GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 65
6 AUGUST 2010
IN THIS ISSUE
● Shock/Horror – Malcolm Fraser Isn’t A Liberal Anymore
● Exclusive – ABC Management Declares Facts Of No Importance To The Drum
● An Exclusive Look Into Peter FitzSimons’ In-Box or An Angry Atheist At Work
● Sexism On The Campaign Trail – Josh Gordon Vs Richard Flannagan and Bob Ellis
● The Chaser Boys’ Ivan Milat Style Humour
● John Hewson’s 1980 Election Howler
● Daughter Of The (Stalinist) Revolution – Continued
Lee Rhiannon’s Contributions To Survey Magazine
● Hyperbole Of The Week: Mark Aarons On The Kevin Rudd “Coup d’Etat”
● Yet More Personal Correspondence
STOP PRESS
RN BREAKFAST BELIEVES MALCOLM FRASER NOT VOTING LIBERAL IS BIG NEWS
What a stunning 11 minute performance by former Liberal Party prime minister Malcolm Fraser on Radio National Breakfast this morning. Mr Fraser was introduced by presenter Fran Kelly as coming to the program to discuss nuclear disarmament. During the interview Mr Fraser managed to criticise the democracies of India and Israel but made no adverse comment about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. It was not long before Ms Kelly asked Mr Fraser about domestic politics. Here we go:
Fran Kelly : Malcolm Fraser, we are in the middle of an election campaign – obviously. You resigned from the Liberal Party which you led, you resigned last December. It was reported at the time that you told friends that the new leader, Tony Abbott, was “all over the place in policy terms”. In your view, is the coalition ready for Government?
Malcolm Fraser : No
Fran Kelly : No?
Malcolm Fraser : No
Fran Kelly : So, in your view, Tony Abbott is not fit at the moment to be prime minister?
Malcolm Fraser : Oh look this – my failure to renew my membership was not just related to Tony Abbott. The party has moved further and further to the right over the last 20 years….
Fran Kelly : And when you say in your view the Coalition isn’t ready for government, why is that?
Malcolm Fraser : Oh, I think read my book.
Great work. Fran Kelly asked the same question – three times – and received the same reply on each occasion. It is not clear what the 2010 election in Australia has got to do with nuclear disarmament – perhaps we will find out later. By the way, it should be pretty obvious that Malcolm Fraser has not voted for the Liberals for at least a decade and has many hints on the record to this effect.
As to Malcolm Fraser’s request that we should all read Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs. Well MWD has done just that. Malcolm Fraser’s memoirs – which he co-authored with Margaret Simons – is full of factual errors and heroic (undocumented) claims. They will be analysed in full in the forthcoming issue of The Sydney Institute Quarterly. [I just can’t wait – Ed.]
Then, after 8 am, RN Breakfast went into “Friday Political Panel” mode. The panel comprised the Daily Telegraph’s Malcolm Farr, The Age’s Michelle Grattan and former co-founder of the Women’s Electoral Lobby and one-time ABC deputy chair Wendy McCarthy. An unusual panel, to be sure – since Ms McCarthy openly barracked for Prime Minister Julia Gillard and comprehensively bagged Opposition leader Tony Abbott. So strident was Wendy McCarthy’s opposition to the Coalition that, these days, it can only be matched by Malcolm Fraser.
NANCY’S PICKS-OF-THE-WEEK
A Nancy’s Exclusive – ABC Management Declares That The Drum Is Ripe For Tripe
Nancy just loves the ABC’s website The Drum. When this taxpayer funded initiative was first announced, Nancy was concerned – very concerned – that it might fulfil ABC managing director Mark Scott’s 2006 promise to insist on political pluralism within the public broadcaster. This sounds fine in principle – but MWD needs all the leftish copy it can get. So there was a sigh of relief from Nancy’s kennel when it was announced that Mr Scott had appointed the well-known leftist sandal wearer Jonathan Green as editor of The Drum. After all, Mr Green is well qualified to hold a post at the public broadcaster – having worked on The-Guardian-on-the-Yarra before joining the Crikey newsletter.
And so it came to pass that the Melbourne Left took over The Drum. Perhaps, in biblical terminology, this was done so that Nancy’s prophecy – that lefties control virtually all the main areas of the ABC and will continue to do so – might be fulfilled. Nancy’s co-owner was asked to contribute on a regular basis to The Drum but, aware of Nancy’s prophecy, declined – see Correspondence section.
On 7 December 2009 Jonathan Green, in his capacity as editor of The Drum, wrote a piece titled “Ideas, views and analysis – we give you The Drum” on the ABC website. It had a you-beaut start, as Mr Green declared:
Welcome to The Drum. Welcome to a new conversation.
Wacko. The word “conversation” is one of the most popular clichés of our time – so this was a promising start. Jonathan Green explained that The Drum site would contain both “some of the finest journalistic minds” and the “superb minds” which the ABC has to offer. It turned out that he was describing such ABC house lefties as Jonathan Holmes, Fran Kelly and the like. How superb can you get?
Mr Green also advised that The Drum would take over the ABC’s Unleashed website and that this would be renamed The Drum Unleashed. This was to feature the opinion of those “outside” the ABC and the editor declared that both The Drum and The Drum Unleashed websites would be “open to comment in a well-moderated, civilised discussion”. For The Drum Unleashed Mr Green had in mind such “superb minds” as Bob (“My cheque bounces higher than yours” – See Issue 62) Ellis, Catherine Deveny and (a fake) Saint Paul. Ms Deveny and Mr Ellis are not really “outside” the ABC since they appear regularly on the public broadcaster. As for Saint Paul, his political epistles will be covered in next week’s MWD.
So, how is The Drum? Well, as the readers of MWD will be aware, it’s been up to (the public broadcaster’s) standard. There have been some worthy efforts along with many leftist rants. Which brings MWD to Bob Ellis.
On 3 June 2010 The Drum Unleashed carried an article by Bob Ellis titled “Israeli exceptionalism persists”. Mr Ellis used the taxpayer funded website to condemn Israel’s response to the attempt by the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara to break the Israeli boycott of Gaza. In a rambling piece, Ellis declared that Israel is not a democracy. He also theorised that Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul McGeogh – who was on one of the ships attempting to breach the boycott – might be “killed by the Israelis”. Yet another false prediction by the False Prophet of Palm Beach. Bob Ellis also declared, in attempting to explain Israel’s actions:
Bibi’s brother Jonathan died at Entebbe in the raid he commanded, and Bibi hates all Muslims now.
The reference was to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the late Jonathan Netanyahu, who led the action by the Israeli Defence Force at Entebbe in July 1976 which freed hostages held by Islamic terrorists.
A Melbourne-based friend of Nancy – let’s call the person M – filed a formal complaint about the Ellis article with the ABC’s Audience & Consumer Affairs Department – which is headed by Kirstin McLiesh. [Is this the very same Ms McLiesh who judges legal matters without legal qualifications and created a world-record by totally rejecting 96.4 per cent of complaints against the ABC in 2006-07? – Ed. See The Sydney Institute Quarterly Issue 32, pp 8-11].
M’s complaint was forwarded by email on 3 June. Ms McLiesh replied on 26 July and her response contained the familiar: “Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding” refrain. It took Ms McLiesh close to two months to reply to M – and then she told M to go away. Ms McLiesh’s response was replete with public sector bureaucracy-driven process language before Ms McLiesh got to the point. Here is the core of what she wrote:
The article in question presented Mr Ellis’ opinion on Israel and its current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, following the recent raid by the Israeli military on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza. Mr Ellis strongly criticised Israel’s actions, questioning whether Israel really is a democracy and suggesting Mr Netanyahu’s rhetoric “may soon unhinge him politically”. As you point out, in presenting his argument, Mr Ellis suggested that Mr Netanyahu “hates all Muslims” as a result of the death of his brother Jonathan in an earlier raid in Entebbe.
The editor of Unleashed has explained that a common technique employed by opinion writers is the use of hyperbole as a means to emphasise the key points of their argument. In this case, Mr Ellis was providing his views on a public figure whose actions have been the subject of much argument and analysis. The editors do not believe that, in this context, readers would interpret the comment literally or as a statement of fact, nor that the author was stereotyping Mr Netanyahu or Israeli people. While appreciating that not all readers will agree with Mr Ellis’ argument, the editor believes the piece is in keeping with the intent of the site to promote robust community debate.
On review, Audience and Consumer Affairs do not consider the statement in the article, “Bibi hates all Muslims now”, constituted factual content for the purposes of clause 4.4 of the ABC Code of Practice. Instead, we believe it was clear that the comment was an expression of the author’s opinion and did not purport to present an objective assessment or factual account of Mr Netanyahu’s views or motivations. We note that the use of hyperbole is common in opinion pieces, and believe this was an example of the use of such a technique by an author as an argumentative device.
So there you have it. According to Jonathan Green – supported by Kirsten McLiesh and, presumably, Mark Scott – readers should not take The Drum or The Drum Unleashed seriously. According to ABC management, the taxpayer funded The Drum website contains lotsa hyperbole and readers should not assume that any of this material contains objective assessments or factual accounts. In other words: “Look Mum no facts. Look Dad, no fact-checkers.”
In other words, Bob Ellis is free to write that Bibi Netanyahu “hates all Muslims” because his brother Jonathan Netanyahu was killed during the Entebbe Raid – without any evidence of any kind to support his view. Moreover, the statement that “Bibi hates all Muslims now” does not even constitute factual content for the purposes of the ABC Code of Practice. Also The Drum will run Bob Ellis’ views on the Israeli prime minister irrespective of whether they have any factual content whatsoever.
So according to the ABC, facts are not required on The Drum website when hyperbole is being used as an argumentative device. This is in spite of the fact that on 7 December 2009 Jonathan declared that The Drum would publish “well-moderated, civilised discussion”. In short, The Drum is ripe for tripe – with the approval of ABC management.
Another Nancy Exclusive – How The Good Bloke Fitz Responds To His Readers
Believe it or not, one of MWD’s many avid readers is a Catholic priest in Sydney – who shall be described as Fr. P.
Fr P is a bit of a fan – or perhaps was – of Sun-Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons – and he wrote to tell him this. He also asked Fitz to stop using the word “bejesus”. A mild suggestion, to be sure. But Fitz got into an angry mode and regarded Fr. P’s modest proposal as a reason to fire off a shell or two in the Atheism vs Christianity wars.
MWD prints this correspondence in the public interest as a case study of the contemporary Angry Atheist. If Fitz gets so upset with one of his fans – just imagine how he would treat others. [No, please don’t – Ed]. Here we go:
Fr. P to Peter FitzSimons
Your sports page is one of the first pages that I read each Saturday morning and I truly enjoy your insights and reflections, the best was one on the Joeys V Scots game. However, I cringe when you use the word “bejesus” as you see I am a Catholic priest and he is my Saviour who I revere and I abhor when his name is cheapened by people like you so consistently. Otherwise keep up your great work!
Peter FitzSimons to Fr. P
Can I ask you this, though, respectfully? I am a passionate atheist. How is it you are allowed to promulgate the view that those who have my belief system will, deserve to, burn for all eternity, and yet I must treat your views with elaborate respect?
It is not too late to free yourself from these ancient superstitions. Join us!
Fr. P to Peter FitzSimons
Please be careful about putting me into the fundamentalist basket of judging people like you who are passionate atheists. I don’t know where you or any of us are going to be at the end of time. I do believe that at the end of time we will be judged by our BEHAVIOUR before our beliefs.
Another thing that I find rather inconsistent about you is that at the end of your radio show a few years ago you farewelled everyone by saying “God Bless everyone”. A final thing is that faith does not contradict reason it goes beyond it, so I think it is a bit tough of you to talk about ancient superstitions.
Peter FitzSimons to Fr. P
You may not be in that fundamentalist basket, but I think we can safely put the Pope in it, can we not? It is not, therefore, intellectually inconsistent to have a go at me for not respecting your beliefs, if you don’t also have a go at the Pope and other leaders of your church for not respecting our beliefs?
“God bless in the big city” was just a throwaway line from me, not a statement of belief in an imaginary friend living in the clouds.
Come on Father, you must have had your own doubts on all this. Let it all behind. Live! I believe if you simply embrace the most wonderful Christian values of all, “do unto others” you can leave all the rest of the mumbo-jumbo behind.
Warm regards to you.
MWD Comments:
How about that? A Catholic priest writes a fan letter to Peter FitzSimons which, in passing, proposes that he resiles form using the word “bejesus”. And the Angry Atheist goes into meltdown by telling his reader to (i) free himself from his ancient superstitions, (ii) live and (iii) abandon his mumbo-jumbo.
Nancy wonders whether Mr FitzSimons would get into angry mode if an imam wrote to him requesting that he desist from using a word which might be construed as an improper use of the Prophet’s name. Probably not. Without an intact neck, your man Peter would not be able to wear his fashionable red bandanna.
SEXISM ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – JOSH GORDON DISCOVERS IT WHILE RICHARD FLANAGAN AND BOB ELLIS FLIRT WITH THE CONCEPT
What a great coverage of the 2010 election campaign by The Sunday Age – also known as “The-Sunday-Guardian-on-the-Yarra”.
Take last Sunday’s opinion piece by Josh Gordon, for example. According to Mr Gordon, this campaign is really about, wait for it, rampant sexism. Josh Gordon raised the pertinent question: “Are parts of Australia uncomfortable with the idea of a woman as prime minister?” and went on to point the finger at (unnamed) “conservative columnists” and “some columnists”. It’s all a case of “sexism”, you see. Josh Gordon got so worked up about all this that he commented:
There has been argument whether Tony Abbott has been unfairly targeting Gillard’s childless status by appearing with his wife and daughter and talking about how he understands the challenges of modern families.
Good point, don’t you think? Mr Abbott’s dilemma can only be resolved – it seems – if he and Margie Abbott separate, Abbott then cuts off all contact with his daughters and stops talking about families.
Meanwhile MWD’s research has discovered that some of the more outrageous comments about the Prime Minister in this campaign have been made by financial members of the sandal-wearing set. As the following examples demonstrate:
• Writing in The Age on 31 July 2010, Martin Flanagan declared that Julia Gillard reminded him of “cartoons from The Bulletin in the 1890s” – since “she has that sort of plain, lean face they [sic] used to denote the ordinary Sydney person of that time”.
• Writing on the ABC’s Drum Unleashed website on 5 August 2010 Bob Ellis opined:
It is worthwhile reflecting, meanwhile, how much better at “doing sincerity” Rudd is than Gillard. He seems thoughtful, self-amused, calm in his own skin, and principled. She seems evasive, wayward and under-informed, pulling out a merry laugh that has no equivalent in human behaviour like a dead rabbit out of a threadbare hat, and moves not a few of us to nausea. A lot of successful politicians (Churchill, Attlee, Menzies, De Gaulle, Whitlam, Keating, Carr, Tanner, Shorten) got by without laughing. Some laughed and were less successful (Costello, Beazley, Reith). I can think of no laughing female politician (Palin, Kernot, Chikarovski) that ever got there in the end. Those female politicians that do not laugh (Helen Clark, Tanya Plibersek, Nicola Roxon, Verity Firth, Maxine McKew) look, currently, like better Prime Ministers than Gillard.
So there you have it. Julia Gillard has a plain lean face that once belonged to the Sydney working class (pace Richard Flanagan) and Julia Gillard sounds like a nausea-inducing dead rabbit (pace Bob Ellis, per courtesy of the Australian taxpayer).
THE CHASER BOYS – AN UPDATE – MAKING MURDER AND RAPE FUNNY
The Chaser Boys (average age 37) were back to their best on the second edition of Yes We Canberra last Wednesday. Whenever the humour is a bit flat, the Chaser Boys can always trump up a thigh-slapping joke about the murderer as sexual predator.
In September 2000, when The Chaser Boys were in their 20s, they thought it was a you-beaut idea to make a joke out of two young British girls who were murdered in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England. The victims are remembered for the photograph of them taken in Manchester United shirts. The Chaser turned that into a joke about Vodaphone’s sponsorship of Manchester United. The gag was “Vodafone Admits: Latest Stunt Went Too Far”. Pretty funny, eh?
On Wednesday, while Chas Licciardello and Andrew Hausen were making fun of the policy adopted by Labor and the Coalition on asylum seekers arriving by boat, The Chaser Boys placed a fake text message at the bottom of the screen which read:
Ivan Milat: I could stop the boats.
Clearly Ivan Milat – one of Australia’s most vile serial murderers – is just a figure of fun for The Chaser Boys.
HISTORICAL HOWLER OF THE WEEK
Dr John Hewson Remembers (Sort Of) The 1980 Election Campaign
Don’t you love John (“call me Doctor”) Hewson’s appearances on the Gruen Nation. The former Liberal Party leader is one of the Liberal Party’s most vocal critics – but he continues to score gigs on ABC and Sky News programs as representing the Liberal point of view. This remains the case even when he acknowledges – as he did on Gruen Nation on Wednesday – that it should not be assumed that he will vote Liberal at this election.
On Wednesday, Dr Dr Dr Hewson was called on by presenter Wil Anderson to discuss “perhaps the most effective scare ad in Australian history”. It turned out that this was the Liberal Party’s 1980 advertisement aimed at attacking what it described as “Labor’s ‘Wealth Tax’” – which was depicted as a proposed capital gains tax on the family home. The TV advertisement from the 1980 campaign was shown – and then John Hewson declared:
Yeah. Look in 1980 the Fraser Government was gone for all money. In fact, about 10 days before the campaign, I think Tony Eggleton sat Malcolm Fraser down and said: “You’ve lost it.” And one of Fraser’s staff had noticed a statement by one of the Government’s – by one of the Opposition’s spokesmen. I think it was probably Chris Hurford, the shadow treasurer, about potentially taxing the family home. That’s it. Give it a run. And that was the origin of that ad. They’ve got a secret agenda. It’s a wealth tax. It’s going to be a tax on – you know – your wealth it’s basically a family house – a tax on the family home.
That in itself is only part of it, though. The second stage of it is the massive saturation into key marginal seats – in those days with direct mail, door-knocking and so on – re-enforcing that message such that it did turn the campaign. And I think it won, it won, the election in 1980 for Malcolm Fraser.
The panel was mightily impressed. The sassy Annabel Crabb described this “as just an incredible story”. Todd Sampson then declared that “by all measures this ad is an amazing ad that turned the whole election”. Neil Lawrence and Russell Howcroft concurred.
Dr Hewson then proceeded to tell the viewing audience about how to campaign in marginal seats. [Is this the very same Dr Dr Dr Hewson who – as Opposition leader in 1993 – put in an absolute shocker and lost an election the Coalition should have won to Labor and Paul Keating? – Ed].
And now for some facts:
• Tony Eggleton did not advise Malcolm Fraser before the 1980 election that the Coalition could not win. He (wisely) offered this advice in 1983 – but not in 1980. The Liberal Party always felt that the 1980 election would be difficult to win but it never considered the election unwinnable. John Howard, for example, always thought the Coalition would defeat Labor in 1980 because he believed that the Coalition’s vote would hold up in New South Wales – which turned out to be the case.
• Chris Hurford was not the Opposition’s shadow treasurer in 1980 – Ralph Willis held that position.
• Chris Hurford did not make the comment about the possibility of taxing the family home. That comment was made by Senator Peter Walsh – in the final week of the campaign.
HISTORY CORNER
DAUGHTER OF THE STALINIST REVOLUTION (CONTINUED)
A Look At Lee Rhiannon’s Pro-Soviet Union Scribblings In Survey
In MWD Issue 64, “History Corner” quoted Lee Rhiannon’s letter to the Sydney Morning Herald on 28 July 2010 where she wrote that “neither my parents nor I were Stalinists”. As MWD documented, this comment is nonsense. So it was great to read Mark Aarons’ letter in the Sydney Morning Herald last Friday where he described it as astonishing that Ms Rhiannon (nee Brown) would seek to deny the facts about her parents Bill Brown and Freda Brown. As Mark Aarons wrote:
Lee Rhiannon (nee Brown) is the Greens’ Senate candidate for New South Wales at the 21 August 2010 election. MWD has documented the views of the adult Lee Rhiannon as well as those of the younger Lee Brown. There is another Lee persona – that of Lee O’Gorman. Lee Brown became Lee O’Gorman following her marriage. She subsequently changed her surname to Rhiannon by deed-poll.
Nancy gets the occasional tips from avid MWD readers. Recently she received a note suggesting that MWD might like to check-out the editing and scribblings of Lee O’Gorman in the publication Survey. But, first, a brief historical reference. Following the Soviet Union’s brutal invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) split. The CPA opposed Moscow’s crushing of the Prague Spring. Those continuing Stalinsts, who wanted to continue supporting Stalin’s heirs in Moscow, split with the CPA and established the pro-Soviet Socialist Party of Australia (SPA).
The SPA set up its own monthly magazine called Survey. Early on Bill Brown – Lee’s old man – was a member of Survey’s editorial panel. Later Bill Brown became Survey’s editor and Lee O’Gorman (nee Brown) took on the role of assistant editor.
Survey commenced publication not long after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and it ceased publication not long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Survey’s November 1981 issue – when Bill Brown was editor and Lee O’Gorman assistant editor – Survey described its role as being “produced to provide facts on trends in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries…”.
Here are some highlights of the “facts” and “trends” espoused in Survey during the years that Lee Rhiannon – as she now is – was associated with the SPA and its magazine Survey.
March 1979. Survey re-prints material from Pravda on the occasion of the centenary of Josef Stalin’s birth. The message is that Uncle Joe had a few faults but was basically a good chap.
April 1979. Lee O’Gorman writes about the you-beaut cooperation between “socialist, capitalist and third world countries” in the “current global campaign around the International Year of the Child”. She praises the work of Freda Brown (her mother) and declares that “Moscow has merit as a venue for this important conference”. Comrade O’Gorman sees this conference as an opportunity for delegates “to acquaint themselves with – the overall policies of this socialist country to children”. Also there is a hint that September in Moscow is a pleasant time of the year.
January 1982. Survey runs a long piece by Vladimir Bolshakov sympathetic to the communist totalitarian regime in Poland. In introducing this piece, the Survey editorial panel declared that the absence of land collectivisation in Poland had been bad for the country and criticised Pope John Paul II and the Polish Catholic Hierarchy. The message is clear. It might be okay for Mr and Mrs Brown and their lovely daughter to own property Down Under – but the Polish peasants should have their land confiscated and collectivised.
June 1982. Survey runs an unsigned article titled “Why Socialism means real freedom” which praises Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev and celebrates the forced incorporation of independent states into the USSR in 1922. At the time this article was published, the Brezhnev regime had gulags running at full pace and was placing Soviet dissidents in psychiatric units as a form of mental torture.
April 1985. Lee O’Gorman defends the state of technology in the Soviet Union.
July 1985. Lee O’Gorman clears communist Bulgaria of any involvement in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. She also accuses “capitalism” of a “long list of conspiracies” in attempting to frame friends of the Soviet Union. Her lists include the traitor Julius Rosenberg who it has been proved handed the West’s nuclear technology to the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time.
August 1986. Survey does a four page special on “Soviet Life Today”. The message is – it’s pretty good.
September 1987. Survey runs an article by Alexander Sukharev who declares that the Soviet Union is freer than the West.
December 1987. Lee O’Gorman praises East Germany’s anti-smoking campaign. [Did she say anything about the Stasi’s smoking policy as implanted in the East Germany Secret Police’s prison system? – Ed].
HYPERBOLE OF THE WEEK
Mark Aarons Outs The Toga-Wearing Assassins
What a great effort by Mark Aarons on Lateline last night. Based on his article in The Monthly, he managed to get interviewed by presenter Tony Jones – where he used the former to bag his political opponents in the New South Wales Labor Right.
Mr Aarons was particularly upset by such NSW Right figures as Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar being involved in the removal of Kevin Rudd and his replacement by Julia Gillard. So much so that Mark Aarons described the likes of Arbib and Bitar as being involved in a “political assassination” and a “coup d’etat”. They were also dismissed as “a group of toga-wearing assassins who brought the Emperor down”.
MWD is not aware of the use of such hyperbole when other incumbent prime ministers were thrown out by their parties – Billy Hughes in 1923, John Gorton in 1971 and Bob Hawke in 1991.
CORRESPONDENCE
Gerard Henderson and The Drum
In late 2009 Gerard Henderson was asked to become a regular contributor to the ABC Unleashed website – which is now called The Drum Unleashed. Initially there was a phone-call from Catherine Taylor followed by email correspondence followed by a brief phone call from Jonathan Green. The email correspondence is published here – consistent with the ABC’s decision to sign on to the Right-to-Know Coalition.
Catherine Taylor to Gerard Henderson – 26 November 2009
Gerard,
We were in touch on the phone and email quite a few months back now about the possibility of having you on board as a contributor to Unleashed. There were obvious clashes with your commitments to Fairfax. I think you also expressed concerns about the threaded message board. Notwithstanding the issues above, I’d like to get in touch to see if we might find a way to work together.
As you may have read the ABC is about to launch a new opinion and analysis site that will draw in columns from high profile ABC journalists as well as Annabel Crabb who will join the ABC from the SMH. The site will be promoted widely and the idea is to make it an agenda-setting designation for quality opinion and analysis.
You are already a regular commentator on other parts of the ABC and we would love you to be a part of our expansion into online opinion and analysis. Please be in touch and let’s arrange to get together to talk through the possibilities and any concerns you have. Look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Catherine Taylor
Gerard Henderson to Catherine Taylor – 30 November 2009
Catherine
Thanks for your note of last Thursday. I am happy to have a chat with you – but I am most unlikely to change my position on your proposal that I should be a regular contributor to Unleashed.
1. As discussed, I am paid to write a column for The Sydney Morning Herald. In view of this, I do not believe that it would be appropriate to write for the ABC – whether paid or not. It is clear from your email that the ABC is intending to set up a written opinion and analysis site on Unleashed which will compete with newspapers, including the Herald.
2. Contrary to your understanding, I am not a “regular commentator on other parts of the ABC”. I find that if you criticise ABC presenters or producers, you rarely (if ever) get invited on to the programs which they control. The only ABC program on which I am a regular commentator is Insiders. This in no way competes with the Herald.
3. I am very busy at the moment and would not have time to monitor Unleashed’’s message board. The record demonstrates that I never object to considered criticism. But I do object to false statements made about me – and I have better things to do than to monitor any such errors on a site like Unleashed.
Having said all of the above, I genuinely do appreciate the fact that you would like me to be part of the ABC’s expansion into online opinion and analysis. I am very busy until the end of the week before Christmas. I would be happy to meet with you then – but I should indicate that I am most unlikely to change my mind about Unleashed.
Best wishes
Gerard Henderson
Catherine Taylor to Gerard Henderson – 30 November 2009
Many thanks Gerard.
Will wait to hear from you when the dust settles with a view to meeting before Christmas.
Best wishes,
Catherine
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THE CLICHÉ IN THE ROOM – AN ELEPHANT’S PERSPECTIVE
Top marks to Madonna King who declared on The Drum last Tuesday: “With 19 days to play out before polling day, Kevin Rudd remains the elephant in the ALP strategy room.” Good point – except Mr Rudd is not as elephantine now that he is sans gall-bladder.
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Till next time.