Perhaps the most considered comment in the wake of the US election was proffered by David Brooks. The New York Times columnist tweeted on Wednesday: “Our job in the media is to capture reality so that when reality voices itself, like last night, people aren’t surprised. Pretty massive failure. We still are not good at [...]
Democratic politics, which can only function within a system of representative government, turns on the successful and peaceful regulation of difference. In other words, democracy is all about debate and discussion. In contemporary Western societies, this concept is under attack, primarily from the left, by means of de-platforming individuals. This amounts to non-violent silencing, or [...]
Isn’t it interesting that so many of the best and brightest at the ABC, who spend their professional lives critiquing the political errors of others, make such mistakes themselves? Take the case of ABC chief political correspondent Laura Tingle, who appears regularly on 7.30. In my Media Watch Dog blog on October 16 I publicised the story [...]
It’s not clear yet but NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption could be about to achieve, in cricketing terms, a hat-trick. In this case it is the clean bowling of three successful NSW Liberal Party premiers — none of whom is corrupt. Without question, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has suffered huge personal embarrassment and considerable reputational [...]
Despite the prevalence of the cliche “history repeats itself” — it rarely, if ever, does so. World War II was different from its predecessor. The Depression of 1929-31 was dissimilar from that of four decades earlier. And the Spanish flu of 1919-20 can be distinguished from the COVID-19 pandemic a century later. The same can be [...]
It was a straightforward yet significant question. Once a week, ABC Radio Sydney 702 runs a “Trump Tuesday” segment. Richard Glover is the presenter and the usual guest commentator is David Smith from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. The USSC is essentially a hangout for supporters of the Democrats or [...]
At last. On Wednesday evening, the ABC’s 7.30 program discussed the Victorian COVID-19 hotel quarantine inquiry. Headed by former judge Jennifer Coate, it began proceedings on August 17. This first event was covered by 7.30, which presents itself as Australia’s leading news and current affairs program. And then the inquiry was dropped completely by 7.30 [...]
Where are Australia’s civil libertarians when you need them most? In the modern era, the human rights of all Australians have been most adversely affected during World War II and in the current pandemic. In the 1920s and into the 1940s, the civil libertarian with the highest profile was probably Herbert Vere Evatt. A former [...]
As a continent that interacts with the rest of the world, Australia cannot escape depressions, recessions or pandemics. However, colonial (before 1901), state and federal governments can make such disasters worse than should be the case. The depression of the early 1890s, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the recession of the early 90s and [...]
Last week there was a question in Melbourne. And this week, across the Pacific, came an answer from San Francisco. On August 28, inner-city Melbourne-based ABC presenter Jonathan Green put out the following tweet towards the end of the Republican National Convention: “Watching trump — louche, glib, a shambling slob, slumped at the lectern, mouthing [...]