Issue 195

Aunty Roots for Independent in Indi

In the lead-up to an election, the ABC scrupulously observes equal time allocations as between the main political parties and their candidates. However, you can sometimes tell which side an ABC journalist is on by checking out the leading questions and who else is interviewed.

Take the relatively safe seat of Indi, in north-east Victoria, for example. Sophie Mirabella, the sitting Liberal Party MP, is a close associate of Tony Abbott. Ms Mirabella is being challenged by an Independent candidate – Cathy McGowan. She has the support of the Independent MP for New England Tony Windsor, who is much loved within the public broadcaster.

On RN Breakfast this morning, Fran (“I’m an activist”) Kelly introduced a report by Alison Carabine on the Indi campaign. Sophie Mirabella declined to be interviewed for RN Breakfast. [A sensible move. Ed] However the program used an interview which she had given to ABC local radio. Ms Carabine spoke to Cathy McGowan. For an “impartial” assessment, Carabine also interviewed local businessman Russell Close – who happens to be supporting McGowan [Fancy that. Ed]

Just to make sure Mr Close did not miss with his answer, Ms Carabine asked a leading question. Here we go:

Alison Carabine: And it doesn’t help Sophie that she’s not really a local. That she’s a Melbourne girl?

Russell Close: Doesn’t help Sophie at all, yeah. It doesn’t help Sophie at all.

Sure. And it does not help Sophie Mirabella that the RN Breakfast political reporter sought to remind Cathy McGowan that Ms Mirabella was not born in Indi. Especially since no supporter of the Liberal Party candidate was interviewed by RN Breakfast.

Meanwhile, over at ABC 1 News Breakfast, the ABC reporter was also into leading questions designed to be helpful to the McGowan campaign. Here we go:

James Bennett: Is part of your campaign based on this idea that, being a safe seat, it’s being taken for granted. People aren’t getting what they might otherwise in a marginal or Independent seat.

Cathy McGowan: That’s certainly one of the issues. It’s, it's a safe seat and people do feel like their vote has been taken for granted …

Well, fancy that. The ABC reporter suggested that it might be a good idea if Indi went Independent. And, lo and behold, the Independent candidate for Indi agreed.

Mark Scott’s Election Dilemma

ABC Managing director Mark Scott is not happy at the public broadcaster’s virtual exclusion from the Leaders’ Debate held last Sunday.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott’s insistence prevailed – and the debate was hosted by the National Press Club in Canberra. The fact is that neither Labor (national secretary George Wright) nor the Liberal Party (national director Brian Loughnane) wanted the ABC as host. Labor’s preference was Channel 7.

The National Press Club, as host of the event, negotiated with Messers Wright and Loughnane as to who should compere the debate. Sky News’ David Speers got the job, presiding over a journalistic panel consisting of Simon Benson (News Limited), Lyndal Curtis (ABC) and Peter Hartcher (Fairfax Media). The ABC’s role was confined to production.

This means that either Labor or the Liberal Party – or both – was not prepared to entrust the occasion to an ABC presenter. Consequently, the likes of Leigh Sales, Tony Jones, Chris Uhlmann, Sabra Lane, Barrie Cassidy, Virginia Trioli and Michael Rowland missed out on the opportunity to compere a debate between the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader on behalf of the public broadcaster.

For years, Mark Scott has been in a state of denial about the ABC. He simply denies that the ABC tends to criticise both Labor and the Coalition from the left. And he refuses to consider the implications or the fact that senior Liberal figures such as Tony Abbott and Eric Abetz regard the ABC as lacking balance. This despite the fact that the likes of Tony Jones (Q & A), Emma Alberici (Lateline), Leigh Sales (7.30) and Fran Kelly (RN Breakfast) have publicly complained about the apparent unwillingness of Tony Abbott to appear regularly – if at all – on the key ABC news and current affairs programs.

Mark Scott will not face up to the fact that large sections of the Coalition – which has the support of around half of the Australian electorate – do not believe that the ABC is fair and balanced with respect to some key programs. Nor will he concede that there are consequences of the ABC having become a Conservative-Free-Zone, without a conservative presenter or producer or editor for any of its main TV or radio or online products while it continues to employ leftists in key roles.

The Australian reported on Wednesday that Mark Scott has written to the ALP and the Liberal Party seeking to have a debate hosted by the ABC and held in regional Australia. According to this report, Mr Scott’s letter read as follows:

… [the ABC] is crucial to the whole point of the exercise: allowing the leaders to explain their policies and be held accountable to the widest possible audience … The corporation is concerned that politicking is continuing to complicate and undermine the debates.

The problem for the ABC is that, on the available evidence, neither the ALP nor the Liberal Party believes that Mark Scott has a solution to the Leaders’ Debate issue. The Liberals reportedly want two community forums compered by Sky News. And Labor wants debates, where journalists ask the questions, on, Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, and the ABC. Neither proposal recognises the ABC’s role as the public broadcaster. On 7.30 last night, Ms Sales seemed to be pleading with Tony Abbott to do two debates on 7.30 with Kevin Rudd. Her request got nowhere. The Opposition leader re-stated his request for community forums hosted by Sky News.

In the commercial world, if customers do not want a product, management is expected to examine what is wrong with what it is offering. But the managing director of the public broadcaster regards his role as criticising those who do not see the ABC, as it sees itself, as providing an answer to the Leaders Debate format.

When quizzed by Eric Abetz at the Senate’s Environment and Communications Legislation Committee on 29 May 2013, Mark Scott went onto denial mode when attempting to defend the appointment of Russell Skelton – a vocal critic of Mr Abbott in particular and conservatives in general – as head of the ABC’s Fact Checking Unit.

It was much the same when the ABC’s managing director was interviewed by Jonathan Green on the RN Drive program on 2 May 2013. Here Mark Scott used the privilege of an interview on the ABC conducted by an ABC employee to bucket a critic (as the transcript demonstrates) who had no opportunity of a right of reply on the taxpayer funded broadcaster:

Jonathan Green: Gerard Henderson’s continual and broad point about presenters on the ABC [is] that there is one token rightist, Amanda Vanstone –

Mark Scott: [interjecting] Again, I just think that is a simplistic analysis of what happens. I mean, who knows how many broadcasters or journalists on the ABC vote? That’s not the point. You know, we have editorial guidelines that our reporters and journalists operate under. They’re the ones that you operate under. To host a conversation for the ABC, not to have a point of view but for there to be a range of views, a full range of discussion. And to somehow try and put ideological badges on a whole series of our presenters I think is absolutely simplistic.

Once again, this is mere denial. Of course, ABC presenters and producers and editors vote. The question Mark Scott refuses to answer is this: why is the ABC a Conservative-Free-Zone?

Mark Scott presides over a public broadcaster which, as he concedes, has been sidelined in the 2013 election Leaders’ Debates. And all he does is complain about the alleged “politicking” of the format, while dismissing his critics as ill-informed and “absolutely simplistic”.

Yet, if the Coalition wins on 7 September, the ABC will have to deal with Tony Abbott as prime minister and Eric Abetz as government leader in the Senate.

Mike Carlton’s Broken Ribs: The Case for Full Disclosure

When, and if, Nancy’s (male) co-owner emerges in hangover mood on Saturday mornings, he invariably stumbles out into the world to pick up The Sydney Morning Herald containing the regular column by Mike (“I’ll pour the gin”) Carlton.

Last Saturday’s effort did not disappoint – until the final segment. Your man Carlton was high on abuse. Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited colleagues were depicted as “the harlots of Holt St”. [What’s wrong with harlots? Ed.] Moreover, in The Australian, Adam Creighton had written a “lunatic column”.

To emphasise the point, Mike Carlton described The Australian as a “kiddie comic” and depicted Rupert Murdoch as a “raddled old mogul”. Mike Carlton is aged 67 years. Also, the spouse of a conservative politician who had disgraced himself, was called a “devout Catholic wife” without any evidence of her (alleged) devoutness. Carlton uses the word devout as ridicule.

Then Mr Carlton began to write (again) about his favourite topic. Namely HIMSELF:

For reasons too tedious to explain, I am struggling to write this column through the pain of two cracked ribs and torn stomach muscles. I woke in agony last Saturday, tried to stoically endure at home for 24 hours, but eventually succumbed on Sunday evening and called triple-0 for an ambulance to get me to hospital.

Here you are probably expecting an angry outcry about delay and bungling, the stuff we hear too much of these days. Not so. I was overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. The man at triple-0 was calmly efficient. An ambulance supervisor arrived within minutes of my call, explained that he had been in the area, and pumped me full of sweet, fabulous morphine. Two paramedics turned up hot on his heels and placed me gently into their ambulance.

Of them I can recall only that the bloke was as strong as an ox and the woman had beautiful eyes. At the emergency department at Mona Vale Hospital they, too, were care, courtesy and competence personified. And no, it's not because they picked me as a media figure. Rightly, I was triaged like everyone else, to wait my turn. But they did it superbly, every one, and I am very grateful to you all.

Great news that Mr Carlton was not treated so well because he was recognised as “a media figure”. Here’s the point [At last. Ed.] MWD is into tedium – especially where Mike Carlton’s columns are concerned.

So it would be just great to find out how it came to pass that Mike (“I’ll pour the gin”) Carlton woke up last Saturday morning with two cracked ribs and torn stomach muscles. Did he fall out of bed? Did he fall into bed? Did a light fitting fall from the ceiling? On to Mike? Tell us more. Tell us all.

Mike Seccombe’s Confused, Frankly

What a wonderful contribution to the Q & A online discussion last Monday by Mike (“Private schools make us dumber”) Seccombe. This is how The Global Mail journalist opined from his couch while watching Q & A:

#QandA Watch the pollie/flak who says “honestly” … It’s a dead giveaway, like “frankly”, the [sic] indicates its opposite.

Brilliant, don’t you think? Mr Seccombe gave plenty of evidence on Monday about his astuteness. What a pity, then, that he does not have a memory to match. As MWD readers will be aware (Issue 172), this was Mike Seccombe’s contribution to the discussion on ABC News 24’s The Drum on 15 February 2013, when the discussion turned on the fate of Fairfax Media newspapers:

Julia Baird: Mike, you worked at Fairfax for a long time.

Mike Seccombe: I did.

Julia Baird: But these are very troubling results. What can we attribute this to?

Mike Seccombe: Well I think we can attribute it to bad management, quite frankly, … The Fairfax papers decided they would go down market, they shed a lot of staff and now they’re looking at going behind a pay-wall when, I suspect, a lot of people aren’t gonna be that interested to see what’s behind that pay-wall because all the people that they thought were good aren’t there anymore.

Now, based on Mike Seccombe’s subsequent analysis, when he said “quite frankly” on The Drum he really meant to indicate the opposite. That is, Mr Seccombe really meant to say that Fairfax media was well managed, Confused? So is your man Seccombe. By the way, it was Liberal MP Christopher Pyne who used the word “honestly” and who was the target of Secco’s confused rant.

Jonathan Holmes’ (false) Cold War Boast

It was only fitting that Jonathan Holmes, the left wing [ABC] Media Watch presenter of recent memory, should be replaced by Paul Barry the left-wing ABC Media Watch presenter of recent memory. This was not only a chummy arrangement of a kind which has seen such leftists as Jonathan Green and Chip Rolley and Russell Skelton and Waleed Aly and Julian Morrow get key ABC appointments over the last couple of years. More importantly, it confirms MWD’s assessment of the ABC as a Conservative-Free Zone.

Jonathan Holmes had planned to apply for the position of head of the ABC’s Fact Checking Unit. He then withdrew his application at the last minute. Russell Skelton got the gig. Mr Holmes has commenced a column in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald and he appears occasionally on various ABC outlets. On 8 August, for example, the former ABC Media Watch presenter obtained a gig on the “Journos’ Forum” on Richard Glover’s 702 Drive program. Listeners heard the following conversation:

Jonathan Holmes: I used to know a lot about the Cold War.

Oh yeah. As MWD devotees will be aware, the British born Holmes was appointed executive producer of Four Corners, the then key ABC TV current affairs progam in 1982, despite the fact that he knew absolutely nothing about Australia. See MWD Issue 93. Yet another example of the ABC left appointing the left, it seems. It would seem that the job description, at the same time, read something like this:

Executive Producer. Four Corners (circa 1982)

Four Corners, the Australian public broadcaster’s leading current affairs program, requires an executive producer. The successful applicant need not know anything about Australia. In fact, wilful ignorance is a plus. However, an ability to spell the name of Comrade Alan Ashbolt correctly is essential. [Is this a snide reference to the fact that the leftist Alan Ashbolt (1921-2005) commenced the first big leftist stack at the ABC? Ed]

In 1990, Jonathan Holmes’ ignorance of Australia was demonstrated when he produced a film on the Communist Party of Australia titled The Party’s Over. It was your typical ABC documentary replete with howlers and with only left-wing views heard. To viewers of The Party’s Over, it was evident that Jonathan Holmes did not have a clue about the Cold War as it affected Australia in general and the Communist Party of Australia in particular. But your man Holmes now boasts that he used to know a lot about the Cold War. Can you bear it?

[Gerard Henderson’s original critique on The Party’s Over was published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 8 May 1990. See here. The resulting correspondence between an angry Holmes and a factoid Henderson can be read here. Ed]

Professor Dewar Flashes Ignorance Early in the Morning

There was Professor John Dewar of La Trobe University [Proudly one of Australia’s Top 500 Polluters] on ABC 1 News Breakfast a 6.45am this morning doing the “Newspapers” gig. God knows what would motivate a vice-chancellor to get up at sparrows and head into the ABC studio at Southbank in Melbourne in order to talk for 5 minutes or so about what someone or other wrote in some newspaper. Or, on second thoughts, perhaps not even God knows.

Professor Dewar decided to go into lecture mode and rail against Tony Abbott’s comment about Fiona Scott’s sex appeal

John Dewar: Sex does sell in politics. But it’s very dangerous if you start making comments about people’s personal appearance – which, of course, is what’s happened in the last couple of days. But for me the important question I think should be – to any politician who’s thinking of commenting on another person’s appearance – would you make the same comment – if you’re about to make a comment about a woman – would you make the same comment about a man? And I don’t think ordinarily a male politician would make a comment about another male politician’s appearance. And if that’s the case I don’t think they should be doing it about a woman.

It was noticeable that, while condemning Tony Abbott’s comments about Fiona Scott, John Dewar said nothing about coverage in The Australian today about the Labor candidate for Bennelong’s comments on a female model’s breasts in 1999. Also, John Dewar has yet to condemn David Marr’s assessment of Tony Abbott’s genital size in his book Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott.

Can you bear it?

[I note that David Marr is still “taking the 5^th” and refusing to answer questions as to why he changed his story on the alleged 1977 Tony Abbott “Punch” between the first and second editions of his tome. Ed.]

Gay Alcorn’s Ageist Attack on Rupert Murdoch

It’s not so long since the Guardian-on-the-Yarra editorialised on Page one that Julia Gillard should be replaced by Kevin Rudd in order to save Australia from Tony Abbott. Or something like that.

The Age today carries an opinion piece by former Sunday Age editor Gay Alcorn. She describes News Limited coverage of the 2013 campaign as “the most partisan coverage of an election since 1975” when Rupert Murdoch supported Malcolm Fraser and the Coalition. This conveniently avoids the fact that in 1972 Murdoch even got involved in the election campaign – so enthusiastic was his support for Gough Whitlam and Labor.

Ms Alcorn went on to urge her readers “to consider that our democracy could be hijacked by an octogenarian intent on ‘regime change’”. This vastly over estimates the significance of media proprietors. Moreover, in terms of best practice at the Guardian-on-the-Yarra, this comment is both racist and ageist. But it passes the ageist standards since Murdoch is the target.

Can you bear it?

Annabel Crabb and Richard Glover

Due to the pressure of a social media campaign, the Luke & Leia Hyperbole Hunt segment returns – after what journalists like to call a well-earned break. Not with a whimper. But with a (loud) bark.

During a wonderful media moment when journalists interview journalists, this is what occurred on the ABC Radio 702 Drive program on Wednesday:

• Annabel Crabb commented that Tony Abbott’s statement that the Liberal Party would put the Greens last on its how-to-vote card would mean that the Liberals would put the Greens behind the “United Facists and Child Murderers Party”. Really.

• Richard Glover declared that “Australia is increasingly becoming like North Korea” since “it’s no longer a democracy”. Really.

Enough said.

Judging Sex Appeal

Nancy’s (male) co-owner is unfashionable enough to regard Fiona Scott, the Liberal Party candidate for Lindsay, as a sassy sheila. This follows Tony Abbott’s suggestion that she has a certain sex appeal.

But, according to Mark Latham, Tony Abbott must have been on the turps when he declared that Ms Scott was attractive. According to Latham.

It [Abbott’s statement] showed very bad judgement and it shows he has low standards. I had a good look at Fiona Scott on page eight and she doesn’t have sex appeal at all. She’s not that good a sort.

You be the judge. It’s Mark Latham on the left circa 2005. Hair styling by a borrowed wide comb. And it’s Fiona Scott on the right.

Gough Whitlam dismisses East Timorese in 1975 as “Mulattos”

There has been overwhelming interest in how Phil Craig, ABC Head of Factual, has defended the howlers, inventions and exaggerations in the ABC 1 documentary Whitlam: The Power & The Passion.

In the Correspondence section of the last two issues of MWD, Mr Craig has effectively junked his position of Head ABC Factual and adopted the positions of “Head ABC Storytelling” and “Head ABC Lyrical”. Apparently the ABC Head of Factual is not too bothered by wearisome facts.

In particular, Phil Craig has defended the unchallenged view of one-time Gough Whitlam staffer Graham Freudenberg that his Leader embodied “an absolute rejection of racial intolerance”. This in spite of Mr Whitlam’s dismissal of Vietnamese refugees in 1975 as “f-cking Vietnamese Balts”. Mr Craig claimed, without evidence, that Mr Whitlam was “under pressure” at the time. So, the comment was okay – apparently.

An avid reader has reminded MWD that Gough Whitlam’s racial intolerance, when prime minister in 1975, was not confined to Vietnamese. The one-time Labor senator John Button (1932-2008) recalled the following incident in his book As it Happened at pages 166-167:

Outside the hothouse of Canberra [in 1975], life went much as usual. Together with Liberal Senator Alan Missen, I spent quite a bit of time trying to help newly arrived Timorese refugees get accommodated in the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond and Springvale. They were sad people, anxious about relatives who’d remained in Timor. Whitlam, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate, had personally taken charge of refugee intakes from Vietnam and Timor. I went to see him about help for some of the Timorese families. It was a short discussion. “What are you worried about them for, comrade?” he said. “They’re all mulattos.” It was my last encounter with Whitlam as prime minister.

Once again, that’s okay – since the likes of Graham Freudenberg will forget that this comment was ever made and the likes of Phil Craig will step forward to declare that Gough Whitlam was “under pressure” at the time.

This segment, which commenced only last week, has already proved to be enormously popular. So it continues – due to requests from the teeming masses.

This week’s winner is Labor Party spinner Michael Gleeson (of Hawker-Britton fame). During a discussion on The Drum last Friday, conversation turned to the ill-informed comments of One Nation’s (then) candidate for the southern Queensland seat of Rankin – Stephanie Bannister. The 27 year-old has intolerant views on Islam.

Moreover, in an interview with Channel 7, Ms Bannister (i) described Islam as “a country”, (ii) confused the Koran with haram (which in Arabic means forbidden or proscribed because it is sacred) and (iii) said that the Jewish religion ”follows Jesus Christ”. Ms Bannister has since withdrawn as a One Nation candidate. Fair enough.

It’s always polite for the well-educated to refrain from mocking the less well-educated. But Michael Gleeson could not stop himself from lecturing a soft target on The Drum last Friday. Let’s go to the transcript:

Michael Gleeson: When you’ve got a room temperature IQ, you don’t deserve to be sitting in Parliament.

Well, thanks for that. The fact is that Stephanie Bannister had no chance of winning Rankin. Mr Gleeson was entitled to criticise Ms Bannister’s ignorance and evident intolerance. But he threw the switch to intellectual snobbery and declared that only the intelligent and educated – as measured on the IQ scale – are entitled to a seat in Parliament. Just people like Michael Gleeson, presumably.

If Michael Gleeson believes that people with low IQs should not sit in Parliament, then – presumably – they do not deserve to elect those who do. From snobbery to reaction – it’s a slippery slope.

David Carter on the Snobbery of Crikey’s Guy Rundle

Nancy’s (male) co-owner was brought up to like pastoral letters from the bishops or encyclicals from the Pope. It was not that they proclaimed a moral code. What was attractive about this kind of correspondence turned on the fact that the recipient was not expected to reply to, or even acknowledge, such missives.

MWD’s Correspondence section is enormously popular – but it is laborious to put together since it requires an exchange of views. Now MWD has set up a new segment to record the opinions of avid readers who have something useful to say but who do not want a response. First up, let’s hear from freelance journalist David Carter who was motivated to put hand to computer following last week’s story of the snobbery of Crikey’s very own Marxist comedian Guy Rundle.

10 August 2013

Good morning Gerard

Re Guy Rundle’s comment reported in MWD that in Western Sydney “the world ends where the fibro starts”. It shows you how far the left has come in the past 40 years or so. There was a time when the left characterised Liberal Party supporters as snobs looking in disdain at the working classes in their cheap fibro houses spread out over the plains of Western Sydney.

I expect there was some element of truth, that there were indeed Liberal supporters who did feel this way about the working masses. It was just that they were too polite to air these views in the media. In 2013, Mr Rundle, a warrior of the left, has no such qualms. He might see himself as all cloth cap, overalls and sturdy work boots, but he has become the woman in the mink stole and pearls looking down her nose through a lorgnette.

Cheers

David Carter

Henty NSW 2658

[Perhaps you should have considered this telling assessment of your favourite Marxist comedian and one of your preferred Brighton Grammar School graduates for Nancy’s prestigious 5 Paws Award. Just a thought. Ed]

“The nation mourns Gerard Henderson. He’s in perfect health.”

– Phillip Adams, via Twitter, 2 July 2013 (favourited by Virginia Trioli)

“Old Australian saying. ‘He wouldn’t know a tram was up him unless the bell rang’. Wholly appropriate to Gerard Henderson”

– Phillip Adams, via Twitter, 7 May 2013

“I said publicly once that I thought that Gerard’s views on the ABC came not from his brain but from his spinal cord”

– Tim Bowden as told to Phillip (“I was a teenage Stalinist”) Adams, Late Night Live, 11 June 2013 – Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday.

“Gerard Henderson is a crank”

– David Marr at the 2013 Sydney Writers’ Festival (as reported by Mike Carlton)

“The great Australian media nutter Gerard [Henderson is an] ungrateful bastard”.

– Mark Latham, Q&A, 10 June 2013.

“[Gerard Henderson] is a moral dwarf …Gerard, pull your head in”

– Professor Sinclair Davidson, 24 April 2013.

“[Henderson] You are mad. In the 18^th century you would have been caged, with the mob invited to poke you with sticks.”

– Mike Carlton, 5.23 pm (Gin & Tonic Time) 25 March 2013

“I like to think of Gerard [Henderson] as the Inspector Clouseau of forensic journalism”

– David Marr, ABC News 24 The Drum, 21 March 2013.

“[Media Watch Dog is] not a moan, more of a miserable dribble”

– Peter Munro, 21 March 2013

“You are a fool, Henderson, a malicious and mendacious piece of shit…

Now F_ck off”

– Mike Carlton, 11 March 2013 (Hangover Time).

“[Gerard Henderson is] an internet pest”

– Dr (for a doctor he is) Jeff Sparrow, 26 February 2013.

Jonathan Green: “Nancy, will be taking notes, I suspect”

Michael Rowland: “Nancy…yes. We’ll get a nice write-up on Friday. Good morning as well, Gerard. Thanks for watching, by the way.”

– ABC 1 News Breakfast, 18 October 2012

“Gerard [Henderson] is a complete f-ckwit”

– Malcolm Farr, via Twitter, 29 June 2012 (circa pre-dinner drinks)

“What a haughty flapping half-arsed buffoon he [Henderson] is”

– Bob Ellis on his Table Talk blog, 8 May 2012 (before breakfast)

“We’d better be careful what we say, just in case Gerard’s offsider pooch Nancy is keeping an eye on us for his delightfully earnest Media Watch Dog”

– Tom Cowie of The Power Index, Crikey 20 January 2012

“Henderson…What a pompous, pretentious turd you are.”

– Mike Carlton, Saturday 13 August 2011 (after lunch)

“Go to the Sydney Institute Media Watch Dog website to marvel at [its] work”

– Mark Latham The Spectator Australia 11 June 2011.

Media Watch Dog – “disgraceful”, “sick”

– Professor Robert Manne, April Fool’s Day 2011.

“Before going further can you write to confirm that these emails are private correspondence and not for publication”

– ABC News Radio’s Marius Benson, 11 March 2011. He did go further – see MWD Issue 86.

“I realise this makes me practically retarded, but until five minutes ago I thought Nancy was Gerard Henderson’s wife, not his dog.”

– Byronbache via Twitter, Monday 7 February 2011

“Gerard Henderson is big enough to take care of himself, but that doesn’t stop us worrying about him from time to time. Lately it’s Hendo’s tendency to self-harm that has us losing sleep. For example, peruse the correspondence he’s published in his latest Media Watch Dog blog…..There’s a part of us that just wants to ask: “Hendo, are you OK?”

– James Jeffrey’s “Strewth!” column, The Australian, 8 November 2010.

“Media Watch Dog on Fridays…is a sort of popular read in the Crikey office”

– Crikey’s Andrew Crook on ABC 2 News Breakfast, 24 September 2010.

Until next time. In the meantime, keep morale high.