In Part 2 of our interview, John Smith, author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, discusses Russia, China, multipolarity and anti-imperialism today with Green Left's Federico Fuentes.
John Smith
John Smith is the author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis. He spoke with Green Left’s Federico Fuentes about the realities of 21st century imperialism. This is the first of a two-part interview.
After a year of job cuts, Federation University has just announced a restructure of its academic portfolio, which will make teaching and learning harder, John Smith reports.
The mainstream media’s “impartial and balanced” fig leaves began to slip on January 31, revealing their corporate genitalia for all to see.
Australia’s richest person, billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, had begun buying more shares in Fairfax Media, increasing her stake towards 15% and raising questions about media impartiality.
Fairfax journalists scrambled to report the news, tying themselves in knots over how much to admit about the corporate nature of their media outlets and whether Rinehart could have any influence on editorial input.
For many Australians, Fairfax Media is a benign alternative to Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media empire. Well-meaning people buy Fairfax newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age because they believe they present a fairer picture of the news. But just how fair is Fairfax?
Newspeak in the 21st Century
by David Edwards & David Cromwell
Pluto Press, 2009, 299 pages, $25
Review by John Smith
News-analysing website Media Lens isn’t liked by the corporate media.