The story so far:
Professor David Flint is head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority. It is his job to oversee the regulation of the behaviour (including financial) of those involved in radio in Australia.
Professor Flint was appointed by the government.
John Laws is a prominent Sydney radio talkback announcer who was pinged by the ABA a few years back for accepting large sums of money from Telstra in return for talking up Telstra’s good works on his programme. This was presented as editorial comment, not advertising, a deception which is not allowed under the broadcasting legislation.
Alan Jones is another prominent Sydney radio talkback announcer. He was for some time a critic of Telstra (while accepting money from Telstra’s rival, Optus). He has since become a big advocate of Telstra, by essentially the same route as that taken by Laws. There are two differences of note:
1. Jones was able to avoid incurring the wrath of the ABA. This was notwithstanding preliminary findings of clear wrongdoing (according to documents produced to Media Watch). The reason for the different findings in relation to Jones and Laws can only lie in the application of form over substance, a.k.a. sleight of hand. Laws was paid by Telstra; in the case of Jones, he (Jones) was given part ownership of the radio station and Telstra then paid the money to the station. No contract therefore needed to exist between Jones and Telstra. This is what is known in the trade as a “loophole”. Presumably the fact the Jones went overnight from being Telstra’s biggest critic to its newest champion was just a happy coincidence.
2. Professor Flint, it would now appear, is one of Alan Jones’ biggest fans. So much so that he has now been exposed as having sent at least one gushing letter of praise to Jones, on ABA letterhead, and without the knowledge or consent of the ABA (of which he presumably would understand that he is only the head, not the body).
All of this you know already. What I am interested in is another possible conspiracy theory which can be found behind it all. It goes like this.
Telstra is a publicly listed company.
If documents obtained by Media Watch can be believed, Laws is being paid $300,000 per year for his “editorial” services to Telstra whereas Jones is being paid $1.2 million. This is quite a significant difference. And $1.2 million is actually a rather large sum of money. Say it slowly. At least, it looks like a lot of money to pay to one man, to whom 85 per cent of the population of Sydney does not listen, to have him parrot your company's PR in ways that, even in the absence of a specific disclaimer of the kind Laws is now obliged to provide, sound more like advertising than like a man voicing his own firmly held beliefs. Minds could differ as to whether a payment of this magnitude for such a "service" is a rational business decision for a public corporation to make. Minds could also differ as to whether the huge variance in worth between Laws’ opinion and Jones’ opinion could be put down to Laws’ no longer being able to hide from his listeners the fact that he is being paid for his views. Maybe it could have another source.
Remember this: Flint is appointed by the government. It is certainly possible to read into his fan letter to Jones a suggestion that Jones has nothing to fear from the ABA. (After all, the letter was on ABA letterhead.) Now, why might that be?
Well, remember this, too: there is an election due later this year. Jones, whatever you may think about him, does have an undoubtedly large influence for one man. In a close election his endorsement could make the difference between winning and losing. Clearly the government couldn’t give its own, i.e. yours and my, money to Jones to buy his support. But there are a couple of other things it could do: ensure that the person at the top of the ABA is the person most likely to look after the interests of Alan Jones; this it seems to have done. Or the government could use, not its own money, but someone else’s. Who owns Telstra? Well, what do you know - the government owns just over half of it. In some circles, ownership of in excess of 50 percent of an organisation conveys notions of “control”. Maybe a different sort of equation is at work here. Maybe Telstra’s “owners” can find “value for money” from that $1.2 million dollars after all. Maybe we should listen even more closely that usual to the honestly held opinions of Alan Jones come election time. Maybe we will get the goverment we deserve: will we also be getting the government that we paid for? Don’t forget who owns the 49 percent of Telstra not owned by the government: its shareholders, in other words you and me.
