WHO CONTROLS YOUR MEDIA?

Who ‘owns’ and/or ‘controls’ the media you use to access your ‘news’? Why does this matter? (or not). What trust do you have in your news sources?

Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd is one of the largest media companies in Australia, operating in all states on all facets including, sport, entertainment, news, business, lifestyle and finance (NINE ENTERTAINMENT CO. HOLDINGS LIMITED: Shareholders Board Members Managers and Company Profile | AU000000NEC4 | MarketScreener, 2021). This organisation has been operating under CEO and Executive Director Hugh Marks since November 2015 and is the parent company of several small media branches including, Nine News which is viewed by approximately one million Australians every night (Ratings | TV Tonight, 2021). As a result, it can be determined that Hugh Marks operates a very large portion of news in Australia and therefore, controls the majority of the media and broadcasting information that is presented to the population by way of this corporation.

This is of large importance as it means one person is largely responsible for the allocation and reception of news to individuals. This is an extremely large and important responsibility that can affect the knowledge of current affairs of Australians and our response to global issues on both a national and international platform. Mr Marks remains liable for educating Australian audiences on real-time issues and events facing society on both a significant and insignificant level of news.

Theoretically, he possesses the power and influence to create a society that is individual and unique or uniform and ignorant to the real-time history of the world, being reported on.

This is scary to think one individual holds a majority of the processing power within national media broadcasting conversations!

The trust I personally have in news sources varies, however, I do have more confidence in the media than doubt. This is due to the individualised and widely varying nature of news stories and the power they hold within society. The standard of proof broadcasting media holds is sometimes questionable, although mostly accurate; yet it is the power of external media sources to counteract or disprove the news that allows me to question its overall reliability and validity. In addition to this, I trust news sources such as Nine Entertainment as it is essentially a team of qualified individuals on a panel that play a significant contributing role in operating the organisation rather than national broadcasting be left solely to the views, perspectives and ideologies of one individual. The likeliness of news reflecting the best interests of Australia and its population is larger with a panel that represents those individuals of Australia themselves; allowing the rights of our nation and responsibilities of the organisation to be regarded in a balanced way.

Thus, media broadcasting is extremely crucial to the function of society and initiative in response to world issues and current affairs and Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd exists as a trustworthy major player in achieving the news education of the population.