GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 18

10 JULY 2009

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NANCY’S PICK OF THE WEEK

Glenn Milne’s Two Tonys

Nancy just loves Sunday mornings. They offer a chance to sleep in, a later a.m. walk and, of course, the Sunday newspapers. Here the competition is to see how long a prediction in one or more of the Sunday newspapers will last. Nancy was most impressed by Glenn Milne’s prophesy in the SundayTelegraph of 5 July – which lasted a full day, as the headlines demonstrate:

“Liberals ponder the ‘Two Tonys’.” – Sunday Telegraph, 5 July 2009; over the by-line of Glenn Milne.

“Two Tonys ticket not on – Abbott” – Daily Telegraph, 6 July 2009; over the by-line of no-one at all.

And now some background. Mr Milne had stirred some political life into a somewhat quite wintry weekend with the suggestion that “the Liberal Party is considering a Two Tonys ticket – Tony Abbott with Tony Smith – if Malcolm Turnbull fails to recover from his savaging in the opinion polls”. The suggestion was that the Sydney based Tony Abbott would become Liberal Party leader and the Melbourne based Tony Smith would become his deputy. The story was backed by the usual (anonymous) suspects. In this case – “the words of one frontbencher”, “many” and “some in the party”. Pretty convincing, eh?

Mr Milne’s story barely made it till Sunday lunch. On Monday the Daily Telegraph quoted Abbott as saying: “If I get together with Tony Smith will be for dinner.” MWD says fine – but please don’t set up such a dinner on the eve of a quiet weekend. It will only encourage Sunday newspaper journalists.

Jessica Wright’s Exclusive

Still, Mr Milne’s “Two Tonys” scoop lasted several hours longer than Jessica Wright’s “exclusive” in the Sun-Herald on 21 June 2009 which was headed: “Labor offers Costello job”. Ms Wright exhibited no possible doubt whatever when she declared in the introductory paragraphs of her story that:

Former Treasurer Peter Costello will be offered a Federal Government job – the guardianship of the nation’s $60 billion future fund he set up during his years as treasurer.

The Government has earmarked Mr Costello for a board position of [sic] the Future Fund if our longest serving Treasurer’s shock decision last week not to recontest his Melbourne seat of Higgins triggers a by-election.

The Sun-Herald had barely landed outside Nancy’s kennel when the following exchange took place, at around 8.45am, on Channel Nine’s Today on Sunday program:

Laurie Oakes: One more quick issue. The elephant’s left the room, but Fairfax Sundays are saying today that the government will offer Peter Costello a position on the board of guardians of the $60 billion Future Fund that he set up. Is that so?

Treasurer Wayne Swan: Well, I’ve read that report, Laurie, and the Prime Minister last week, I think, made a very important point – that someone’s political background should not necessarily disqualify them for appointment to public bodies if in fact they are qualified. I have certainly no plans or the government has no plans to appoint Mr Costello to the Future Fund. But he has put in, over a period of time, a very serious contribution to this country, and he may well be a candidate for some position in the future.

By the way, the source for Jessica Wright’s exclusive was “a senior Labor source”.

A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF AUNTIE

Still, it has to be said of the Fairfax Media and News Limited Sunday papers that at least they guarantee some debate – including an assertion followed soon after by a denial. This is more than can be said for many ABC programs.

The fact is that, three years into Mark Scott’s appointment as ABC Managing Director, you can still hear a greater diversity of views on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News than on Australia’s main public broadcaster. Fox News actually engages some left-of-centre or leftist (liberal in the American sense of the term) – commentators on its main programs. The ABC does not have even one conservative commentator on any of its key radio or TV programs.

A glimpse at last week’s programming demonstrates the reality – from breakfast to supper.

  • News Breakfast’s sandal wearers’ chair

ABC 2’s News Breakfast program, which goes to air from Melbourne, is one of the ABC’s more balanced presentations. However, there is a mindset only to engage Melbourne leftists or left-of-centre types in the lead-up to the 7am and 8am news bulletins when the day’s newspapers are discussed.

It seems that no conservatives can be found for this gig. Perhaps right-of-centre types in Melbourne sleep in. Or, perhaps, ABC producers do not know of their existence. Certainly, on occasions, a matter-of-fact journalist does the job. But when there is a call for outside talent, News Breakfast producers usually look leftwards. As occurred this week.

It’s Wednesday, and the leftist commentator Michael Cathcart is in the commentator’s chair. [Is he the same left-wing historian who wrote the book Defending the National Tuckshop about a planned right-wing revolution in Australia on 6 March 1931 which never took place because it was raining of some such? Ed]

On Wednesday News Breakfast was dominated by the coverage of Michael Jackson’s memorial service. But it was all merriment in the studio as Mr Cathcart laughed at the decision of the Fair Wage Commission not to increase the minimum hourly rate for work. Your man Cathcart could not understand how the Herald-Sun criticised the decision while The Australian and the Australian Financial Review welcomed it. The highlight of the session came when Cathcart mocked certain newspapers in declaring: “The other two papers were an object lesson in, well, well, journalism studies really”. Alas, he did not identify what the “other two papers” were.

On Thursday, the commentator’s chair was occupied by Jayne Dullard of CPR Communications. She suffered the unusual fate of having some of her leftie opinions corrected by presenters Virginia Trioli and Chris Uhlmann. There were moments of profundity – as in when Ms Dullard declared that she maintained that Australians had a “general suspicion about China” and added: “We’re not sure, still, how we sit with China and, in fact, where China sits with us.” How about that?

Then Ms Dullard attacked The Australian. And then she ran the familiar leftist line that political conservatives are racist or some such. In referring to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald that the Lunar Right’s very own Australia First Party was being revitalised, Pollard commented:

We tend to think this sort of welling welling up of right-wing ideas, and particularly anti-immigration ideals and philosophies, was something that was part of the Howard Government’s reign in Australia and that it’s sort of gone now. Of course, those views don’t ever go – they’re always there.

Except that, as both Trioli and Uhlmann reminded Dullard, Labor was once an enthusiastic supporter of the White Australia Policy. Also, the facts indicate that immigration – including Asian immigration – was at record levels during the period of what Dullard terms the Howard Government’s “reign”. And the government led by John Howard and Peter Costello was hardly comparable with Jim Salem’s Lunar Right. But why let facts interrupt the sermon from News Breakfast commentator’s chair?

It’s Friday. And it’s time for Deakin University leftie Scott Burchill. Perhaps conservatives in Melbourne don’t have alarm clocks.

RN Breakfast’s Early Morning Sermon

Meanwhile at the Sydney based Radio National Breakfast program on Thursday stand-in presenter Steve Kinnane interviewed Andrew Macintosh (Associate Director of the Australian National University’s Centre for Climate Law and Policy) for over six minutes on the meeting of the world leaders in L’Aiquila, Italy. The topic was climate change and Mr Macintosh spoke as an advocate. He consistently used the word “we” as if he believed that everyone – literally everyone – shared his views about necessary action on climate change.

ABC TV News – or Why Mr Rudd’s a Failure

It’s Monday. And from the ABC’s Canberra bureau, Emma Griffiths editorialises about the news on the 7 pm TV bulletin. Her line is that Kevin Rudd is not doing enough on climate change. Why, he has been upsetting Senator Bob Brown and the Greens. Let’s go to the audio-tape.

Emma Griffiths: Kevin Rudd will have the chance to talk economy with the other world leaders at a summit in Italy on Thursday. The World Economies Forum, as it’s called, will also try to lay the groundwork for the global climate change talks in December.

Kevin Rudd: We have to use, eh, this week’s meeting to build momentum.

Emma Griffiths: Momentum that’s been lost at home.

Bob Brown: Kevin Rudd wants to infect the international reach for agreement on climate change with his own failed domestic policies.

Emma Griffiths: And fear is certainly spreading that failure could be catching

So there you are. Rather than report the news on climate change and all that, Ms Griffith decided to editorialise about it. She declared that Kevin Rudd had lost momentum on the issue in Australia – apparently because Senator Brown is upset. And she opined that “fear” is spreading in Australia that climate change failure is in the air. Her evidence? Absolutely zip.

LNL‘S PHILLIP ADAMS – Sermons Continue

Then it was on to the Radio National Late Night Live program. Last Tuesday was a you beaut LNL in which the softly spoken Phillip Adams invited a number of his ideological mates to have a discussion on matters which they agree.

First up it was time for the leftist Bruce Shapiro, LNL’s  regular commentator on all things United States. Shapiro is a columnist with the left-wing magazine The Nation. The points of discussion were Sarah Palin (who had recently announced her intention to step down as Governor of Alaska) and one-time US Defense secretary Robert McNamara (who has just died).

Adams kicked off the discussion by describing Sarah Palin as a “spectacularly silly woman”. He also referred to American conservative commentator Bill Kristol as a “raving idiot”. Shapiro then linked Palin to anti-semite Charles Coughlin (1891-1979) as well as to the racist John Birch Society.

Then Shapiro referred to his “deep personal visceral” dislike of McNamara. Not to be outdone, Adams said that McNamara “reminded me a bit of Speer”. As in Adolf Hitler’s forced labour tzar Albert Speer. Shapiro described the linking of McNamara (who was appointed Defense Secretary by the elected President J K Kennedy) with the Nazi totalitarian Speer (who was appointed by the Nazi dictator Hitler) as a “very apt comparison”.

Then it was on to a discussion of climate change policy in the US featuring David Hamilton (Director of the Energy and Global Warming Program at the Sierra Club) and John Quiggan (Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science at the University of Queensland). Needless to say, Phillip agreed with David who agreed with John who agreed with Phillip. Or was it the other way round?

In any event, Professor Quiggan ended up by bagging, wait for it, the Liberal Party of Australia.

Finally, Phillip Adams interviewed Amiel Courtin-Wilson, director of the documentary Bastardy, along with the actor Jack Charles – who is the subject of the documentary. In terms of the modern cliché, Mr Charles ticks all the boxes. He’s indigenous, he’s left-wing and he’s gay. Jack Charles is also a burglar – when he is not serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure, so to speak.

On 25 June, Bastardy was reviewed by Tim Kroenert in the Jesuit online magazine Eureka Street. Kroenert wrote that Charles “justifies his acts of serial burglary as ‘collecting the rent’ from affluent white suburbanites who dwell on what could rightfully be considered Aboriginal land”. Kroenert continued: “Who can fail to sympathise with his acts of theft, from people who have plenty to spare, in the face of his appeals to the historic, systemic oppression of Indigenous people?” Who indeed?

Phillip Adams ran a similar line on LNL. Adams referred to Charles’ tactic of “collecting the rent” and implied that such behaviour was quite okay since he merely “went for posh houses in places like Kew”.

If such rent collections are approved by Eureka Street and LNL, perhaps Mr Charles might do a little burglary in the Jesuit headquarters in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn (not far from Kew). Or perhaps at Mr Adams’ pile in inner Sydney Paddington or Scone – or both.

Such was the ABC week that was.

SPLINTERS FROM THE BONE – AND HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Nancy’s Pick of the Week is becoming so popular that journalists, columnists and others are working so hard to get a mention.

This time around special notice should be given to:

  • Adele Horin who wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald last weekend: “The Howard Government’s policies left a legacy of stressed, over-worked parents and set gender equity back a decade, a new study shows.” This makes a noble contribution to that body literature known as “It’s all Howard’s fault” school. After all, isn’t it the claim of the anti-Howard school that his government handed out middle class welfare so women could become stay-at-home Mums?
  • Barrister come Sun-Herald columnist Charles Waterstreet who, in a rambling column last Sunday, claimed that during a “very brief courtship” he had paid a “considerable sum … for Gretel [Killeen] to have her teeth capped”. Go on. Alas, he did – for many more rambling words – sending a message to Ms Killeen. Can’t Mr Waterstreet afford a postage stamp?

SEND THE BOYS TO MECCA APPEAL (CONTINUED)

Financial support continues to arrive to send the team of The Chaser’s War On Everything (except Islam) to Saudi Arabia. Last Wednesday The Chaser Boys (average age circa 36) actually did a studio segment on what was termed “extremist Middle East TV”. Now the ABC studio in Ultimo is a much safer environment than, say, Mecca. So this didn’t take much courage. MWD continues its campaign to send The Boys to Mecca to mock the Prophet. Body bags for the return trip home have already been secured.

POSTSCRIPT

A reader has directed MWD’s attention to Professor Jake Lynch’s appearance on Margaret Throsby’s program on ABC Classic FM yesterday. He holds the title of Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. Apparently, the professor’s April effort on ABC FM was so good it was repeated last Thursday – in the lead-up to the Centre’ forthcoming planned protest in Queensland. MWD will report on the Thought of Jake next week.

MWD will also cover the Adelaide Festival of Ideas which got underway today and which attracts many media types. Actually, it’s more like the Adelaide Festival of Idea – since virtually everyone agrees with everyone else. Just like the Melbourne Festival of Ideas (read Idea) of recent memory.

Starting next week – due to popular request – MWD will commence a “History Corner” section – correcting errors of fact which appear in print and on the electronic media.

Until next time …