GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 20
24 JULY 2009
NANCY’S PICKS OF THE WEEK
Nancy just loves it when journalists and other commentators do what they do best – namely agree with each other on various fashionable causes. So, in the current week, your dog Nancy could not fail to be impressed with members of the fourth estate agreeing with one another in a fashionable kind of way – on such “usual suspects” as Sky News Agenda, The Age, ABC News Breakfast and ABC Radio National Late Night Live.
▪ Katharine Murphy and Malcolm Farr Channel Liberal MPs, Greta “I want to be alone” Garbo and The Punter
What a familiar sight it was on the Sky News PM Agenda program last Wednesday when presenter David Speers agreed with The Age’s Katharine Murphy who agreed with the Daily Telegraph’s Malcolm Farr on one of the Canberra Press Gallery’s articles of faith. Yes, you’ve guessed it, the Doctrine of Climate Change. In this instance Mr Speers agreed with Mr Farr who agreed with Ms Murphy that the Coalition Opposition in Canberra should Just Do It and support the Rudd Labor Government’s intention to introduce an emissions trading scheme.
Katharine Murphy’s performance was particularly impressive because – if you happened to be distracted and happened to miss any one of her bon mots – she was quite willing to repeat herself. This occurred when Ms Murphy went into character mode and assumed the persona of a (foolish) Liberal Party MP who just wanted to oppose the ETS and lose another election. Let’s go to the video tape.
Katharine Murphy: Well, we’ve just re-run the last election. Shall we? We’ll just do that again, ‘cause that worked quite well for us. You know. And we won the election. You know. Let’s do that again and see how we go.
David Speers: Thank you very much.
Katharine Murphy: Thank you very much. You know.
Yes – we do know. Ms Murphy did not name even one Liberal or National Party MP who actually holds the position she mocked. Still, she had lostsa fun ridiculing the position of those Coalition MPs who oppose the Rudd Government’s current proposals on an ETS.
Soon after, Malcolm Farr raised the issue of whether Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull should be on leave when climate change was fueling debate within the Coalition. So, Katharine Murphy sounded forth yet again. In between her own artificial laughter and an occasion attempted interjection, Ms Murphy stated her view that Malcolm Turnbull just wanted to be alone. Here we go:
Katharine Murphy: Maybe he wants to be alone. Maybe he wants to be alone. Just be alone with his thoughts. With his thoughts and his strategies. Maybe he wants to be alone.
Good point, don’t you think? Good point. Good point. Good point, don’t you think? You know.
However, by far the most revealing point of the Agenda panel discussion came from Malcolm Farr who initiated the final subject.
Malcolm Farr: But one final thing. The poor old Punter. We, we, we we – it’s not long ago that we couldn’t cut interest rates because inflation was too high. And now we can’t cut interest rates ‘cause inflation’s too low. I mean, no wonder the man and woman in the street are going barking mad wondering if, you know, what on earth the Reserve Bank knows about anything.
Katharine Murphy: Mm. That’s true. Yeah.
David Speers: Well, we’ll leave that for greater minds to assess.
Sometimes you wonder if there could be greater minds than Malcolm Farr or Katharine Murphy. But if any were located – within or outside Punter land – they might be aware that the Reserve Bank has dropped the official interest rate by some 425 basis points over the last year or so – during which time the risk of increasing inflation has diminished somewhat.
▪ Doing What The Age Does Best
It seems that Ms Murphy agreed with the Agenda panel because this is what Age journalists tend to do – i.e. they tend to agree with each other in the fashionable leftie kind of way. And so it came to pass that, last Monday, The Age provided two almost identical analyses of the terrorist attacks on two hotels in Jakarta.
The powers-that-be at The Age opposed the statements made by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and Chief of the Defence Force Angus Houston that there was a connection between Islamist terrorist attacks in Indonesia and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. So The Age drummed up two journalists to attack this view – on the same page.
Daniel Flitton declared that “Australia’s leaders are wrong to link two separate tragedies in a cynical effort to win public support for an unpopular war”. And Michelle Grattan said much the same thing. The Age ran an identical line in its editorial on Tuesday. The following day, however, The Age reported that some informed Indonesians had said that there was a connection between the terrorist attacks on Jakarta and al-Qaeda operatives in the Pakistan Afghanistan region. So did Mr Flitton or Ms Grattan or the editorial writer take back their suggestion that the likes of Rudd, Turnbull and Houston had cooked up this line for political purposes? Not on your nelly. Age types seldom acknowledge errors.
▪ Waleed Aly’s Comment Interrupted
In any event, The Age’s Monday coverage excited Monash University academic Waleed Aly when he lined up to discuss the newspapers of the day on the ABC 2 News Breakfast program on 20 July. Dr Aly declared that any link between Afghanistan and terrorism in Indonesia “deserves to be interrogated”. So he quoted Daniel Flitton and Michelle Grattan with approval and condemned “political posturing” on Afghanistan by Labor, the Coalition and the Australian Defence Force. Aly went on to query whether the Islamist Jemaah Islamiyah group was even responsible for the Indonesian bombings. By the way, Waleed Aly is also an Age columnist and part of the “Guardian on the Yarra”/ABC continuing love-in.
Normally the media commentary spot before the 7 am News is repeated before the 8 am News. But not last Monday. The powers-that-be at News Breakfast decided to junk Dr Aly’s earlier comments and he did his news analysis all over again. This time there was no support for The Thought of Flintoff or The Thought of Grattan and no claim that JI was unconnected with the bombings in Jakarta. It all went down the Aunty memory hole.
▪ Robert Manne, Bushfires and Neo-Liberalism
Meanwhile on Late Night Live last Wednesday, Phillip Adams assembled a panel of two – Frank Campbell and Professor Robert Manne – to discuss the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. Adams agreed with Campbell who agreed with Manne who agreed with Adams that the relevant authorities were responsible for the high death toll. But, of course, no one mentioned the responsibility of the environmentalists who had opposed pre-summer back-burning and clearing (even on the side of the main roads) and, consequently, contributed to the very high death toll. It’s just not done to criticise Greens and luvvies on LNL.
In any event, the you-beaut part of the intellectual LNL love-in occurred when the La Trobe University professor blamed the consequences of the fires on, wait for it, Neo-Liberalism. Asked by Adams about his explanation for what had happened, Professor Manne responded in a rambling way:
I think that it’s, in a way, it’s what I would call Neo-Liberalism. It’s, it’s the idea of – another way of not empowerment but mutual obligation – that the government, which doesn’t want to spend money, um, says that the citizen, um, has an obligation to do something and, you know, there is a mutual link between them. I think that, um, asking citizens to do things that, um, that the government clearly doesn’t want to – can’t afford, doesn’t want to afford, probably genuinely couldn’t because of the situation in the country, um – is, is an attempt to, to give us, sort of sanctify, what really is a policy of “we can’t do much” and “we’ll leave it to you”.
So that’s quite clear, then. Professor Manne wants us to believe that the death toll from the 2009 Victorian Bushfires is all the fault of Neo-Liberalism. The following questions come to mind. Was Neo-Liberalism also to blame for the deaths in the 1851, 1939 and 1983 Victorian Bushfires as well? In what sense is the Victorian Labor government – which has been in office since 1999 – a Neo-Liberal administration? If Neo-Liberalism is all the go in the State of Victoria right now, how come residents in the high fire risk areas were prevented by environmentalists in local government from clearing land and road sides?
Robert Manne gives the impression of an academic under pressure of looming catastrophe. Indeed he has become a catastrophist. Who can forget Robert Manne’s article in the August 2008 issue of The Monthly. [By the way, has The Monthly started a Letters Page in its print edition yet? Ed]. In an essay on climate change Manne evoked such words and phrases as “terrifying prospect”, “catastrophic”, “utterly calamitous”, “nightmare situation”, “the human story would effectively be over” and “the greatest crisis in the history of humanity”. Well, Nancy can forget this for starters. Anyone else?
WHAT’S NOT IN THE NEWS (CONTINUED)
▪ Let’s hear it from the 13th Man
Can you believe it. For the first time in around a decade, John Howard received a soft, friendly interview from Radio National’s very own Fran Kelly. It just happened to be the Second Test at Lords – in which the former prime minister banged on about the cricket, who really should have been man of the match, visiting the Australian team in the change rooms and so on. RN Breakfast actually ran this dross in prime time. What a shame Ms Kelly did not see fit to bowl up some long hops to Mr Howard on, say, national security when he was prime minister.
▪ John Safran – Gagged Not Suffocated
Word from the ABC is that John Safran’s recent crucifixion in the Philippines – which was approved in advance by the ABC Legal Services Department – is off-the-record. Mr Safran has told the Sunday Telegraph that he is not allowed to talk of his experiences on a cross near Manila. Nor will the ABC state how Mr Safran’s (very public) nailing fits in with the ABC’s Editorial Policies document. We’ll keep you posted, as the saying goes.
▪ The Dead – 1; Sandal Wearer – 0
Meanwhile Sunday Telegraph columnist Charles Waterstreet’s most recent treatise was on death, burial, cremation and so on. His more recent piece commenced with the death of Michael Jackson and ended with a rumour that the late Steve Irwin might have been “cut up and fed to his favourite crocodiles”.
MWD just loves the Waterstreetlife column. For example, last week’s effort where the Sydney barrister reflected on his (on-going) wooing days:
As a university student intent on bedding a fellow scholar who was studying archaeology and spending Christmas holidays on a dig in Echuca in Victoria, I offered myself to the cause. While strolling, sweating hand in sweating hand, along a recently excavated canal at sunset I stubbed my toe on something that turned out to be a skull in an Aboriginal burial ground. The then-popular Roman sandals offered no protection to your feet from the protruding bones.
It’s difficult to think of a more appropriate toe to stub.
▪ Crikey’s Fascista Put-Down
Meanwhile, can you hear Mel Campbell’s claim in Crikey (9 July) that the gorgeous Condoleeza Rice has been dressing in “fascist chic”? – just because she has frocked up in a black pencil skirt replete with military style buttons accompanied by stiletto-heeled boots. It looked quite fetching to MWD. Does the Crikey team really expect everyone to dress like, say, Guy Rundle. Come to think of it your man Guy, who describes himself as a product of Brighton Grammar 1983, could do with some attention to fashion. It could be of cold turkey benefit if he ever decides to give up his addiction to long-winded leftist analysis which still afflicts him from his days at Arena Magazine.
PRIVATE EYE NAILS BEA “POTTY” CAMPBELL (OBE) – FANATACIST
While on the topic of Late Night Live, MWD is still rejoicing that the favourite guest of presenter Phillip Adams (AO et al, CPA ex) – one Beatrix “call me Bea” Campbell (Stalinist Retd) – was recently awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. MWD was reminded of Bea Campbell on reading Phillip Adams’ column in last Saturday’s edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine. Here PA ran his (familiar) line that he is a sceptic on most matters – with climate change as an obvious exception – and that he opposes “loony tunes” and all that.
It seems, however, that Mr Adams makes an exception for the occasional loony tune behaviour of a certain Bea Campbell. Here is how the 10 July 2009 edition of Private Eye reported Dr Campbell’s gong – under the heading “Beatrix Potty”.
Followers of the career of Marxist feminist Green party candidate and republican journalist Beatrix Campbell were astonished when she was awarded an OBE for services to equal opportunities in the Queen’s birthday honours last month. Campbell was one of the first proponents of a belief in the Satanic ritual abuse myth in the early 1990s and remained resolutely vocal in support, together with a network of believers, long after government-commissioned research, by Professor Jean La Fontaine, concluded in 1994 there was no evidence to support the claims. Before and even since that report, dozens of families were devastated by false allegations that they were devil worshipping paedophiles sexually abusing children in Satanic rituals that included drinking blood and urine and sacrificing animals and babies.
In the 1990s Campbell also wrote in defence of the now discredited “recovered memory” therapy after which adult patients alleged they had been sexually abused in childhood. Professional regulatory bodies have since warned practitioners such recovered memory techniques could implant false memories. Campbell and her partner Judith Jones (formerly Dawson), a social worker involved in the notorious Nottingham case in which social workers came to believe a genuine and vile case of incest was “Satanic”, wrote a book, Stolen Voices: An exposure of the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony, due to be published in November 1999. In fact it was a diatribe against anyone who dared question the existence of ritual abuse and whether some allegations of abuse might be false and it had to be withdrawn on the eve of publication following extensive complaints of inaccuracies and threats of legal action for libel.
Two pre-publication reviews give a flavour. The Independent described it as “a polemic, salted with emotive language and sarcastic commentary”. It concluded: “Its authors are so blinded by ideology that they do a disservice to the people they claim to represent.” And in a scathing review in the Evening Standard, La Fontaine, who had debunked ritual abuse, wrote: “The authors use person attack to advance their view…The use of innuendo is distasteful and, where I can judge them, the ‘facts’ are not true.”
Earlier, at the height of the Satanic panic, in October 1990, Campbell had also produced a much panned documentary for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, in which she claimed to reveal evidence of Satanic child abuse in Nottingham. The Nottinghamshire chief constable, Dan Compton, whose officers had exhaustively investigated the allegations of ritual abuse and murder made by social workers (including Campbell’s partner Judith Dawson/Jones), sent a dossier to the home secretary “to kill off once and for all” the claims of ritual abuse. He accused Campbell’s film of “sensationalising unsubstantiated stories”.
At least the OBE will look better on the Campbell CV than the pulped book and derided documentary.
Who knows. One day Phillip Adams AO will do the correct thing and list the British former communist among his list of loony tunes. But don’t hold your breath – or your gongs (if you have any).
SBS’S NORMAN ABJORENSEN’S DRUNKEN ALLEGATION
Just imagine what would be thought if someone like Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman publicly praised a documentary on Paul Keating’s Labor government which was being shown on SBS. It is likely that someone or other might get the impression that the film was critical of the Keating Government. Or that Akerman had gone barking mad. Or something like that.
Right now SBS TV is using the words of leftist Australian National University academic Norman Abjorensen to spruik its three part documentary on John Howard’s government titled Liberal Rule, which commenced last Tuesday. In fact, Dr Abjorensen is one of a bunch of leftist academics and journalistic types who are given a chance to have a swing at Howard and his ministers in the documentary. Not one academic or journalist who is supportive of the Howard Government is heard on the program. Nor is there any criticism of Howard from a conservative or right-of-centre perspective. All the criticism and commentary of Howard is from the left. There are also a few – but not many – neutral comments.
If SBS management had read Norman Abjorensen’s book John Howard and the Conservative Tradition (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2008) they would know that it is little more than a rant against the Howard Government. This is even acknowledged by the left. In a brief review in The Age on 10 January 2009, Owen Richardson wrote: “Norman Abjorensen maintains the rage: the ANU politics lecturer and ex-Fairfax journalist was a ferocious critic of the Liberals while they were in power and their eclipse hasn’t made him any more sanguine about their erstwhile leader.”
To be fair to SBS management, it’s possible that they have not read Dr Abjorensen’s latest tome. In which case, they are not Robinson Crusoe – as the saying goes (or went). In a letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday 22 July, the ANU academic claimed that his book John Howard and the Conservative Tradition “is now in its second printing”. Maybe it is. It all depends how many copies were printed in the first instance. The authoritative Nielsen Bookscan reveals that, as of 11 July 2009, John Howard and the Conservative Tradition had sold a total of 96 copies. Yes – just 96 – of which Nancy has one in her kennel. You’ve heard about best sellers? Well, Dr Abjorensen is the proud author of a little noticed worst seller.
However, there is no excuse for SBS management’s apparent inability to monitor Abjorensen’s work on-line. This tells us much not only about the ANU academic himself but also about the standards of intellectual discourse which are acceptable at the Australian National University.
▪ Writing in Crikey on 29 June 2009, Norman Abjorensen referred to “Turnbullshi-t”. Clever, eh? He went on to canvass possible replacements for Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal Party leader. Wrote the ANU academic:
Is Wilson Tuckey really too old? Is Philip Ruddock still alive? Can a seat be found for John Howard? Can Sir Robert Menzies be exhumed?
How funny can you get? The self-proclaimed Liberal Party expert went on to make the following point on the party’s leadership tradition:
If the party cannot find a replacement within its embarrassingly thin ranks, perhaps it needs to take a look at history. After the advent of the two-party system in 1909, the conservatives simply pinched Labor men: Cook (prime minister 1913-14), Hughes (1915-23) and Lyons (1932-39). The very English Stanley Melbourne Bruce (1923-29) was the sole exception until the arrival of Menzies.
Norman (“call me Doctor”) Abjorensen seems completely unaware that the conservative John Latham led the Nationalist Party between 1929 and 1931.
▪ Writing in the Inside Story website on 2 July 2009, Abjorensen reviewed the SBS Liberal Rule documentary. He is an example of the intellectual standards of the university academic, whose views SBS maintains should be listened to:
[Peter] Reith, in interview here [i.e. in Liberal Rule] seems to be on happy pills, laughing and joking his way through; it was all a jolly jape, quite harmless really. And he would do it all again. Alexander Downer, who seems to have been interviewed after lunch, characterises the government as having been run by four “warriors” whom he names as Howard, Costello, Reith and himself. Only Peter Costello manages a sense of gravitas, which is not to suggest he engages in anything approaching profundity or even reflection… The problem with conservatives in Australia is that they enjoy an uneasy relationship with our egalitarian social traditions; they do not entirely trust the people.
Norman Abjorensen went on to describe Liberal Rule – which was written by Nick Torrens and Garry Sturgess – as “tightly scripted and brilliantly edited” and added:
This is superb television: incisive, analytical and provocative. Quite simply, it is the best effort yet at coming to grips with these extraordinary years in which we all played a part in one man’s ambition.
For the record, Abjorensen’s implied claim that Alexander Downer was drunk when he was interviewed for Liberal Rule is both false and defamatory. The fact is that Mr Downer looked cold stone sober when interviewed by Nick Torrens. Also, Alexander Downer does not drink alcohol during the working day. The fact that SBS seeks legitimacy in Norman Abjorensen’s analyses tells us much about SBS.
HISTORY CORNER
Many thanks to the Friends of Nancy who have commenced contributing to this segment. MWD’s predicament can be stated as follows – so many (uncorrected) historical howlers, so little space.
Confusion over the Fusion’s Issue
Meet Nick Dyrenfurth. According to reports, he is editing a centenary book on the “Fusion” in 1909 between the protectionists and the free traders which created the inaugural Liberal Party at the Commonwealth level. This entity later became the National Labour Party, the Nationalist Party and the United Australia Party. In an article in The Australian on 18 March 2009, Nick Dyrenfurth made the following claim:
…the Liberal Party Robert Menzies formed out of the UAP’s ashes suffered two debilitating electoral defeats in 1943 and 1946. Menzies seriously considered resigning. Under Menzies’ reinvigorated leadership, however, the Liberals recovered to defeat Ben Chifley’s Labor Party at the 1949 election.
In fact, the Liberal Party was not formed until 1944 – the formation was formalised in early 1945. Moreover, Menzies did not lead the UAP at the 1943 election. The Country Party leader Arthur Fadden led the conservative Coalition in 1943 – the senior UAP figure at the time was Billy Hughes, not Robert Menzies. Dr Dyrenfurth is an academic who specialises in labour history. Say no more.
STOP PRESS
What a performance by The Chaser’s executive director Julian Morrow on Q&A last night. Mr Morrow laughed at most things except, of course, climate change on which he was oh-so-serious. Julian Morrow’s concern about the warming planet mirrors that of Martin Luther about indulgences all those centuries ago. [By the way, has Leigh Sales yet come up with the evidence that the Reverend Martin was a self-doubting type? Previous issues refer – Ed].
Perhaps the best Chaser’s joke of the night was Julian Morrow’s claim that The Chaser is “not self-censoring”. How about that. The Chaser’s executive producer had just returned from a visit to St John’s Church in Canberra – where he had attempted to climb on the roof to make a point against Kevin Rudd. To save taxpayers money, Morrow could have made the same point by taking a train to Lakemba Railway Station and attempting to climb on the roof of the nearby Lakemba Mosque. It’s just that Anglicans in Canberra and Catholics in Rome are softer targets than Muslims in Lakemba or, indeed, Mecca. It’s called self-censoring behaviour.
By the way, the “Send the Chaser Boys (average age 35) to Mecca” campaign is still extant – so keep the money coming in. No more body bags required for the return journey.
These days Kerry O’Brien’s 7.30 Report is tired and Lateline contains little genuine debate. It seems that ABC 1 has attempted to liven its news and current affairs content by turning Q&A into light entertainment. So last night, despite the presence of Health Minister Nicola Roxon on the panel, there was no discussion on the Influenza – H1N1 Influenza A Virus. But time was set aside to discuss a Chaser stunt of over a month ago.
It was interesting to note that the panelists most critical of The Chaser’s so-called humour about terminally ill children were Ms Roxon and Dr Charlie Teo. The weakest on The Chaser were Liberal Party Senator Nick Minchin and free marketeer Jessica Brown. Yet Morrow’s position is to the left of the Labor Party. This tells us much about the Liberal Party – and the ABC. ABC operative James Carleton once told MWD that the ABC liked inviting certain conservatives into its programs because they invariably let down the conservatives cause. There you go.
Until next time – when Professor Jake Lynch will get his day with Nancy. Promise.