PlankBlender,
Companies make frequent announcements. These announcements may be for reasons of statutory financial disclosure, or they may simply be to give information to the public. It is normal for these announcements to contain some opinion.
To make the announcement, they may call a press conference or simply send out a "press release".
It is perfectly legitimate for a media outlet to pick up the press release and turn it into an article. This is what is supposed to happen. The journalist will usually "build" an article around the press release by added a few extra details, such as relevant historical and background information.
In these cases, the journalist is under no obligation to independently verify the claims/facts/assertions contained within the press release. In most cases, it is impractical to do so, and the journalist will make it clear in the article that he is largely just quoting from the press release (keeping the company "honest", of course, is the ASIC).
A story built from scratch, on the other hand, will require the journalist to assemble all the facts himself. This, of course, is a lengthy and costly process and the journalist will need solid justification before embarking on this course.
Rex are making it a habit to put out opinion pieces ... the journos are printing them ... without any balance in the argument.
If REX are making more announcements than usual, then this would be for the purpose of informing the public, which is a good thing.
The "bloodbath" article wasn't about any "dispute" so the issue of balance is not applicable. The article was purely reporting a few facts.
Hence an issue for people here and media watch.
No issue for Media Watch. It would only be an issue for Media Watch if the journalists were to distort, misrepresent or improprely slant the facts contained within the press release.
I think you're missing where your so-called story really is. It seems to me you believe that exploitation of the pilots is the real reason for the flight cancellations.
If this is the case then you first need to realise that that is a possible story
behind the story of why the flights are being cancelled.
I suggest you form a group called, something like "the exploited pilots", then issue a press release detailing your "facts". Be aware, however, that your press release may or may not be picked up.