Good idea, Andrew Bolt

Everyone is talking about Gina Rinehart's campaign to take over Fairfax Media.

In the last week she has bought huge stakes in the company. Journalists are reporting that the mining magnate is seeking three seats on the board, but has refused the company's requests to sign the Fairfax Charter of Editorial Independence. In short: editorial independence is under threat at Australia's oldest newspapers.

We're not rich enough to take over Fairfax, but together we can take over Fairfax's webpages, with a complete buy-out of the ads on the SMH and The Age online homepages all Saturday.

It would make our message seen 4 million times, inviting customers, shareholders and staff of Fairfax to have their say on Rinehart's takeover bid. Our best chance of stopping Rinehart is to show that it's not in Fairfax's financial interest to allow her on the board; that her influence will undermine the main asset of the papers: our trust.

You don't need Rinehart's deep pockets to make a difference. A $29.64 donation can make this ad seen 3,000 times on the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age homepages. Can you help?

www.getup.org.au/fairfax-takeover

Credit where it's due: we should thank Andrew Bolt for this idea.

Bolt launched an attack on GetUp members today - taunting that if we want to protect Fairfax's independence, we should simply buy a bigger share in the company than Rinehart.

"GetUp boasts of 605,000 members... GetUp can raise twice what Rinehart has spent, and snatch absolute control of Fairfax, which, free of editorial interference, can ban me from its papers."1

We don't have hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don't want to own Fairfax. Our aim is simply to support Fairfax and their journalists to be what makes a democracy great: an independent media. No Fairfax investor should have editorial control of the company's crucial newspaper mastheads, nor its national network of radio stations.

On one point though, Bolt is right on: by pooling our resources, our movement can beat Gina Rinehart's attempts to undermine the independence of Fairfax. By each making a small donation, together we can launch a massive advertising campaign to show that Fairfax customers the nation over will revolt against any move to curb editorial independence.

www.getup.org.au/fairfax-takeover

Thanks Andrew Bolt, and thanks everyone who is standing up for independent press,
The GetUp team.

1 'RUN! IT’S THE BOLTBOLTBOLT', Andrew Bolt. The Daily Telegraph, 19 June, 2012.