GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 3
20 MARCH 2009
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RUNDLE BITES (DISABLED) DOG
In the Crikey newsletter last Tuesday, former Arena editor Guy Rundle launched a bitter personal attack on Media Watch Dog’s Nancy – whom he described as an “ugly white mongrel” and a “little bitch”. This is all the more disturbing since Nancy is disabled – being profoundly deaf. Also, she had a troubled youth – having spent 12 weeks on death row at the RSPCA pound before being purchased by the Henderson family to join the Henderson abode. In any event, what’s wrong with mongrels? Don’t tell me that the London based self-declared radical Rundle is into pure bred canines of the corgi kind, cucumber sandwiches and all that.
Guy Rundle saw the need to defend two fellow leftists – namely one-time Stalinist Bea Campbell (who is a regular commentator on Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live program) and Age columnist Catherine Deveny (who is currently not appearing in the “Guardian-on-the-Yarra” due to a contractual dispute with her editor).
Here’s a message for Guy. Your anger is directed at the wrong source. MWD enjoys Ms Deveny’s snobbish inner-city secular leftist sneers at The Age’s readers who live in suburbs because it provides good copy. Ditto with Dr Campbell. Here MWD is anxious to find out how long it will be before BC publicly regrets having accepted state-funded trips to communist East Germany when it was effectively run by the Stasi secret police. WMD needs (in Fred Hilmer’s terminology) “content providers”, particularly of a leftist bent. Nancy says: “Bring back Deveny now; give Campbell more time on LNL; and so on.”
STREWTH! AND THE TRUTH
D. McNicoll, The Australian’s “Strewth!” diarist, was another media type to get so upset that MWD was criticising fellow journalists. He described this e-newsletter as a “puppy-like pooch” with “muddy paws” which savages such leftist commentators as Phillip Adams “around the ankles”. Gee wiz, that invective really hurt. Apparently “Strewth!” believes that it is quite okay for the ABC’s man-in-black to hold LNL forums on civil liberties where he agrees with all the panelists and all the panelists agree with him. D.D. maintains that criticising such a taxpayer funded farce amounts to a call for the likes of Adams to be “outlawed”. Also, D.D. believes that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of “left-wing bias” on ABC Radio National since such activity is not a “crime”. How profound can you get? By the way, D.D. is on record as describing the ABC’S man-in-black as an “acclaimed ABC broadcaster”. D.D., you see, is one of the acclaimers.
It seems that D. D. McNicoll – the son of journalist David McNicoll (1914-2000) – is one of those media types who get so upset when they, or their mates, or their family get criticised. As the following case study demonstrates.
On 20 November 2008, Tom Switzer wrote an article in The Australian on John Howard in political retirement. Towards the end of his piece, Switzer compared Howard favourably with the Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies (1894-1978). He pointed out that “Menzies, in a little noted interview with veteran journalist David McNicoll in 1974, slammed his party”. Switzer added that, in contrast to Menzies, “Howard won’t be reaching from the political grave to blight the affairs of his former colleagues and beloved party”. For the record, the McNicoll-Menzies interview took place on 3 April 1974 but was not released until the publication of David McNicoll’s Luck’s A Fortune in 1979 – a year after Menzies’ death.
Heather Henderson (no relation) is Robert Menzies’ daughter. She wrote to The Australian on 25 November 2008 in the following terms:
Tom Switzer’s article (“Former PM with manners of steel”, Opinion, 20/11) quotes from a conversation that the veteran journalist David McNicoll had in 1974 with my father Sir Robert Menzies when he was a very old man. May I add some background.
McNicoll and my father had known each other for many years and were on good terms. McNicoll rang Hazel Craig, my father’s secretary, and asked if he could come and see “the Boss”. My father agreed but said “no tape recorder”. McNicoll duly arrived at my father’s office with a tape recorder. Hazel said “No” and McNicoll indicated he wouldn’t switch it on. My father was unaware of the tape recorder. He and McNicoll sat and had a chat between friends, in private. After my father had died McNicoll published some of the more sensational recorded parts from that “private” conversation, including the bits quoted by Switzer.
There were two sad consequences. First, my father’s reputation for never interfering in the work of his successors or making public criticisms of them personally was undoubtedly damaged. He had always been meticulous about saying nothing in public that might hurt them or their families. Second, McNicoll had succeeded in damaging his own reputation as well.
Heather Henderson
Yarralumla, ACT
Journalist D.D. could not let Mrs Henderson’s criticism of his journalist father go uncontested. So he used his “Strewth!” diary to pontificate about the matter and to dismiss Heather Henderson. On 26 November 2008, D.D. McNicoll declared:
Heather Henderson, daughter of former PM Robert Menzies, took a swipe at Strewth’s dear departed dad in the letters page of this publication yesterday. She accused David McNicoll, a columnist for The Bulletin at the time, of secretly recording an interview with Ming in his Melbourne office in 1974. My father was the least technically adept man who ever lived. For the interview, he borrowed a cassette recorder the size of a briefcase that had to be turned on with large buttons and circular dials. It was not a piece of miniature James Bond-like technology that could be used discreetly. The original tape of the conversation is with the State Library of NSW and at the start you can hear Ming and my old man talking about the machine. “You’ve seen one of these before?” inquires McNicoll. “Yes,” Menzies responds.
Now, this is not evidence for very much at all. The fact is that Menzies recognised what a tape recorder looked like does not mean that he consented to be interviewed on tape.
On the same day, Heather Henderson wrote to The Australian – but her letter was not printed. This meant that D.D. had the final say. How convenient for a journalist. For the record, Mrs Henderson’s (unpublished) reply to D.D.’s put down is printed below for the first time:
In his column “Strewth” (Australian, 26 November) D.D. McNicoll has said that his father “taped with assent” the conversation he had with my father, Sir Robert Menzies. I can well understand that he is as concerned with his father’s reputation as I am with mine. My earlier letter (Australian, 25 November) now needs amplification.
Miss Hazel Craig (my father’s secretary at the time) has reconfirmed to me this week that when McNicoll arrived at the office carrying the tape recorder she reminded him that the condition for the interview was “no tape recorder to be used”. The fact that he showed the recorder to my father, and that they discussed it, would not have detracted from my father’s understanding, and Miss Craig’s, that approval had been explicitely withheld for its use.
Perhaps I should note that, even before his stroke a few years before he saw McNicoll, my father was hopeless with any kind of machinery. He wouldn’t have had the faintest idea whether McNicoll had turned on the recorder or not, and Miss Craig was no longer in the room. Some years later, after the interview had been published, I came face to face with McNicoll at the house of a mutual fried. His immediate reaction was to try to apologise.
Heather Henderson
Yarralumla A.C.T.
Gerard Henderson corresponded occasionally with David McNicoll towards the end of his life. At the end of a letter written on 20 January 1994, Henderson specifically asked McNicoll about the state of his 1974 interview with Menzies. Was it on the record? Was it for publication after Menzies’ death? McNicoll did not reply. Interesting. Hazel Craig has also told Gerard Henderson that the agreement for the McNicoll-Menzies conversation was that it was not to be be recorded and that it was off-the-record. David McNicoll’s decision to delay publication of the interview until after Menzies’ death gives additional support to the direct evidence of Hazel Craig that the discussion was supposed to be off-the-record.
It seems that D.D. McNicoll likes to silence others. He does not want GHMWD to bark at him and his journalistic mates. And he does not want his late father to be corrected. It is this kind of journalistic self-protective in-breeding which will be exposed in the very mongrel (to use Guy Rundle’s words) MWD. Go Nancy.
DOCTOR HEWSON – AN ALTERNATIVE OPINION
The journalist intolerance gene appears to have penetrated John (“call me Doctor”) Hewson who nowadays writes a column in the Australian Financial Review and appears regularly on ABC TV and Sky News. These days the one-time Liberal Party leader is much beloved by sections of the media because he can always be relied on to criticise senior Liberals. Last Friday Dr. (Dr. Dr.) Hewson was at it again on the Sky News AM Agenda program where he made the following comment about former Liberal deputy leader Peter Costello viz:
In the school-yard analogy, someone should take him out behind the dunny and beat him up at some point because I just think it’s ridiculous that Malcolm Turnbull is being denied the opportunity to do something, because Costello’s basically doing nothing.
Just imagine what would have been said if, say, former Labor leader Bob Hawke had advocated that his Labor colleague Paul Keating should be bashed up. All hell would have broken loose. Yet Dr. (Dr.) Hewson appeared to be allowed to get away with such verbal aggression since, after all, he was only criticisng a fellow Liberal. Or something like that. The media loves a reverse prodigal son – when it comes to the Liberal Party.
Last year Dr Hewson made two appearances in the “Friday Forum” slot on Lateline – where social democrats are supposed to debate political conservatives. On both occasions it was like a tennis match where both players were on one side of the net and Hewson scored more points against the Liberals than did his pro-Labor counterpart.
These days it seems that no interviewer is prepared to ask Dr. (Dr.) Hewson any questions about his role in many failed business ventures – including the collapse of Elderslie Finance Corporation Limited in July 2008. He stepped down as chairman shortly before the company went into liquidation owing around $200 million. MWD is willing to supply on request a copy of the letter which John Hewson sent to Elderslie debenture holders on Christmas Eve 2007. It was signed “Dr John Hewson, Chairman” and commenced:
Dear
As Chairman of Elderslie Finance I would like to convey my thanks for your support over the last twelve months. Many of you would no doubt be aware that in September 2007 Elderslie celebrated its 50th anniversary of which we are very proud. From humble beginnings in Perth in 1957, we have since grown to over $480 million in assets and over $36 million in shareholder’s funds.
The Doctor’s letter concluded:
I would also like to offer, as a token of our appreciation for your continued loyalty, a bonus 0.50% interest over all of our base debenture and unsecured notes rates (enclosed) for any new investments that are subscribed between 27th December 2007 and 15th February 2008. To apply, simply freecall Elderslie after 2nd January…. When lodging your application please quote “Special Offer”.
Unfortunately quite a few Elderslie debenture holders accepted The Doctor’s business prescription. Now, MWD is not proposing that the former Liberal Party leader should be taken behind the toilet shed and bashed up for his association with business failure. However, it would be a good idea if John Hewson was asked – and was prepared to answer – questions about his less than brilliant business career. Perhaps on Lateline. Someone might also ask why the Liberal Party’s least successful political leader has become such a (media) authority on contemporary politics. Perhaps on AM Agenda.
STOP PRESS – MALCOLM FRASER: TOPS FOR HUMILITY
Have you heard the one about former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser who told the Sunday Life magazine’s Alex Brooks (8 March 2009): “I was never someone who aspired to be prime minister of Australia, but I always wanted to do the best I could with what ever job I had”? Here are some brief facts. Fraser won a pre-selection for Wannon in November 1952 when aged 22 and entered the House of Representatives in October 1955 at age 25. He became Liberal leader after deposing Billy Snedden in a party room challenge in March 1975 and became prime minister in November 1975, at age 45, after the Coalition blocked supply in the Senate. Sounds like someone who aspired to be PM, don’t you think?
That’s all for now.
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