GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG ISSUE – NO. 546 18 June 2021 * * * * Stop Press – Nine’s Bevan Shields interjects into Boris Johnson press conference; Michael Rowland & Casey Briggs let ABC Australian’s know what ABC Australians believe re Australia Day Can You Bear It? – Michael Rowland on the long, hard [...]
Scott Morrison is in Cornwall, the place of birth of the man he terms his fifth great-grandfather, who came out to Australia with the First Fleet as a convict. The Prime Minister has been invited by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the host of this year’s conference of the Group of Seven – comprising Canada, [...]
GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG ISSUE – NO. 545 11 June 2021 * * * * Stop Press – Quelle Surprise! ABC defends ABC; Four Corners finds a QAnon conspiracy; John Ruddick’s Russia confusion Can You Bear It? – Chris Masters & Peter FitzSimons on the allegedly button-popping rage of Michael Kroger; AFR’s “Rear Window” on the lost [...]
Mutineers - A true story of heroes and villains by Robert Hadler Wilkinson Publishing 2021 ISBN: 9781925927573 $29.99 (pb) Reviewed by Paul Henderson The author wrote his first book, entitled Dark Secrets, which was published in 2020. Mutineers was published a year later. Both books are about interesting events in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), [...]
Radicals – Remembering The Sixties by Meredith Burgmann & Nadia Wheatley NewSouth Publishing 2021 ISBN: 9781742235899 RRP: $39.99 (pb) Reviewed by Keith Harvey There were many important social and political issues worth taking up in the 1960s. These included Aboriginal and islander rights (including land rights), racism, apartheid, women’s rights, censorship (up to a point), [...]
Defiant Voices. How Australia’s Female Convicts Challenged Authority by Babette Smith NLA Publishing 2021 ISBN: 9780642279590 RRP: $49.99 (pb) Reviewed by William Coleman On the very wet night of 13 July 1781, John Price was drinking in William Wood’s pub “at the bottom of Chick-lane”, when one Elizabeth Barber, age 24, sat beside him. After a little [...]
SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS COME TOGETHER Curious Obsessions in The History of Science and Spirituality By Rachael Kohn ABC Books 2021 ISBN-10 : 0733316387 ISBN-13 : 978-0733316388 RRP: $36.99 Reviewed by Monica Doumit The word “catholic” comes to us from the Greek word katholikos, which means “universal”. In the Roman Catholic Church, this universality is often jokingly referred [...]
The Truth About China: Propaganda, Patriotism and the Search for Answers by Bill Birtles Allen & Unwin, 2021 ISBN: 9781760879860 RRP: $24.00 Reviewed by Milton Osborne It is a standard observation, not always honoured in reality, that journalists are not supposed to be the subject of their own reporting. Yet Bill Birtles has every reason to break with this “rule” as [...]
And so it came to pass that Christian Porter’s defamation action against the ABC resulted in a settlement, going the way of many libel actions. Both sides had said they would fight the case until victory was resolved, and both sides backed off before the proposed hearing in the Federal Court. Some commentators believe Porter [...]
