GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 25
27 AUGUST 2009
NANCY’S PICKS OF THE WEEK
In a highly competitive week, Nancy was most impressed by a couple of – shall we say – insightful comments on the death of United States senator, and left-liberal hero, Edward Kennedy (1932-2009). Requiescat in pace.
▪ Katherine Murphy And The Funny Side of Drowning
Senator Kennedy’s death was raised by presenter David Speers with The Age’s Katherine Murphy and the Daily Telegraph’s Malcolm Farr at the end of the Sky News PM Agenda program on Wednesday.
Ms Murphy was first to comment and exhibited, once again, a certain – shall we say – insight (See Issue 20). Declared Ms Murphy:
It’s very sad news and he’s battled this illness for a long, long time. And you know it was a, it was a, it was a, something that, you know, eh, eh, eh, like bled into the American election campaign. It’s, yeah, very sad news obviously.
Yeah, it sure is, you know. Needless to say, presenter David Speers agreed with Katherine Murphy’s moving tribute to the late Ted Kennedy. And then Malcolm Farr had his say. Let’s go to the video tape:
David Speers: Yeah, he [Kennedy] had a tough final year. He did live a lot longer than some of the doctors had suggested.
Malcolm Farr: And, let’s face it, a lot longer than Mary Jo Kopechne.
Katherine Murphy: [Hails of Laughter].
Malcolm Farr: No. I’m serious about this….
Fair enough. It seems that Ms Murphy is so infatuated with the hero of the American liberal-left that she thinks the death in July 1969 of aide Mary Jo Kopechne, at age 28, is a laughing matter. But would the subject matter be so humourous if, say, George W. Bush had allowed a 19 year old female companion to drown in a car he was driving – having left the scene of the motor vehicle accident and having failed to report the accident to police and ambulance authorities? Not on your nelly. Certainly, the Canberra correspondent for the “Guardian on the Yarra” would not have seen the funny side of such manslaughter.
▪ Bob Ellis Blames the Chappaquiddick Cops
The morning after the (condolence ridden) night before, Bob Ellis stepped forward. Writing in Crikey on Thursday, your man Ellis explained all about Ms Kopechne’s death at Chappaquiddick four decades ago.
According to the Ellis account, a tired and emotional Ted Kennedy offered Mary Jo Kopechne, “a 19 year old virgin”, a lift – but abandoned the car when he saw a police vehicle since she was a 19 year old and he was married and drink-driving. Whereupon the virgin took over the wheel, crashed the car over a bridge and drowned some time later – all unknown to the drunken senator. Bob Ellis’s account even contained direct quotations of what Kennedy (allegedly) said to Kopechne when he handed over the keys to his car. This despite the fact that Kopechne died at the scene and Kennedy never told the truth about what occurred. Could Bob Ellis have made this up? Surely not. Maybe he engaged the psychic John Edward to contact the dead and found out about all this direct from Mary Jo or perhaps even the recently departed Ted.
How does Ellis know this? Well, he cited his sources at the end of his Crikey piece. Ellis was told this story by an (unnamed) “close political friend” who was told “by Don Gifford, a Bobby Kennedy staffer”. Who knows? This account may be correct. However, to lesser mortals, this “evidence” is hearsay upon hearsay. But, to Ellis, it’s good enough to make claims about Senator Kennedy’s driving record and Ms Kopechne’s personal life on the basis of mere theories and, perhaps, contacts with those who, as John Edward would say, have “passed”.
According to Ellis, the “real, unyielding truth” of the matter was that “a cop on duty caused, by his looming presence on the country road, the end of the Kennedy adventure and the social democrat America of the Roosevelt years that never therefore returned”.
So there you have it. Don’t blame the sexual predator and occasional drunk Ted Kennedy for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne or the demise of Camelot and the “New” New Deal. Rather, it’s all the cop’s fault.
THAT WAS THE WEEK
▪ Hanging Out With Robertson QC
According to the Sydney Morning Herald literary editor Susan Wyndham, Geoffrey Robertson’s speech on the opening of the recent Byron Bay Writers’ Festival went for almost 90 minutes. And, in the process, Robertson QC “lost the opening night audience”. It is not clear whether the audience was ever found. It seems that, hungry and sandal-clad, some headed off some 20 minutes into the Robertson QC oration, had a three course meal, and returned in time for the vote of thanks. Those who stayed listened as the QC droned on, at Fidel Castro length, in his Epping accent. As in Epping, Sydney. [Is this the kind of accent which an expatriate-type develops to appear that he does not come from Epping, Sydney? – Ed].
MWD was reminded of the Byron Bay Literary Marathon when Geoffrey Robertson QC made an appearance on ABC 1 last Tuesday. He was interviewed for Tony Robinson’s Crime and Punishment program. Robertson (with QC) told Robinson (sans QC) that “Guy Fawkes was probably the first suicide bomber”.
In fact, Guy Fawkes (1570-1606), who was found guilty of involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, did not top himself. Rather he was executed – hanged and then quartered. Which, when you come to think of it, is a fate even worse than having to endure a ninety minutes Robertson oration.
▪ Loving Castro
While on the topic of Castro and all that, what a stunning article in the Good Weekend (8 August 2009) by Gerard Noonan – who recently travelled to Cuba with his Spanish speaking daughter Anna. The former journalist and trade union operative made the point that, despite opposition from various administrations in the United States, Fidel Castro “has outlasted 10 US presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr”.
Good point, don’t you think? Except that Mr Noonan overlooked one fact. Fidel Castro is the unelected dictator of a communist totalitarian regime. Whereas American presidents are limited to two four-year terms and some actually lose elections.
Gerard Noonan ran the line that the people of Cuba as “proud but poor” – despite the fact that there is virtually no transport within Cuba and it is very difficult for Cubans to obtain a visa. He interviewed Ralph Newmark, director of Latin American Studies at La Trobe University, who declared that Cuba is “a vibrant, celebratory culture” even though this “doesn’t fill their stomachs”. Newmark lives in Melbourne and Noonan lives in Sydney. Both can travel freely and eat to their stomach’s content.
▪ Madness And The Turnbull Factor
It seems that some commentators lose a sense of balance when discussing elected politicians. Take the inaugural paragraph of this article in The Australian (21 August 2009) by Nick Dyrenfurth:
In Jonathan Littell’s contentious Holocaust novel The Kindly Ones, its chief protagonist, the increasingly mad SS officer Max Aue, muses on Nazi Germany’s psychological demise. “The disaster was already there and they didn’t realise it,” Aue claims, “since the disaster is the very idea of the disaster to come, which ruins everything long before term.”
Who could Dr Dyrenfurth be talking about? Adolf Hilter perhaps? But no. When the reader gets to the end of the second paragraph, it is revealed that his article is about Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull. Sounds mad? Well what about the learned doctor’s final paragraph which read as follows:
Littell’s Kindly Ones draws its inspiration from Greek mythology. The Furies are spiteful goddesses who torment their earthly victims, often driving them insane. Eventually they are transformed into merciful goddesses by Athena and renamed the “the Kindly Ones”. It is in the Liberals’ long-term interests (and perhaps Turnbull’s place in history) for a similar conversion to take place.
Dr Dyrenfurth is an academic
However this excuse will not do for journalist Bruce Elder who had this to say about Malcolm Turnbull in last Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald.
He is unknowable because he is nothing more than a purveyor of amusing anecdotes who rushes around bullying people, believing he is right all the time and intoning on any and all subjects without ever engaging emotionally with the world.
Apparently Mr Elder doesn’t like Mr Turnbull much at all.
AUNTY’S CONTINUING SENSITIVITY TO CRITICISM – TWO CASE STUDIES
It is one of the ironies of media life that there is more genuine debate and discussion on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel in the United States than on the taxpayer funded ABC in Australia. Take the Fox News Watch program for example. It has a presenter and a panel of four – usually made up of a couple of conservatives and a couple of liberals (the American sense of the term). Consequently, on Fox News Watch there is a real debate.
No so on the ABC 1 Media Watch program. Here the tradition is that a leftist presenter is prosecutor, judge and jury on matters media – and no discussion whatsoever is allowed on the program.
Last Monday The Australian broke the story about Steve Holland, who worked as a casual employee at Radio Australia, had walked away from the ABC following criticism by Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes on 17 August 2009. Holland had helped to break the story concerning the awarding of rice contracts in East Timor which upset Jonathan Holmes and the Media Watch team.
The issue is too detailed to cover here. Suffice to say that Jonathan Holmes and Media Watch behaved as they normally do. Mr Holmes criticised someone and there was no right of reply on the program. Then Jo Puccini, the program’s executive producer, defended the program from criticism. Familiar stuff.
The ABC’s sensitivity to criticism was evident again this week following the publication of Peter Costello’s fortnightly column in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday. In his penultimate paragraph, Mr Costello made the following point:
Five nights a week Phillip Adams broadcasts on Radio National. He claims he has been close to every Labor leader from Whitlam to Beazley. Robert Manne has described Adams as “the emblematic figurehead of the pro-Labor left intelligentsia”. Back in 2001, the ABC’s then managing director declared he would look for a right-wing Phillip Adams to balance that program. It must be an exhaustive search. The new managing director is now in his fourth year of office. Apparently, the corporation is still looking.
This was enough to send the ABC’s Man In Black into defensive mode. Phillip Adams commenced his Late Night Live program on Wednesday evening by talking about the subject he knows best – namely HIMSELF. Adams told his audience that he was “just back” from Canberra (wow) and declared that he “wasn’t allowed to go to Canberra for 12 years” since “they” would not let him “through the border”. Fancy that. Yet another example of the Howard Fascist Dictatorship in action, apparently. Adams then felt the need to respond to Costello’s article, declaring:
It’s a sort of a bit of a rant about political bias at the ABC. But it finishes up focusing on this program and your ageing and harmless presenter…Now let me point out, dear listener, that Peter Costello is failing to remind himself that that original demand that there be a right-wing Phillip Adams came from his boss John Howard and was then endlessly re-cycled and echoed by up to and including [then managing director] by Jonathan Shier at Senate Estimates…
Well, Peter, Peter, Peter. I’m deeply shocked that you didn’t mention not one but two programs that were set up by Radio National to, in fact, balance this axis-of-evil known as Late Night Live. The first was called The Continuing Crisis and it starred Imre Salusinszky and the famous conservative, ultra-conservative blogger, Tim Blair. That went on for quite a while. And for some years now we’ve had the Michael Duffy program Counterpoint which he co-presents with Paul Comrie-Thompson. So, Peter, the job’s been done and I think its very hurtful of you not to mention Michael and Tim and Imre and Paul.
Now for some facts. Late Night Live goes to air at 10 pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each week and there is a best-of-LNL program on Friday at 10 pm. The original daily programs are repeated at 4 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That’s a total of nine LNL hours on ABC Radio National each week. LNL has a production staff of around six.
The Continuing Crisis ran for only 12 weeks in 2001 at the difficult time of 9 pm on a Friday night. It had one part-time producer who happened to be an ABC leftist. The Continuing Crisis’ total time on Radio National was a mere 12 hours.
At the time of its existence, Phillip Adams actually campaigned against The Continuing Crisis. He went on ABC TV and called the Salusinszky/Blair program “a self-indulgent pile of tripe” and “intolerable to listen to”. Shortly after Adams’ diatribe went to air, Salusinszky and Blair were told that The Continuing Crisis would not be continued. (For the details see Imre Salusinszky, “My Life as Phillip Adams: A Memoir”, Quadrant, July-August 2002, pp 26-27).
Counterpoint goes to air for one hour at the unfavourable time of 4 pm on Monday and is repeated at 1 pm the following Friday. MWD does not listen to Counterpoint. But MWD knows that when Paul Duffy voted for the very first time in 2006, he gave his primary vote to the Greens and went on to tell Sydney Morning Herald readers all about it. The fact is that Michael Duffy is not really a conservative and Phillip Adams should know this.
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That’s all for now.