My TakeAustralia’s warmongering news media should be ashamed of themselves
- As more voters oppose or question Aukus, the Australian people may be the last barrier to a belligerent press and a Labor government that has betrayed its proud party legacy of resisting the demands of empire, whether British or American
Throughout history, empire and media – more exactly, the medium and technology of communication – have been inextricably linked. That’s the fundamental insight of the great Canadian historian and media theorist Harold Innis. We shouldn’t be surprised that it’s even truer today, in the age of social media and the internet.
Aukus is a case in point. Whether a terrifically expensive hi-tech nuclear submarine deal or a de facto takeover of British and Australian military and foreign policy by the American imperium in the Asia-Pacific, its promotion ought to be a classic case study of how the mainstream media in those countries have effectively been co-opted by their governments to become the cheerleaders of a potential war with China.
Despite the profession of a free and independent press, with few exceptions, the American and British news media have long been the war press, whose role has been to justify and legitimise an armed conflict either launched and/or continued by their own governments – in order to anaesthetise the public and to prevent domestic resistance. Australia arguably has had a better record, until now.
The by now infamous “Red Alert” series run jointly earlier this month by the The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age is the most blatant latest example of warmongering. In reality, these publications, owned by Nine Entertainment, an Australian media giant that controls a big chunk of the country’s radio, television, newspapers and digital media, have been on a disinformation rampage in the past five years; as have rival outlets controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia. In fact, the Murdoch-dominated media already had their own similar alerts about the looming war with China to boost the failed electoral bid of former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison in 2021, as well as thereafter.
Consider some of those inflammatory headlines: “Get Ready to Fight For Our Liberty”, as if China was planning to invade Australia, rape its women and kill its men; “Potential China War Sees Audit of [Chinese] Deals”, “Let the War Games Begin” and “China Arms For War as QUAD Fights Back”.
Australia has no natural enemy. But then, thanks to America’s evolving global containment strategy against China, Canberra has suddenly been told that it actually has one, which also happens to be its biggest trading partner. It must therefore protect its trade routes in the Indo-Pacific with trading partners against its biggest trading partner.