GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 765

6 March 2026

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THE LATEST

  • Melissa Clarke’s confrontational interview with Israel’s Ambassador to Australia on ABC Radio National Breakfast

Media Watch Dog is a follower of the saying: “You will know them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:16). In this case, MWD knows journalists by how they act.

On Friday 6 March, Melissa Clarke interviewed Hillel Newman, the new Israeli ambassador to Australia. It was a hostile interview – MWD’s transcript can be read here. Put simply, Ms Clarke could not restrain her anger in what was a confrontational interview.

Here is an edited version of the conclusion of the interview where Melissa Clarke cross-examined Ambassador Newman about the recent bombing of what Iran has described as a school:

Melissa Clarke: I also want to ask about one of the events from early on in this week’s conflict, and that was the school that was struck in Iran that saw more than 160 people died, presumably, many of them children being in elementary school. What is being done to make sure that there aren’t more civilian deaths like this in this conflict. Surely hitting a school with all of the advancement of our technology and information intelligence that we have, surely that should be able to be avoided?

Hillel Newman: Well, the school incident has not been authenticated. One cannot believe pictures or even photos or words that come out of Iran. What I would like to say is that there’s a clear distinction between the activity in operation of the United States and Israel, which is a joint operation. It’s not an Israeli operation. A joint is US-Israel operation. There’s a clear distinction. We target military installations.

Melissa Clarke: But you can’t tell me that wasn’t as a result of Israeli or US strikes. You’re saying it’s not confirmed, but you’re also not denying that that could happen.

Hillel Newman: I’ll come to the school. I’m just saying in general, we should know that Israel and the United States target military installations, whereas, in total contrast to that, you see how Iran is just hitting out at population, at civil, densely, populated areas, and they are now attacking more than 10 countries in the region….

Melissa Clarke: I find it very hard to believe that you don’t know. Israeli intelligence is clearly incredibly accurate. To be able to have achieved some of the military objectives you have, including the assassinations of leaders of militant groups and terrorist groups, but you don’t know if your country has responsible for dropping a particular bomb on a particular location?

Hillel Newman: That’s the nature of intelligence. You know, you don’t know everything. You don’t know everything about every school or every facility in Iran. You do focus –

Melissa Clarke: You would know the actions of the Israeli defence force.

Hillel Newman: We don’t know and sometimes, you know that’s, that’s part of the problem of Israeli, what they call PR. That it takes us time to get the truth. We don’t say, we don’t spread disinformation and lies, and we don’t just spread things that we think are true. We first check the facts…. So in this case, I can assure you, there was no intention to hit any school. There’s no intention to hit any civilian. There are mistakes that can happen during a war, but we’re not even sure that this is the case. It might even have been Iranian fire that fell short on the school, if it was a school.

Melissa Clarke: All right, Hillel Newman. We are running out of time. But thank you very much for speaking with me on Radio National Breakfast this morning.

Hillel Newman: Thank you.

How about that? Melissa Clarke – one of many ABC activist journalists – made it clear that she did not believe Ambassador Newman. However, she produced no evidence in support of her view – which was similar to that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

And the taxpayer funded public broadcaster’s management continues to claim that ABC journalists are fair and balanced. Turn it up.

  • John Lyons rants against the Albanese government’s position on Iran

John Lyons, the ABC Americas Editor, threw the switch to activism when appearing on ABC TV’s Insiders on the morning of Sunday 1 March. He was not on the panel but was interviewed as a self-proclaimed expert on the United States. Let’s go to the transcript:

David Speers: I want to go to John Lyons, the ABC’s Americas editor, who’s actually in Sydney right now. John, we mentioned this statement that Donald Trump has just issued. We might bring up the key part of it here, where he is confirming the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…

John Lyons: I believe this has been driven by Israel. I believe Israel has calculated that now is the timing…. I think Israel has convinced the Americans that now is the time for what they want to see as historic regime change.

So, there you have it. Comrade Lyons – a vehement critic of contemporary Israel – told Insiders what he believed to be the case. But cited no evidence to support his allegation. The Trump administration had placed a huge military force near Iran. President Trump had either to engage in military action against the Islamic Republic or withdraw US forces – which would have been seen as a retreat. When Iran, once again, decided to delay negotiations over its nuclear intentions, the US killed the Ayatollah, in co-operation with Israel, and commenced military operations.

During the morning of Sunday 1 March, Lyons also appeared on ABC TV News channel on a number of occasions – in angry mode. He criticised the Albanese government’s media release, issued the previous day titled “Statement on Iran” and signed by the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. It stated: “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security.” On ABC News, Lyons made the following comment about the statement:

John Lyons: Even the Australian Government, their first line says, “Australia stands” – this is from Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong and Richard Marles – says, “Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression”. That’s the first sentence of their statement. What, in fact, they’re saying there, that’s just sort of disinformation, in my view…. I mean, Anthony Albanese’s statement could have been written by the United States and Israel – it’s straight out of their playbook.

On another occasion, the ABC’s Americas Editor ranted that the Albanese/Marles/Wong statement as “political propaganda”. It’s not Lyons’ role, as the ABC Americas Editor, to become an activist in a political debate.  Moreover, it’s noticeable that the ABC’s Americas Editor was in Sydney when the US and Israel bombed Iran. There were several ABC journalists, based in Washington DC, who were much closer to the action than Lyons and could have provided a more informed report.

Come to think of it, it took Lyons a couple of days to cover the US’s capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in January. Was he in Washington DC when this event occurred – or was he back in Sydney? Whatever Lyons’ location, it took him close to three days to report direct from Washington DC about Maduro’s capture – despite the fact that this was a big issue at the time.

Which raises the question: what is the point of the ABC having a journalist as Americas Editor if he or she is not in the United States to report big stories? And here’s another question: Can You Bear It?

  • La Tingle in Dubai – but will the ABC still not say whether she has ever been to Israel, the West Bank or Gaza

While on the topic of leading ABC journalists, Laura Tingle, the taxpayer funded public broadcaster’s Global Affairs Editor, has been stuck in Dubai – either on the way to or way back from the Middle East. Comrade Tingle is yet another ABC prominent activist journalist who is a critic of US president Donald J. Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tingle told viewers of ABC TV’s News Breakfast on Wednesday 4 March that Israel had responded “incredibly aggressively” to Hezbollah on the Israel/Lebanon border but referred to the attack on Israel as a “bombardment”. This despite the fact that, from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah initiated the aggression. Let’s go to the transcript:

Laura Tingle: Well, it keeps morphing, I suppose. In the last 24 hours, what’s really been noticeable is we’ve seen this new front, if you like, open up with the re-emergence of Hezbollah as a combatant. It fired missiles into Israel. Israel has responded incredibly aggressively with strikes into Beirut and also really noticeably making major incursions into on land, into southern Lebanon…. It’s fighting the Hezbollah in the north, and it’s also continuing to come under fairly serious bombardment from Iran as well.

Media Watch Dog hopes that Laura Tingle is safe in the United Arab Emirates. However, it is notable that the ABC still refuses to state whether Laura Tingle has ever been to Israel, the West Bank or Gaza.  Could it be that this is (or was) the first intended (or actual) occasion for La Tingle to visit Israel as a reporter by someone who was deemed to be suitable to be appointed as the ABC’s Global Affairs Editor? If so, Can You Bear It?

  • No viewpoint diversity on Late Night Live

Media Watch Dog regards ABC Late Night Live presenter David Marr as lively and well-informed. However, on his watch, Late Night Live remains very much “Late Night Left”.

Look at it this way. On ABC Radio National Late Night Live this week there has been unanimous criticism of the US/Israel attack on Iran.

On Monday 2 March, David Marr interviewed the  American leftist Bruce Shapiro – a vehement critic of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. This is how the interview commenced:

David Marr:  The negotiations had not failed when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran on Saturday. War is now spreading across the Middle East. Israel has troops poised once again on the Lebanon border. God knows where we’ll be in 24 hours. But for crucial help on that front, we’ve called in Bruce Shapiro…Bruce, what is America making of this war?

Bruce Shapiro: America is making the same muddle of it as the rest of the world. I think, I think, you know, no one really understands what the rationale is. Clearly the timing of it serves President Trump very well, coming right on the heels of the State of the Union [address] and at a moment when his ratings are in the tank.

Then on Tuesday 3 March, Marr interviewed Gideon Levy, a weekly columnist for Israel’s Haaretz and vehement critic of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government – as is the newspaper he writes for.

Then on Wednesday 4 March, it was the turn of Ian Dunt – another critic of the governments of Israel and the United  States. Comrade Dunt described President Trump as a “rabid child” and the US as a “rogue state”. You get the picture.

Then on Thursday 5 March, it was the turn – or rather the return of – the leftist economist and (failed) Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis. He first appeared on LNL 37 years ago. Comrade Varoufakis attacked US policy in Iran and Zzzzzzz. Comrade Varoufakis described President Trump as a “very poor excuse for human nature” and a “very shallow person”. Zzzzzzz

How about that? Late Night Left’s principal guests on politics for the week were all leftists – reflecting the reality of the ABC as a Conservative Free Zone. Can You Bear It?

two older men look at each other on a couch with a radio national sign behind them

David Marr and Yanis Varoufakis on “Late Night Left”. That’s Comrade David on Yanis’ right and Comrade Yanis on David’s left

  • The ANU’s left-of-centre journalist fangs Angus Taylor without evidence

Once upon a time there were arguments among the ABC TV Insiders program’s panellists – not all of whom were Canberra journalists. However, when David Speers took over as presenter in early 2020, he decided that he wished to fill the Insiders couch primarily with present or past members of the Canberra Press Gallery.

And so it came to pass that Insiders moved from Melbourne to Canberra and with it David (“I like to be called Speersy”) Speers. On Sunday 1 March, Speersy was in the presenter’s chair and the Canberra-based panel comprised Melissa Clarke (ABC), Mark Kenny (ex-ABC and Nine, now at the Australian National University) and Shane Wright (Nine’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald). It was a case of four Canberra-based journalists talking to each other about Australian national politics. Groan.

Last Sunday, comrades Clarke and Kenny seemed to dominate the discussion while Comrade Wright was relatively quiet. When discussion turned to the Liberal Party’s Review of the 2025 Federal Election – which was conducted by former Liberal party NSW government minister Pru Goward and former Liberal Party Commonwealth minister Nick Minchin.

Earlier in the program, the Opposition shadow treasurer Tim Wilson told David Speers that he had not seen the Goward/Minchin report – which was discussed by the Liberal Party federal executive on 22 December 2025 at which a decision was made that it not be released. After all, it was a report to the Federal Executive and it was up to the federal executive to make such a decision. Speers pointed out that the Liberal Party’s federal executive had made the decision since there were concerns that the report was unfair to former leader Peter Dutton. At this point, the learned professor provided his opinion. Let’s go to the transcript:

Mark Kenny: I suspect this goes much closer to Angus Taylor than it does to Peter Dutton. I think it’s more about the embarrassment that it brings on the current leadership, not on the previous leadership.

David Speers: Yeah, from what it’s worth, I’m told there’s nothing particularly specific about Angus Taylor. They do note, of course, the problems around the tax decision and that, of course, he has to carry – he was the shadow treasurer.

Mark Kenny: Pretty significant, pretty significant.

David Speers: But nothing that you know singles him out, if you like. He and Jane Hume were the finance and economic team, so they have to carry that. There was the work-from-home problem, and all of that is difficult for them.

Here Comrade Kenny was hopelessly wrong. In an article published in the Australian Financial Review on Friday 28 February – which, it would seem, that Kenny had not read – Pru Goward wrote this:

The first and most obvious loser from this decision is the current leader, Angus Taylor. Taylor has started out well, but he will be blamed for wanting to cover up when, in my experience, Taylor has always understood the importance of transparency in competitive markets, such as politics. As he observed from the outset of his leadership, the decision on the report was the party’s to make.

As indicated above, Speers did not believe that the Goward/Minchin report was so critical to Taylor that he would not want it released. Nor did journalist Andrew Clennell – who said on the Sky News Agenda program, which airs before Insiders, that Taylor was in no way targeted in the report.

So, there you have it. Mark Kenny who, on Sunday 1 March, had not read either the Goward/Minchin report or Goward’s article about it – declared that he suspected that it was more critical of Angus Taylor than it was of Peter Dutton. A theory devoid of evidence and born of ignorance by a former left-of-centre journo who presents as an Australian National University academic. Can You Bear It?

[No. Not really – now that you ask. However, I am impressed by Comrade Kenny’s brilliant career. As I recall, he checked out of Adelaide University and went to work for a South Australian State Labor MP of the socialist left faction. From then, it was on to the ABC and then to Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald plus a seat on ABC TV’s Insiders couch. And then there was the case of “Arise Professor Kenny” as the comrade from Adelaide became a professor of something or other at the ANU. All this without a significant article or a significant (or even insignificant) book but only a series of newspaper columns and reports – and now a podcast where he can criticise political conservatives. – MWD Editor.]

AN ABC UPDATE

  • Australian Story naïvely believed what it wanted to believe about story-teller Ian Williams

It is a truth universally acknowledged by Media Watch Dog (to borrow a line from Jane Austen) that many ABC journalists believe what they want to believe. Louise Milligan and Sarah Ferguson come immediately to mind in this regard.

How else to explain this entry on the ABC Corrections/Clarifications website dated 24 February 2026?:

Australian Story: The ABC received new information about Mr Ian Williams on Monday afternoon prior to Australian Story airing that was unrelated to his case against National Australia Bank. We have since confirmed Mr Williams was convicted of serious historical offences, which he failed to disclose to the ABC. Content featuring Mr Williams on the ABC no longer meets our editorial standards and is being removed. The Australian Story will not go to air.

It’s understandable why Australian Story – executive producer Greg Hassall, producer Amos Roberts, presenter Leigh Sales – was not aware of Ian Williams’ conviction in 1993 for historical child sexual assault. However, the Australian Story team were clearly conned by Williams.

If the program had examined Williams’ story, it should have known that he was not worth investing taxpayers’ money in. As The Australian’s “Margin Call” column wrote on 28 February, “pensioner Ian Williams presented himself as a charming, plucky underdog who took on a big bank and achieved a moral victory – a larrikin everyman striking back against a system rigged for the little guy”.

Williams’ account with a bank was scammed to the tune of $1338. The bank offered $1338 in compensation – which was increased to $1500. The offer was rejected. Instead Williams sued the bank for – wait for it – $379 million. [Why not $380 billion? – MWD Editor.] Australia is not the United States where outrageous claims for financial compensation are sometimes made in the first instance.

As reported by Liam Beatty in news.com.au on 5 November 2025, the bank applied for Williams’ case to be thrown out. Beatty’s report continued:

In a judgment handed down by Associate Justice Caroline Goulden last Wednesday, she found that Mr Williams’ case “does not enjoy any real prospect of success and should be summarily dismissed”. The judge found Mr Williams’ claim was unable to prove the bank had breached a legal duty of care that would give rise to exemplary damages.

“There is no articulation of any relevant duty, the source of the duty and its scope, there are no material facts alleged regarding breach of the identified duty and there is no pleading of causation or loss and damage arising from any alleged breach of duty,” she wrote. “The plaintiff clearly misapprehends the respective roles and rights of a plaintiff in a civil proceeding, and those of a regulator, as well as the availability of remedies and the jurisdiction of the court to grant appropriate relief.”

In other words, Associate Justice Goulden found that Williams was of the mistaken view that the bank’s denial of liability for the transaction [at a supermarket] was “tantamount to an allegation” that he was involved in the purchase and, consequently, had made a false claim of fraud. No such claim had been made by the bank. Proceedings were dismissed provided Williams was paid $1388.55 by the bank. This was the offer made by the bank to Williams in the first instance. Needless to say, it was somewhat south of $379 million.

If Australian Story had done any online search, it would have found that Williams was delusional about his treatment by the bank and that it was not worth the risk of reporting his account on Australian Story. Yet the likes of Leigh Sales at Australian Story believed what they wanted to believe and were keen to run Williams’ account on Australian Story presumably because it had a “Battler takes on Big Bank” line. How naïve can a group of journalists get?

[It’s surprising that Ms Sales, who wrote a perceptive and thoughtful book on the David Hicks case in 2007, would be so naïve as to fall for giving coverage to Ian Williams’ $379 million claim. – MWD Editor.]

YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS

Media Watch Dog’s “You Must Remember This” segment is based on the chorus line in the song As Time Goes By, which was popularised by the film Casablanca. It is devoted to reminding the usual suspects of what they and/or those they supported once wrote or said or did – or, indeed, what they failed to write or say.

  • LEFTIST HERO NOAM CHOMSKY, WHO PALLED UP WITH POL POT’S KHMER ROUGE, ENDED UP A JEFFREY EPSTEIN BESTIE

Ellie’s (male) co-owner has no evidence on which to make allegations about prominent men in the United States, Britain and elsewhere who spent time at convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s various properties or travelled on his plane. It remains to be seen whether charges will be laid. However, it is interesting to note that a couple of faves of the Australian left were very much in the Epstein cart, so to speak.

Step forward Noam Chomsky, the one-time leader of the English-speaking left intelligentsia and the North American theoretical physicist an out-in-front atheist Lawrence Krauss. Comrade Chomsky (born 1928) was a fave of Phillip Adams and his (then) little wireless program called Late Night Live (now presented by David Marr). And Comrade Krauss (and out and proud atheist) was an occasional guest on the (then) Q+A program presented by Tony Jones along with such ABC programs as Robyn Williams’ The Science Show, Late Night Live, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering and so on.

Allegations of sexual impropriety aside, it is telling that two of America’s most prominent leftist intellectuals – Chomsky and Krauss – were prepared to pally round with, and accept finance from, the capitalist Epstein. It is not as if either Chomsky or Krauss were poor socialists – they were rich socialists.

This reminded Media Watch Dog that, in his time, Noam Chomsky was something of a fan of the brutal communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s and its leader, the murderous Pol Pot.

In 1980 Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman co-authored After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indo-China and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology (Hale and Iremonger). Chapter 6 of this work, titled “Cambodia” , runs from Page 135 to Page 294. It is essentially an apologia for Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.

In this chapter, the co-author criticises the accounts of refugees who fled Cambodia. It is broadly accepted that up to 2 million Cambodians died during Pol Pot’s rule – either by murder, disease or starvation. Many while being forced-marched out of the cities into the countryside. That is, about a third of the population. Yet, this is what Chomsky/Herman wrote at Page 156:

If 1/3 of the population has been killed by a murderous band that has taken over the government – which somehow managed to control every village – or have died as a result of their genocidal policies, then surely one would expect if not a rebellion then at least unwillingness to fight for the Paris-educated fanatics at the top [of the Khmer Rouge].

That’s just denial. The evidence indicates that one-third of the Cambodian population was killed (directly or indirectly) by the Khmer Rouge. Comrades Chomsky and Herman also criticised those scholars/reporters who were correct at the time about Pol Pot’s murderous regime. Namely, Francois Ponchaud, William Shawcross, Elizabeth Becker, Jean Lacouture and John Barron and Anthony Paul.

How about that? In mid-life, the socialist Chomsky defended the murderous Pol Pot and, in later life, the socialist Chomsky hung out with the pedophile multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

You Must Remember This.

 

As Media Watch Dog readers are well aware, Nine’s Shane Wright has risen without trace (as the late Kitty Muggeridge once said about the late David Frost) to become the senior economics correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald – not having published anything of note apart from newspaper articles and columns plus the occasional essay. Even so, you would expect a person in such an elevated position to know about the international energy market.

It’s only a few years since your man Wright ridiculed anyone who said that coal had any future as a part of energy supply – even in such markets as India, China and Indonesia. He declared on ABC TV Insiders on 11 June 2017 that “coal is like candlesticks” and compared those who said that there is still a demand for Australian coal exports with members of the Candle Makers Union circa 1870 who (allegedly) argued the case for candles over electricity. Now read on.

  • Good news for the workers at the Myuna Colliery

In January of this year, Origin Energy and the NSW government announced an agreement to keep Eraring power plant operating for a further two years. The coal-fired plant, located south of Newcastle, had originally been scheduled to close in 2025, before first being extended to 2027 and now 2029.

This extension came as no great surprise, except perhaps to Shane Wright, after the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) warned that the closure of Eraring in 2027 risked the possibility of blackouts.

On 3 March, Origin announced another deal had been struck with Centennial Coal which operates the nearby Myuna coal mine. There had been concern that the mine would have to close if its current contract expired in the coming weeks, leaving 300 workers without jobs. The new three-year deal should keep those workers in their jobs and Eraring supplying power to the grid for a few more years at least.

It has now been almost a decade since Shane Wright’s confident pronouncement about the future of coal. Fortunately for the workers at the Myuna Colliery, he has proven to be a false prophet.

[Well done. As I recall you quoted Comrade Wright as telling an ABC journalist that he is writing an economic history of Australia. I wonder whether this will turn out to be another broken promise. – MWD Editor]

Despite his failed prophecy on coal made on Insiders almost a decade ago, your man Wright is still regarded by Insiders as a credible economic forecaster. Here is the (false) prophet on Insiders last Sunday.

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Until Next Time

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