GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 706

8 November 2024

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  • SARAH FERGUSON FAILS TO FESS UP TO INCORRECT ANALYSIS OF US ELECTION

Media Watch Dog just loves it when journalists interview other journalists. It so happened that 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson from Washington DC interviewed stand-in 7.30 presenter Laura Tingle on 7 November. Comrade Ferguson was part of the large ABC contingent in Washington for the election.

Comrade Ferguson asked La Tingle about “the view from Australia” of the US election.   Tingle reported that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had phoned President-elect Donald Trump.  It was a no-news news report about what might, or might not, be the Trump administration’s approach to tariffs, AUKUS and so on. Yawn.

What was notable is that Ferguson made no attempt to admit to the fact that she had totally misread the American political situation in the lead-up to the Tuesday 5 November election and given incorrect advice to viewers – when Tingle interviewed her.

In MWD’s view, the problem is that so many journalists/commentators believe what they want to believe. Take ABC 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson for example.  Let’s go to the transcript of 7.30 on 4 November when the following exchange took place as La Tingle interviewed Comrade Ferguson:

Laura Tingle:   Sarah Ferguson is in Washington DC where she’ll be presenting the show for the rest of the week. I spoke to her earlier. Sarah, what’s the state of the race as the campaign reaches its climax?

Sarah Ferguson: Laura, for so many days now we have been hearing how tight this race is. We have been saying it on 7.30. It is what the polls have been telling us. In all of the crucial swing states, the seven crucial swing states, it has been too close to call. The results whoever was leading in whichever one were within what’s called the margin of error. So, too tight to call has been the message for a long time, but something has been going on in the last 28/48 hours. Kamala Harris looks like she has that crucial word in politics everywhere, she has some momentum and that may be being reflected in some particularly ugly lines that Donald Trump is using.

Over the weekend, a stunning poll came out in Iowa which is not, Laura, one of those crucial swing states. That was the big surprise, not one of the big seven and certainly, not the state of Pennsylvania which many people have been saying for a long time is going to be the decisive state.

A poll comes out in Iowa that surprisingly shows Kamala Harris ahead by three points and, in particular, looking at the numbers driving that three point advantage for Harris in a state that was supposed to be down for Donald Trump

In fact, the Iowa poll proved to be hopelessly wrong  – see MWD’s Documentation segment.  But leaving that poll aside, Comrade Ferguson seems to have believed the polls she wanted to believe.  In fact, the AtlasIntel, Trafalgar and Rasmussen polls were essentially correct. Nothing was “going on” (to use Comrade Ferguson’s term) that was favourable to Harris over Trump by way of momentum.

If Ferguson had watched Fox News from Sydney rather than travel at taxpayers’ expense to Washington DC – she would have had a better understanding of what was going on in the United States. Instead, here was another example of an ABC journalist (Tingle) interviewing an ABC journalist (Ferguson) about the political situation in the United States which gave an inaccurate analysis.

[Note that both Tingle and Ferguson overlooked the fact that virtually all the polls had Harris not as far ahead of Trump in 2024 as Hillary Clinton was in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020.  The implication was clear – Trump was doing even better than in 2016 when he won narrowly and in 2020 when he narrowly lost.  It’s just that the 7.30 team do not want to know this.  MWD  Editor.]

  • FOREVER TURNBULL TO APPEAR ON Q+A AGAIN

Media Watch Dog readers and others have heard about the concept of the Forever War. But what about Forever Turnbull?

The question is raised following Malcolm Turnbull’s (yet another) appearance with his bestie Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast on 7 November. And then he is scheduled to pop up on Monday 11 November on the Q + A panel – with PK as compere.

It would seem that the former prime minister has an open invitation to appear on RN Breakfast – where he invariably receives a soft interview. As usual, the (Republican) Prince of Point Piper was talking up himself and looking down on others. Let’s go to the transcript:

Patricia Karvelas: You say another Trump presidency would require robust conversations from Australian politicians. What should they be doing and saying?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well, look, the Australian Prime Minister has to stand up for Australia and not follow the conventional approach that is being urged from everyone, which is to suck up to Trump and be utterly deferential. I had a very successful relationship with Trump because I stood up to him, stood my ground, incurred his wrath, won his respect, and then got very good outcomes for Australia. But that does require some determination, and, you know, some courage, perhaps, but you’ve got to be, you’ve got to be forthright. … if you suck up to Trump, you’ll just get, you’ll just have to do more sucking up.

Patricia Karvelas: So this victory is pretty, looks pretty emphatic for Donald Trump. You were warning in the lead-up to the US election, that he was a unique threat to democracy. How do you see it now?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well, he, I don’t know that I used exactly those terms, but I mean –

Patricia Karvelas: I’m paraphrasing. You may have used stronger terms.

Malcolm Turnbull: No, no, okay, let’s not quibble. He did sort of encourage a mob to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power in 2021 on January 6. So you know Trump’s – Trump has, you know, Trump is not committed to democracy or the rule of law in the way previous presidents have been or in the way perhaps most people are. But the American people understand that. They recognise that. I mean, they have elected Trump …

There was more advice – of the gratuitous kind. Including the comment that Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton might position himself as a Trumpesque strongman and this may not work. By the way, former senior diplomat and security chief Dennis Richardson was interviewed by Karvelas after Turnbull. Richardson denied that former Australian prime ministers had sucked up to American presidents.

For his part, Ellie’s (male) co-owner would like to remind avid readers of this exchange when the Prince of Point Piper last appeared on Q + A. The date was 26 February 2024 and PK was the presenter:

Malcolm Turnbull: Regrettably, the Republican Party under Donald Trump, and particularly the right wing of the Republican Party, are very sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. I mean, I’ve been with Trump and Putin. Trump is in awe of Putin. He’s – When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he’s like the 12-year-old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. “Ah! My hero!” It is really creepy. It’s really creepy. Now, I don’t –

Patricia Karvelas: And that struck you at the time?

Malcom Turnbull: Oh, absolu – It struck everybody. It was like when you could touch it. It was creepy – The creepiness was palpable.

It remains to be seen what Malcolm Turnbull will say about Donald Trump on Q + A on Remembrance Day. But it’s unlikely that the Prince of Point Piper will be invited to Mar-a-Largo in Florida any time soon.

  • NINE’S FARRAH TOMAZIN TELLS INSIDERS ALL ABOUT A “SHY” KAMALA HARRIS VOTE WHICH NEVER EXISTED 

Media Watch Dog has been in a state of mourning this year.  The reason? –  MWD  hears readers cry. Well it’s this.  Two MWD faves have disappeared from the ABC TV Insiders program.  Namely Katharine (“Malcolm calls me Murpharoo”) Murphy who left to work in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s media office.  And former Guardian wage slave Amy Remeikis who has joined the avowedly left-wing Australia Institute.  Murpharoo used to work for the avowedly left-wing The Guardian Australia.

What to do with the Insiders couch now that it is down these two left-wing journalists who departed?  Well, MWD’s modest proposal is to enlist Farrah Tomazin who currently is the North American correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and is soon to be replaced by Michael Koziol.

It would seem that Comrade Tomazin rehearsed for the Insiders gig when she joined ABC reporter Jade Macmillan on the Insiders couch on Sunday 3 November. Except that it wasn’t a couch but rather a couple of bar chairs on a balcony in Detroit.  Insiders executive producer Sam Clark in his wisdom decided to take the program to the US – in spite of the fact that its 60 minutes consisted of Australians talking to Australians.

David (“I like to be called Speersy”) Speers asked Nine Newspapers’ comrade what were the “most significant moments” in the final week of the US election campaign. Tomazin replied that it was the way Kamala Harris is “basically, you know, finishing off this contest”.  She claimed that the US vice-president had done “pretty well”. Really. This despite the fact that the Vice-President could not say what she stood for or how an administration led by her would be different from that of President Joe Biden.  Let’s go to the transcript:

Farrah Tomazin: …I mean, she’s done pretty well. She stayed on message. She’s been disciplined. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has not been. You know, in Wisconsin, the other day he essentially said that, you know, he wants to protect women, whether they like it or not. He followed that up the next day with a rally in New Mexico where he said that he won that Democratic state twice. Followed it up again yesterday by saying that, you know, Liz Cheney ought to have guns pointed in her face. So he’s been very undisciplined and unable to stay sort of on message.

So, according to Nine newspapers’ North American correspondent, Ms Harris stayed on message. But she did not state what that message was.  Moreover, Donald Trump never said that Liz Cheney ought to have guns pointed at her face.  Comrade Tomazin just made this up.  What Trump said, in effect, was that Cheney was a warmonger who would not like to have rifles pointed at her face in conflict on the field of battle.

Speers joined in the condemnation and invited his panellist to fang Trump again. She did.  This is how the exchange finished:

Farrah Tomazin: ….I guess Kamala Harris is trying to sort of paint this as a referendum on Donald Trump and create a bit of a contrast. You know, she’s the supposed uniter, he’s the divider. He’s got an “enemies list”. She’s got a “to do list”, as she keeps saying on the stump. And is really trying to bring in those centre-right Republicans who might be thinking of swaying, the Nikki Haley sort of voters, so to speak.

David Speers: Using Liz Cheney to do that as well.

Farrah Tomazin: Using Liz Cheney. You know, I think he’s not helping himself.

In fact, Nikki Haley supported Trump’s campaign. And Liz Cheney’s campaign against Trump was a total failure. Then Comrade Tomazin had this to say at the Final Observations segment at the end of the program. Here we go:

David Speers: Let’s get some final observations from our panel here in Detroit. Farrah, first to you.

Farrah Tomazin: When the dust settles on the results of this election, it’ll be interesting to see to what extent there was indeed a shy Kamala Harris vote, just as there were the shy Trump vote of 2016. Second thought is Nikki Haley, 2028?

There was no “shy Kamala Harris” vote that failed to be picked up in the opinion polls. Her campaign was a disaster. Harris has performed worse than Biden in 2020 in the overwhelming majority of counties.  The dust settled on the results of the 2024 election at about midnight of the evening of the poll.  But Comrade Tomazin was back on the attack in her first report from North America in Nine Newspapers on 7 November as follows:

Donald Trump has become the first convicted criminal to win the White House, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris by broadening his coalition of voters through a campaign of fear centred on illegal immigrants, the economy and transgender people.

So, there you have it – according to Nine’s North American correspondent. Comrade Tomazin reckons that Trump won because he ran a campaign of fear.  Unlike Harris, apparently, when she called Trump a “fascist” while her supporters called the president another Hitler.  Sounds like a fear campaign, don’t you think?  And here’s another question.  Can You Bear It?

  • GEOFFREY ROBERTSON TELLS NINE NEWSPAPERS’ READERS THAT, IF ELECTED PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP COULD HAVE WHITE HOUSE GARDENERS ARRESTED BY THE CIA

While on the topic of Nine columnists, here’s how the Australian-born Geoffrey Robertson KC commenced his article in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald  on 2 November:

As the free world girds its loins for a new leader, it is unclear whether the next US president will be elected by a democratic vote or by the six Supreme Court judges unfailingly loyal to the Republican Party. Both candidates are “lawyered up” with hundreds of professional advocates retained on each side to challenge the ballots. Republicans have already brought 130 court actions about electoral arrangements. Before the result is certified by the president of the Senate next January, it may depend on a decision (predictably, 6-3) by the politically divided Supreme Court.

What a load of literary sludge. How does the free world – or the unfree world for that matter – gird its loins?

What Robertson was not able to contemplate was a comprehensive Trump victory achieved within a few hours of the polls closing.

He concluded his piece by claiming that, following the Supreme Court decision in Trump vs United States, if Trump wins the election he “could commit crimes with impunity”.  According to GR KC, Trump could arrange for the CIA or FBI to have a “White House gardener” imprisoned if Trump did not like him or her. What a load of absolute tosh.  Can You Bear It?

[No. Not really – now that you ask.  I note that, on this occasion, you have not reminded avid readers of your man Robertson’s “Epping accent”.   You know, the kind of accent an Australian lawyer acquires when living among the English upper class in London, if he does not want it known that he was born in the Sydney middle-class suburb of Epping. – MWD Editor.]

  • PK DOES NOT CHALLENGE INTERVIEWEE WHO DESCRIBED HARRIS AS INCREDIBLY COMPETENT AND TRUMP AS A MAN-CHILD

On 5 November, Radio National Breakfast ran a segment titled “What’s at stake in the US Election”.  Introducing the segment (which was produced by Max Chalmers and Matthew Simpson) presenter Patricia (“Everybody calls me PK”) Karvelas had this to say:

Patricia Karvelas: The final pitches are in, and Americans are being asked to choose between very contrasting visions for the country and the world. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has framed the campaign as a fight for democracy, a fight for freedom too, vowing to move the country beyond its political divisions. Donald Trump has vowed mass deportations, huge tariffs on foreign goods, already accusing his opponents of cheating without evidence. So, what would the campaign rhetoric mean in office? Roger Berkowitz is a Professor of Political Studies in human rights at Bard College and joins us. Welcome.

Yes, welcome Professor Berkowitz – after PK had made it pretty clear that she was in the Vice-President Harris camp and her fight for democracy and not in former President Trump’s camp who was into mass deportations and so on.  It would appear that the learned professor took the lead from PK. Let’s go to the transcript:

Roger Berkowitz: Oh, it’s great to be here. Thank you.

Patricia Karvelas: After all is said and done, and boy, there have been a lot of words. What’s at stake for Americans as they cast their votes today?

Roger Berkowitz: Well, there have been a lot of words and a lot of money spent. You know, I think what’s at stake is whether we’re going to be led by another, another representative of, of the political class, right? Kamala Harris, who’s a very successful politician, has been a prosecutor and, and I think is of incredibly competent and charismatic figure of the political establishment. Liberal but also quite, you know, adept at playing to the middle. Or we’re going to be led by a grown up man child who is filled with vengeance and bile….

Yes, they are different. Kamala Harris is “incredibly competent”.  Unlike Donald J. Trump who is a “grown-up man child”.

At this stage, Ellie’s (male) co-owner headed off for a glass of Holy Water which he has been advised is a suitable drink for Hangover Time.  But not before asking this question about the ABC’s lack of viewpoint diversity: Can You Bear It?

  • LNL GUEST COMPARES TRUMP TO HILTER, MUSSOLINI & PUTIN

Due to enormous demand, this segment returns after what journalists call a WEB – Well Earned Break. The late Jackie is the judge of this award – she communicates her decision to her one-time (male) co-owner with a little help from the American psychic John Edward of Crossing Over fame. Your man Edward is due to visit Australia this year – as revealed in Media Watch Dog on 14 June 2024.

On 6 November, Late Night Live held a discussion on the US presidential election. All the talent were left-of-centre types. Namely presenter David Marr, Chas Licciardello (ex Chaser “Boy” average age 49½), Clare Corbould (Deakin University), Bruce Shapiro (The Nation) and Jacob Heilbrunn (The National Interest). All are Trump antagonists or Trump haters.

The ”star” of the show – in terms of hyperbole – was Comrade Heilbrunn. According to the late Jackie’s judgement, that is. Here’s why:

  • Heilbrunn said that Donald Trump’s talk of ushering “a new golden age” is very reminiscent of someone like Mussolini.
  • Heilbrunn declared that in January 1933 when Hitler was installed as Chancellor, really people had no conception of what was coming. However, David Marr found that this was a bit over the top.

David Marr: But you’re not seriously comparing him to Hitler are you?

Jacob Heilbrunn: I think the terminology he uses is not dissimilar, um, unfortunately. I don’t think he is intent on launching, um, wars abroad, and I don’t… he is more constrained than that. But there are eerie parallels.

David Marr: But is he calling on something that is in fact true, that there is a large class of people in America, who have been ruined, uh is perhaps slightly too strong a word, by modern… um, modern economic theory. The removal of tariffs, free trade has come at a price for a large number of people.

But The National Interest’s editor continued by upping the ante – as the saying goes (or went):

Jacob Heilbrunn: Yes Trump… I think the media has underestimated the extent to which he has formed a de facto alliance with both Putin and Victor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary. Orban has staked everything on a Trump victory and obviously Trump’s intention is to create some kind of autocracy in the United States that resembles something between Putin and Orban.

So, there you have it. According to Comrade Heilbrunn, Donald Trump is a combination of the fascist Mussolini, the Nazi Adolf Hitler, the former KGB thug Vladimir Putin and the Hungarian Prime Minister Orban.

Jacob Heilbrunn – MWD’s award for Hyperbole of the Week is yours.

NEW SEGMENT – ELLIE’S JOURNEY DOWN WOWSER LANE

Media Watch Dog has an aversion to wowsers.  From The-End-of-the-World-Is-Nigh mob to everyday left-wing sandal wearers who want to restrict the enjoyment and liberties of others. George Orwell spoke about these comrades in his 1937 book The Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell defended “the ordinary, decent person” against “the intellectual book-trained socialist”. He wrote that the latter “type is drawn, to begin with, entirely from the middle class, and from a rootless town-bred section of that middle class at that. … It includes … the foaming denouncers of the bourgeoisie, and the more-water-in-your-beer reformers of whom [George Bernard] Shaw is the prototype, and the astute young social-literary climbers … and all that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of ‘progress’ like bluebottles to a dead cat”.

  • ABC’S THE WORLD TODAY ENVISAGES THE END OF THE MELBOURNE CUP

This is how Sally Sara introduced a segment titled “Does the Melbourne Cup need a Reboot?” on ABC Radio’s The World Today on 5 November.  To wit, Melbourne Cup Day:

Sally Sara:  For more than 160 years, many Australians have celebrated the Melbourne Cup.  But is it changing?  After peaks topping 120,000 attendees in the early 2000s, crowds have been steadily dropping since 2011.  It’s left some to wonder whether the so called “race that stops a nation” needs a reboot.  David Estcourt and Lexis Jeuniewic report.

Comrades Estcourt and Lexie Jeuniewic reported that, with respect to the Melbourne Cup, (i) TV viewership is down, (ii) gambling revenue has dropped, (iii) it’s been 10 years since record crowds made their way to Flemington and (iv) animal welfare and the impact of gambling have cast a shadow over the event.

The World Today turned to MWD fave Dee Madigan who was presented as a “marketing executive”. Her role as an ABC TV Gruen panellist and a Labor Party operative was not mentioned.  She said that the Melbourne Cup was “the race that stops the nation” when she lived in Melbourne and was huge when she moved to Sydney. But now it’s in extremis – or something like that. Let’s go to the transcript:

David Estcourt: She [Dee Madigan] thinks issues like animal welfare and the impact of gambling have cast a shadow over the event. 

Dee Madigan: And I think a lot of it’s to do with animal cruelty and the advocacy of animal rights activists. It made, it’s made people feel a bit uncomfortable. I think people are increasingly aware of the dangers of gambling, and also they’re aware that companies use the Melbourne Cup as almost an entry into it. And it’s lost, it’s lost the wholesomeness that it had.

The World Today heard briefly form the Victoria Racing Club and the Alliance for Gambling Reform. But Comrade Madigan was the star of the report – which concluded as follows:

Dee Madigan: Unless they [the Victoria Racing Club] do something, unfortunately, it will be, I think the end of it. And it is a pity, because there was a lot of it that was fun.

So there was Dee Madigan foretelling not The End of the World but certainly The End of the Melbourne Cup.  Later that day, some 90,000 people attended the event and seemed to have a great time.  Which suggests that, on the available evidence, the Melbourne Cup is still a huge event and is holding its own against the Wowser Soviet in our midst.

DOCUMENTATION

  • A LOOK BACK AT THE MOTLEY CAST OF “EXPERTS” THE ABC BROUGHT ON TO TELL THE ABC AUDIENCE KAMALA HARRIS WAS GOING TO WIN

With the 2024 US presidential election now over and Donald Trump re-elected to be president, it seems a good time to review how the US election was covered by the Australian public broadcaster. In particular, which supposed experts did ABC TV and radio lean on to inform viewers about the supposed state of the election.

As previously covered in MWD, former Trump White House staffer Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci became an ABC fave in 2024. For non-avid readers who do not recall The Mooch’s history, here is a quick summary:

An investment banker by trade, Scaramucci joined the 2016 Trump campaign after previously supporting two of his opponents in the Republican primary. After working on the presidential transition team, The Mooch was appointed as White House Communications Director on 21 July 2017.

Five days later, a journalist from The New Yorker reported that Scaramucci had called him and badmouthed other Trump advisors, without going off the record. The Mooch was fired on 31 July, on his 11th day in the job. In the lead-up to the 2020 election Scaramucci came out against Trump and has numbered among his antagonists ever since.

It comes as no surprise then that he has shown up regularly on the ABC this year. First in April on Radio National’s Global Roaming, in July on Four Corners and then in September on 7.30. He made his final pre-election ABC appearance on the 4 November US election special of Q+A. As with all his previous appearances, he bashed Trump with great glee. He also predicted a Kamala Harris victory.

Then there is Rory Stewart, a former UK Conservative MP turned podcaster and political pundit, who popped up on the 27 October edition of Insiders, being interviewed by David Speers. He too predicted a Harris victory.

[A fuller analysis of Scaramucci and Stewart’s comments can be found in Gerard Henderson’s column in The Weekend Australian on 9 November. – MWD Editor.]

As has also been previously covered by MWD, the 10 October edition of 7.30 featured an appearance by Professor Allan Lichtman. Professor Lichtman is a political scientist from American University in Washington DC, who is most famous for his “Keys to the White House”, a system for predicting presidential elections. The system purports to be a scientific model, although it mostly consists of Lichtman making subjective assessments about the previous administration’s record. It is best understood as a form of educated guessing.

On 7.30 he was introduced as having a “near perfect” record in predicting elections. Prior to 2024 he had made a prediction in 10 elections, 8 of which he got right. Lichtman claims a perfect 10 out of 10 record because he maintains that the 2000 election was stolen by George W Bush and that he should be credited with a correct call for the 2016 election where he predicted (incorrectly) that Donald Trump would win the national popular vote, while making no prediction about the winner of the Electoral College, which Trump won. Work that out if you can.

Earlier in 2024 Professor Lichtman claimed that President Joe Biden was on track to win re-election. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance on 27 June, he warned against replacing Biden as the nominee. And after Biden’s announcement that he would not contest the election, Lichtman urged Democrats to rally behind Kamala Harris. He then predicted that Harris would defeat Trump. Having predicted both Biden and Harris were on track to win, Lichtman may now be more famous as the first man to incorrectly predict the same election twice.

Finally, there is the pollster Ann Selzer, who was interviewed on RN Breakfast on 6 November (on election day US time). Selzer produces polls of the state of Iowa for the Des Moines Register, and prior to 2024 had a good track record for predicting elections in the state. She is well-known due to the importance of Iowa in the presidential primary process, due to the traditional placement of the Iowa Caucuses as the first contest.

Selzer’s final poll for the 2024 election showed Kamala Harris narrowly leading Donald Trump in Iowa. This was a shocking result, as Donald Trump won Iowa by comfortable margins in 2020 and 2016. If the poll proved correct it would indicate either an extremely unusual swing in Iowa or that Kamala Harris was set to win a landslide victory nationwide. During the interview, presenter Patricia Karvelas repeatedly stressed how reputable Selzer is and appeared eager to believe the poll result.

Votes are still being counted in the US, but it is clear Donald Trump is on track to win comfortably. He is expected to sweep all 7 of the swing states and win the national popular vote (the first Republican to do so since George W Bush in 2004). In Iowa he has done even better than he did in 2020 or 2016.

Australians getting their news from ABC TV and Radio were presented with a line-up of US election experts, some reputable and some not, who incorrectly predicted a Kamala Harris victory. This is no doubt a result of the ABC being a conservative-free zone, where Trump’s return to the presidency was unthinkable.

 

 

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Until Next Time.

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