It is hard to know whether the bleatings of the major media outlets about losing the Meta $70 million payments under the media bargaining code are pathetic or laughable. Indeed, perhaps both.

Now whatever you think of the mainstream media in Australia, and the deleterious impact of Meta and other social media outlets on our politics and society, the reality is that the Australian media problems are much deeper than Meta publishing links to their stories and not being rewarded for it.

Nevertheless, in an SMH article (22/6) Calum Jaspan wrote about how “a trio of executives from Nine, News Corp and Seven West media had slammed the ‘toxic’ impact of social media on Australian democracy and society pointing to the growing incidence of trolling, political interference, scams and blackmail.”

Jaspan reported that media executives speaking at the Social........

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