Murdoch journalists step up bagging of Aussie rugby league TV rights deal
(Op-ed) Big News Network.com
Monday 24th August, 2015
SYDNEY, Australia - Rather than pushing for the heads of others to roll, News Corp journalists could perhaps consider resigning themselves over their reporting on the AFL and NRL broadcast rights deals.
They clearly have a conflict of interest and yet openly have slammed the rugby league rights deal calling for the head of National Rugby League CEO Dave Smith, while praising the AFL deal which was largely negotiated and funded by their employer News Corp.
To be engaged in trying to remove the CEO and chairman of the rugby league to put in place people who are going to be more amenable to striking a deal favourable to News Corp has only brought derision, as evidenced by the reaction to their reporting on social media in recent days.
Regardless, News Corp's reporters were at it again on Tuesday.
A video on News Corp 's online publications on Tuesday added fuel to the fire over the controversy they are involved in trying to create:
The video is headlined: "NRL chiefs talk rebellion," with the second headline: "NRL clubs formally discuss breakaway rugby league competition." The headlines portray that a breakaway league is being organised. No sources are revealed as with any of the News Corp stories that have appeared since the famous AFL rights deal was announced and Rupert Murdoch publicly acclaimed the AFL as the premier sporting code in Australia and pledged his organisation would be applying all its resources to develop and expand in AFL, particularly in the rugby league states NSW and Queensland.
In the fine print of the story accompanying the video it says the breakaway concept was merely discussed during a hook-up of clubs CEOs on Monday, which was described over the weekend as a 'secret conference' set up in the wake of the TV rights deals. In fact the conference is a regular occurrence and Monday's date had been set weeks ago. And in all likelihood it would have discussed, probably in passing, News Corp's promotion of a rebel competition.
The story however reads like this:
"A DRAMATIC breakaway by clubs from the NRL to form a rebel rugby league competition was formally discussed for the first time on Monday by all 16 club chairpersons."
"It was a moment that must have terrified the NRL, at war with clubs over funding," said the article written by Dean Ritchie and promoted on The Daily Telegraph and other News Corp sites as an 'Exclusive.'
"The Daily Telegraph can reveal details of a high-powered meeting of chairpersons on Monday most involved through a telephone hook-up, others coming together inside the Australian Consolidated Press building in Park Street, Sydney."
Ritchie goes on to say: "Chairpersons were gagged after the meeting but The Daily Telegraph can reveal the threat of a breakaway competition was discussed."
"There are 12 clubs not aligned to the NRL but there wasn't any discussions on Monday about how many teams could defect," Really?
Ritchie however comes clean deep into the article:
"Forming a rebel league would still seem unlikely but chairpersons now officially have it as an option."
The video embedded in the article is titled "The NRL short-changed themselves." The clip by 'Press Box' brings together News Corp rugby league writers from its premier newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
All three are highly critical of rugby league, all seeming to defer to the AFL, are critical of Smith and deride the rugby league rights deal and promote the AFL deal with one journalist suggesting the deal was $300 million to $400 million richer because of Dave Smith's 'arrogance.'
The unnamed moderator comes in with an introduction in the video saying, "The AFL TV rights deal has made the rugby league look a little bit silly after Dave Smith and co tried to beat their chests about how good they were going. The result is it was a bad call to go off without pay TV and others. It might well cost him his job Bulldog?"
"Year well it may cost his job," replies Dean Ritchie (Bulldog) of The Daily Telegraph. "Certainly the calls are increasing for Dave Smith to stand down as well as the Commission Chairman John Grant. We've seen this deal as being poor. We thought at the time it was a great deal until the AFL came in and just blew rugby league out of the water. Smith's arrogance dealing exclusively with Channel 9 and discarding others including Rupert Murdoch's Fox, Ten and Seven has shown up yet again that his ego is out of control. The deal is poor at the moment," says Ritchie.
Richard Hinds of Melbourne's Herald Sun is not totally convinced Smith has to go. "I'm not sure this is going to cost Smith his job," he says. "But there's absolutely no doubt he under-estimated the backlash this was going to create. It has two consequences. Firstly he has probably stuffed $300 million to $400 million into the AFL which is going to be used to try and take over his own backyard. He's also given a big stick to the clubs scheming behind his back."
"He's just empowered them and we're seeing the smoke rising today," Hinds said, adding that Smith looked as though "he'd taken a two length lead," a couple of weeks ago but was now "coming from a long way back."
It should be noted the rugby league has sold the free-to-air television rights for $925 million for Australia and has yet to conclude negotiations for pay TV rights, simulcast rights, digital and streaming rights for Australia and free-to-air television rights for New Zealand. The AFL has sold all its rights for $2.058 billion and for 6 years. The rugby league deal is for 5 years.
Regardless Ben Dorries of The Courier Mail, the third of the trio discussing on Tuesday the demerits of the rugby league deal is not surprised. "Year I don't see a huge surprise in this. I think the AFL has been playing rugby league off a break for years," he says. "The administration of the AFL is so far ahead of rugby league and not just at the moment, they have been for 10 years," he said.
This is surprising in itself in that News Corp had management control through its 50% ownership, together with funding arrangements and ownership, in part or whole of a number of rugby league clubs until 3 years ago. Nonetheless, Dorries is unperturbed. "There's no surprise the rugby league deal looks poor and the crowds are down as well," he said Tuesday.
"It's just another thing rugby league has stuffed up."
Again Andrew Demetriou's name is mentioned as a successor to Smith. Somebody who could come in and "clean up the mess." Ritchie says "yes a few clubs have mentioned this," notwithstanding it was News Corp editor Phil Rothfield's suggestion on Sunday. He does however point out there could be some resistance as Demetriou, like Smith, "is not a rugby league person."
Daily Telegraph Sports Editor Rothfield was also at it again Tuesday posting a story at midnight with the headline "Why club boss is baffled by TV deal" which has the main title: "NRL left open to claims of double standards in handling finances and new TV deal." The very weak story line is that the rugby league has set up a bulk-buying operation to assist clubs in buying goods and services at more competitive prices by combining their buying power. Rothfield takes the view that this unit within the NRL that seeks 3 tenders for providing services to all the clubs should also have sought 3 tenders on broadcast rights.
"CEO Dave Smith signed off on the deal with Nine boss David Gyngell without putting the TV rights out to tenders. Ten, Seven, Fox Sports and Telstra were given no opportunity to bid," he writes.
He goes on to quote a club CEO who he says 'asked not to be named' who he says told him: "No one does anything these days in business or even privately without getting three quotes for a job. It's just crazy we're saving small amounts on everything else but potentially not signing off on what we would be getting with the media rights."
And that's the story.
Rothfield when the rugby league rights deal was announced acclaimed it as a great deal for rugby league fans. He said Sunday the current rugby league administration is the worst he has seen in his 40 years of reporting rugby league.
One could easily say the standard of journalism at News Corp rather is the worst in 40 years. Just as he was starting out, apparently in 1975, News Corp journalists were rebelling just as they are today, however not incensed that their employer has not been able to dominate the broadcast rights negotiations as it has done since they tried to take over the game. In 1975 News Corp reporters were standing up for fair and balanced reporting, outraged at the continual interference in the editorial activities of the newspapers they worked for. They were rebelling against the blatant misreporting, changing of news stories to create different points of context, manipulating placements and shaping headlines to push Rupert Murdoch's personal agendas. This was in the midst of the 1975 Federal Election following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.
75 enior News Corp journalists en masse sent a letter at the time to Murdoch protesting:
'the deliberate and careless slanting of headlines, seemingly blatant imbalance in news presentation, political censorship and, more occasionally, distortion of copy from senior specialist journalists, the political management of news and features, the stifling of dissident and even palatably impartial opinion in the papers' columns'
They referred to their newspaper as 'a propaganda sheet' and said it had become 'a laughing stock.'
The letter had zero impact as did their personal representations so on December 8 1975 all of the 109 journalists at The Australian went on strike. It was the last week of the election campaign and the strike lasted 3 days. The newspaper was then decimated by sackings and resignations of its most talented journalistic staff. One can only wonder what they would think of the reporting by their successors in 2015.
Incidently, following Monday's conference of rugby league clubs' chairmen, a joint statement was put out by all 16 of those who participated.
"The 16 NRL clubs met today in person and over telephone conference, as scheduled six weeks ago, to review progress since the last meeting in Melbourne and in preparation for the chairs meeting with the NRL in Brisbane in October," the club chiefs said.
"Given recent developments, the meeting was timely, even though it had long been planned."
"As has been the way since our June meeting, positive discussions continue on the issues raised in Melbourne," said the clubs' joint statement.
"Despite speculation to the contrary, all 16 clubs are united in our approach and we look forward to continuing these discussions with the NRL in a timely manner."
