MEDIA WATCH DOG SPECIAL (BEFORE LUNCH)

4 JUNE 2013

MARK LATHAM SELF-FLAGELLATES AND VOLUNTEERS TO SIT IN AUNTY’S DENTIST CHAIR

 

Nancy got so excited last night – on learning that the Lair of Liverpool will appear on Q&A next Monday – that she simply could not fight it.  Hence the decision to publish this Media Watch Dog Special on such a momentous occasion.  Depending on reader feedback, there may be more MWD specials. Or, perhaps, not.

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What wonderful news that Mark Latham has taken up Q&A’s offer to appear on the program on 10 June 2013.  It shows how desperate the Lair of Liverpoool is for publicity – following his exit as a columnist for The Spectator Australia and the decision of Sky News to do without his services on Paul Murray Live and other programs.

There was a time when the Lair of Liverpool declared that he would never, ever appear on Q&A.  This is how Mark Latham commenced his (then) column in The Spectator Australia on 13 August 2011:

 What is it about Q&A? People who despise the show feel compelled to watch it every Monday night. It has become compulsory viewing for media masochists, a self-flagellation hour for political tragics….   I’ve been asked to appear but I had to tell Lindsay Olney, one of the show’s producers, that I would rather spend time in a dentist’s chair than swapping bons mots with the luvvies of the inner-city Left. Appearing or watching, I was a no-show.

 Where others might have wilted, I remained resolute. Months passed, years ticked by, each of them sans Q&A. But then two Mondays ago, I felt the lash for the first time. It started innocently enough, channel surfing, as one does after TVN’s Champions of Racing has ended.

 So there you have it.  First up, Mark Latham subjected himself to self-flagellation by watching Q&A. And now he has volunteered to sit in the Q&A dentist chair and swap bon mots with the luvvies of the inner-city left. That’s the story of a self-declared Q&A “no show” who has now joined the conga-line of what Mark Latham once referred to as media tarty masochists  and political tragics seeking an hour of Q&A self flagellation.

Can you bear it?

Until Friday – keep morale high.