Journalists often complain about bloated government departments, but major organisational change can be difficult to instigate and even harder to implement. Why not start small? After all we’re only student journalists. How about bloated government PDFs?

At only 30 pages long, the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s Media Interests Snapshot weighs in at a hefty 13MB. It’s criminally unwieldy for a document that contains little more than a few info-graphics and an ever shrinking list of names. One would have hoped that since “converging”, the good folks over at ACMA might have purchased their staff a current copy of Acrobat Pro?

With the decreasing budget over at Aunty, it’s unlikely any of us will get paid enough there to investigate such flagrant bureaucratic waste. So we must turn our vocational aspirations to the privately owned commercial media organisations if we should ever hope to see a respectably sized PDF emerge from the clutches of Australia’s inflamed public service.

Working for the public service it’s always clear who the boss is. The public, right? Right? However, things aren’t so obvious when working for a commercial media organisation. That’s where ACMA’s Media Interests Snapshot can help.

It’s a document that provides an easy to follow account of who owns what and where across Australia’s sunburnt media landscape and is regularly updated to reflect changing media ownership dynamics. Miraculously though, for such an inflated tome – it’s shrinking – and it seems set to shrink even further. Communications Minister Mitch Fifield’s Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform Bill) 2016 is bound to be tested in the Senate – as soon as we can figure out who’s in it – but more on that another time.

For now I just want to know one thing: Who’s the Boss?

Or who’s going to be? Lucky for me things aren’t too complicated. Living in a small city like Darwin means there’s not much room for competition. Yet the more I read, the more it seems like everybody owns little slices of everybody else’s pies. Can I work for Grant without working for Janet Cameron. Can I work for Lachlan without working for Rupert Murdoch? Can I work for WIN, Southern Cross, NINE, TEN, Macquarie, Fairfax or Bruce Gordon without working for WIN, Southern Cross, NINE, TEN, Macquarie, Fairfax and Bruce Gordon?

Most confusing of all – why doesn’t Gina Rinehart own any media in the Northern Territory? At all? At all, at all?

Take a look at ACMA’s Media Interests Snapshot.

Tell us who your boss is going to be.