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The state of Victoria, Australia has banned broadcasting of Sky News from the underground loop stations in Melbourne's train network.
The ban comes after Sky (owned by Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp) broadcast an interview with far-right activist Blair Cottrell. Cottrell, the leader of the United Patriots Front, has convictions for arson, burglary and racial vilification, has advocated violence against women and has called for portraits of Adolf Hitler to be hung in school classrooms.
Victoria's transport minister, Jacinta Allen, has defended the decision against claims of censorship, stating that "Hatred and racism have no place on our screens or in our community." ... "If people want to watch Sky News in their own homes, they can do that to their heart's content," she said. "Any material that uses our public transport assets to promote itself needs to be appropriate."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday August 16 2018, @02:52PM
Interesting. I haven't found anything about a "bidding process," but based on what you said, I did some searches -- and indeed many sources (including some mainstream news summaries [abc.net.au]) confirm that the interview with Cottrell was never broadcast in train stations, despite the fact that the minister (Allen) claimed in an interview that she had received complaints that it had aired in train stations.
This fact (assuming it's accurate, but it seems like it should be easy enough to verify) is oddly missing from TFA and even from a BBC article I found about this whole fiasco.
I suppose the argument is that Sky News is irresponsible for doing the interview AT ALL and therefore shouldn't deliver news at train stations because they might make other poor editorial decisions.
But it's very odd that many mainstream news sources aren't emphasizing the fact that this choice is apparently based on an interview that didn't even air in the public locations where Sky is now banned.