it the destiny of demography, that sees fewer and fewer taxpayers, paying more and more tax!
Or bracket creep, which sees more and more of the 40% of Australians living just above or below the poverty line, having their often meagre incomes subject to increasing levels of entirely unethical tax.
Or the now endemic and quite massive avoidance, that makes some or any of this unethical practise necessary in the first place.
My very modest contribution was rejected on a number of quite risible grounds.
Firstly the "Editor" thought that unavoidable recurrents, were the same as the GNP?
Hard to believe I know, but that's what he came back with.
Second he confused an expenditure tax with a wealth tax?
Sure the wealthiest may pay more tax, but only because they spend more.
Former PM John Howard, [once described as an economic illiterate,] at an early Telstra luncheon address, and not long after the imposition of the GST, was quizzed by a reporter, why he had preferred a GST?
To which he replied, well, it was either that or a transactions tax, and a transactions tax was thought to be regressive, Quote unquote.
In hindsight, he was never ever more wrong.
Yes John, the press is not only not free!
But arguably controlled by patent control freak Ideologues?
Let me conclude with another quote or homily, "never let the facts get in the way of a good story".
Or indeed, the seemingly endlessly increasing patently partisan opinion pieces, that now by and large, have I believe, replaced good investigative journalism!
Rhrosty.

Rhosty, it is true that many of the papers are a joke, but i feel there is plenty of opportunity to get your message out there with Internet.

I mean how many people actually read newspapers. I would not waste my time, albeit i use them when scanning for info on a given issue.

Time will tell if the newspapers are an obstacle for Aust finding a more appropriate balance between market forces and govt intervention.

I am optimistic, but we shall see if this country disintegrates further now the illusion of past policy acceptance is being broken day by day.

@rhrosty. You are correct. But it is not just the so-called mainstream media that is unwilling to pay for and otherwise support investigative journalism. Or even take some modest risks and publish material that is outside the mainstream discourse. Many fear being labelled "conspiracy theorists" if they publish something not approved of by the powers that run the show. The Kennedy assassination is a case in point. I recently made a complaint to SBS about their broadcasting an American news item that had the sole purpose of reinforcing the official myth that James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King. SBS have never broadcast the fact that a civil trial in 1999 found that King was killed by agents of various state organisations. Their response was that the news item was of "interest" because it was about the arrest of Ray. That is simply being wilfully obtuse.
Pilfer has made a number of important points. I think the most important one was that there is an incredible concentration of ownership of the print media in Australia. That is being countered to some extent by the growth of online publications, but even they, OLO included, are not immune from the virus of censorship of unpopular views, or perhaps more accurately views they fear might disturb their readership. Not in the comment sections, but in the articles commissioned. That type of control is just as insidious as that exercised by the msm.

Pilger is again a million years behind the times.. the media he thinks he knows is disintegrating or at least changing very rapidly. It does not have the luxury of classifieds and has to compete for readers in a fragmenting market.

His extreme left views are a luxury of the old media world when journalists were a separate caste with a quite different viewpoint to the bulk of their readers. However, there is still enough to the caste for generally favorable coverage of indigenous affairs. I can't think of any coverage of indigenous people being lazy as he states. Maybe there is less coverage in general, as such issues do not attract readers, much as many journalists would like them to.

But I'm sort-of curious. Does anyone pay any attention to Pilger these days?

James,

I am curious. What do you mean by

'but even they, OLO included, are not immune from the virus of censorship of unpopular views, or perhaps more accurately views they fear might disturb their readership. Not in the comment sections, but in the articles commissioned. That type of control is just as insidious as that exercised by the msm'.

Chris, how many articles have you read on sites like OLO that discuss the financial crime that is at the heart of the 9/11 attacks; or that the Assassinations Records Review Board published more than 2 million documents that completely blow away the Lee Harvey Oswald lone nut killer hypothesis of popular mythology; or that Martin Luther King was killed by elements of the FBI, US military and the Tennessee state law enforcement agencies (even the fact of the civil trial in 1999 was not reported); or that John Howard lied to parliament in February 2003 when he set out the case for Australia joining the invasion of Iraq; or that bin Laden was an agent of the CIA before his untimely death in 2001. They are uniformly terrified of being labelled "conspiracy theorists" without acknowledging that conspiracies are at the heart of most state crimes, as Lance De Haven Smith has brilliantly pointed out in his recent book (not reviewed in Australia). This timidity is perhaps explicable in the msm who are for the most part agents of the powerful few, but it is less explicable in the so-called alternative media. I do not exempt OLO from this criticism although Graeme to his credit does have a robust comments forum, something that has largely disappeared from the msm as rhrosty has pointed out above.
I do not necessarily adopt any or all of the alternative theories that are advanced in serious discourse (I try and exclude the obvious nutters), but the fact is these alternative views exist and are worthy in many cases of serious consideration. My complaint is that not only do people not get to hear about them because of the censorship that exists, they are thereby denied the opportunity to consider alternative explanations than those put forward by the msm.