Cut & Paste This

The Australian, Editorial, August 3 2007:

'Compensation payment shows that apologies are cheap'

'Many on the Left of politics, including the Labor Party, have made much of the need to say sorry to Aboriginal people but Mr Trevorrow's case highlights just how cheap and hollow an apology can be...'

'...This sort of hypocrisy is possible because the "Sorry" brigade has never made it clear, even to itself, what we are all meant to be saying sorry for and what it is meant to achieve.'

The Australian, Editorial, Today:

'The Australian has not had a problem with saying sorry to indigenous Australians, but we have always considered it to be a second-order issue compared with the need to improve living standards for indigenous Australians. Saying sorry would have been a sign of good faith but would not, in itself, make things better.'

And who said it would, 'in itself', make things better? As The Oz struggles to drag itself out of the pit of the culture war in the wake of Howard's demise it also struggles with understanding (after a decade) what proponents of saying "sorry" believe it will acheive.

I'm getting the distinct feeling that even the stalwarts of Australian conservatism are at least trying to call a truce in their culture war as they sense the potential for alienation if they continue down the hardline path of the last 11 years.

(Still injured, just couldn't help but comment. Oh, and I sent the above in a letter to the Oz, reakon they'll print it?)

Is The Oz Admitting Its Mistake?

In its editorial 'Reality Bites The Psychotic Left' of June 11th this year The Australian launched a scathing attack on Australia's "Left". Of particular focus were the economist Clive Hamilton and intellectual Robert Manne (the last of which the paper in question is quite obsessed with). The editorial had this to say about 'Silencing Dissent', a book edited by Hamilton and Sarah Maddison and introduced by Manne:

'This is the institute after all that believes in a vast corporate conspiracy to stall action on climate change, accuses David Jones and Myers of "corporate pedophilia" and claims that Australia is becoming an increasingly authoritarian state where dissidents are silenced.'

'This last thesis, expounded at length in Silencing Dissent published earlier this year, would seem difficult to sustain at a time when the marketplace of ideas has never been so crowded. In newspaper opinion sections and magazines and on radio and televisions and increasingly online, Australians are engaged in intelligent conversation about the issues of the day great and small. Blogs and internet chat rooms have given everyone a seat at the debating table. Technology has lowered the barriers to publishing. A host of new periodicals online and in print including The Monthly, New Matilda and The Australian's own Australian Literary Review are providing new platforms for discussion while established journals such as Quadrant and the Griffith Review are reaching new readers and providing a home for new writers.'

As I've argued before, this is a dishonest distortion of the main thesis of 'Silencing Dissent'. The book doesn't ever try to claim that people aren't allowed to express their opinions publicly, the main point of the book is that the Government has shown contempt for public debate by vigorously prosecuting whistleblowers, plugging leaks and politicising the public service and all this without a word of objection from its barrackers, until now that is.

A coalition of concerned media companies began a campaign a while back called 'Australia's Right To Know', of which News Ltd is a key supporter, and they commissioned a report to look into the state of today's freedom of information laws, the prognosis sounds familiar:

'The report's findings show how little dissent the federal Government is willing to tolerate when it comes to the unauthorised disclosure of information'

What's that you say!?

'In each of these cases, the disclosure of the information caused no damage except political embarrassment for the Government'

'Moss accuses the federal Government of harbouring a cold and calculating attitude to whistleblowers, criticising its "dogged refusal"to provide them with legal protection and a "relentless determination to track them down"'

Moss' comments appear to me as though she is actually reading straight from the pages of 'Silencing Dissent', these are two of its core criticisms after all. So where does this put The Australian's editorial position after lambasting Hamilton, Maddison and Manne for daring to say such things not 6 months earlier?

'News Limited, publisher of The Australian, long ago grew weary of the erosion of press freedom and appealed all the way to the High Court for the right to know. It lost the battle, but still fights the war. In May last year, a coalition of media organisations known as "Right to Know" -- led by News Limited and including Fairfax Media, FreeTV Australia, commercial radio, ABC, SBS, Sky News, ASTRA, West Australian Newspapers, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, AAP and APN News and Media -- funded an independent audit into media freedom.'

'The report, launched by News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan yesterday, finds that journalists are struggling to gain access to court documents for no apparent reason. Sometimes, nobody in the court has any idea who is allowed access to what, and all tend to err on the side of secrecy. There is too little protection for whistleblowers, and none at all for journalists such as Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus, also of the Herald Sun, who today have criminal convictions because they refused to reveal the source of a story about planned cuts to veterans' benefits.'

'If you, as a reader, care at all for the exhausted, crumbling pillar of democracy that is a free press, demand at this election that both parties breathe life into the Freedom of Information legislation, protect whistleblowers, provide the media with a shield law so journalists can protect their sources, and open the courts to scrutiny.'

It doesn't acknowledge it and proceeds to paint itself as a pioneer on these issues. Are they admitting a mistake? Hell no!

The Daydreaming Australian Is In For A Big Surprise

Did everyone read today's editorial in The Australian? It's been at least three months since the anonymous twit over there has had another explosion so this one was long over due.

'THERE is the real election campaign in which a centre-left challenger is fighting to regain the middle ground from a centre-right pragmatist. And then there's the fantasy election in which a left-liberal socialist is fighting to end 11 dark years of despotic rule by a scheming far-right culture-warrior.'

It must be getting itchy over there with all the straw men they've created over the years so why they're intent on creating more is a mystery. Considering that Rudd has himself denied being a socialist I'd be very amazed if anyone on the left believed he were one. Not that he needs to deny it, when one claims to be an economic conservative one need not denounce socialism as well, it's implied. As for Howard being a culture warrior, let's call a spade a spade here. The man has stood firm against symbolic reconciliation, "black armband" history, denounced all forms of leftism and spoken out against so-called left wing bias in all areas. What the hell is a culture warrior if not Howard?

'In an essay in The Monthly, Robert Manne details the manifesto of the fantasy Labor leader.'

Robert Manne again!? The obsession continues.

"If Rudd is elected, the kind of mimetic foreign policy that followed our blank-cheque endorsement of the US in every twist and turn of policy in its war on terror, which led us into the catastrophe of Iraq, will be reversed," Manne muses.

And considering Rudd's different approach toward Iraq, I'd say that Manne muses correctly.

"If Rudd is elected, the industrial relations laws will be softened and humanised ...'

Again, Manne muses correctly.

'universities will most likely be more generously funded ... some elements of the former independence of the public service and of the former vigour of the parliament (may) be revived ... the gulf between the government and the country's creative artists will be bridged." Well dream on.'

Dream on about what exactly? And since when was "dream on" a rebuttal?

'The banal truth is that Howard's Australia was never the nightmare of the Left's imaginings and Rudd's Australia would not be the liberal utopia of its dreams.'

Itchy itchy! How can they stand it!?

'These must be dull times for the class warriors who refuse to accept that the use-by date on Das Kapital is well and truly passed. Kevin Rudd does not look like Che Guevara and, prudently for a candidate who sees popular election rather than a proletarian uprising as a route to power, he is fundamentally conservative.'

WTF!? Exactly what is this anonymous twit talking about? They must have a serious crow problem over there to need so many straw men.

'He is delivering on his promise in an interview with The Weekend Australian's Christine Jackman earlier this year to "mess with Howard's mind", but his secret has been to outflank the Prime Minister on the Right rather than attack him from the Left.'

No shit Sherlock, this guys a genius. After painting us as guerrilla fighting revolutionaries he skillfully provides us with the truth about Rudd, and what a shock it is folks.

'A sober analysis of the Howard years, however, does not support the portrayal of the Prime Minister as a culture warrior. If indeed he has been waging war against the insidious forces of liberalism entrenched in universities, public broadcasters and publishing houses, Mr Howard has lost.'

Again, what the hell constitutes a culture warrior if not Howard? He's fought on every key conservative cultural concern during his stint, and on a regular basis. And losing the "war" doesn't instantly mean that he hasn't been fighting it. Who do they think he is, the John Rambo of culture warriors?

'As Christopher Pearson wryly observes elsewhere in these columns, Australia's universities are still, in effect, 37 publicly funded leftist think tanks. No fair-minded listener of Radio National or viewer of The 7.30 Report would conclude that Mr Howard's culture offensive, real or imagined, has made any more progress at the ABC.'

These guys are nuts!!! The 7:30 Report? These new McCarthyists will obviously stop at nothing to out the "reds" in the system. For ages now they've attacked Kerry O'Brien as uneven in his interviewing, but no rational minded individual could come to any other conclusion than that O'Brien is an evenly hard interviewer. Both Labor and the Coalition cop it in his studio in even measures. Did anyone see Latham do the rounds at the last election? Geez!

'The agenda of a Rudd government is likely to be much closer to the position advocated in the editorial columns of this newspaper than the outdated, soft-left manifesto supported by our broadsheet rivals.'

ooooh! What utter bullshit! I doubt Rudd was cheering on The Oz's past editorials like, "The Coalition Of The Whining Got It Wrong", or "Psycho Left...etc (forgot the rest)". These guys are clearly worried that they may lose their poster boy culture warrior Howard, so now they're taking credit for Rudd. What else explains such a concoction of fallacies and straw men?

A Pack Of Whingers, Or The New McCarthyists?

If there's one issue of interest to today's conservative commentariat that consumes more of their time than any other it's bias, or "left-wing" bias to be more precise. They see it everywhere, on T.V, on radio, in newspapers, even in worms and it drives them nuts. Some evidence was on show this week when Andrew Bolt, Gerard Henderson and George Megalogenis got together (two aggressive conservatives and one purely economical one) on the lefty ABC (fancy that) where the first two got stuck into the worm and that champion of the left, Ray Martin:

ANDREW BOLT: That said, I suspect there's something dodgy about that worm. I accept what George said that perhaps it's measuring a voter boredom with John Howard, but for Kevin Rudd to simply draw breath and the worm goes skyrocketing upwards which literally occurred, suggests that Channel Nine wasn't quite honest in saying that this was a group of uncommitted swinging voters split right down the middle. I don't think that was the case and I think Channel Nine polluted the discussion of this debate and influenced poorly I think, the reception that that debate got.

GERARD HENDERSON: As I saw it, the worm sort of stood on its tail and gave Kevin Rudd a standing ovation even before he had started talking. I mean, this was not a group of swinging voters, unless you're talking about voters who are swinging for Kevin07. I mean this... and I think Channel Nine and those who put together the group have got some explaining to do. We don't really need lectures, unprofessional lectures from Ray Martin who is making serious allegations about the Liberal Party and the Government on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. I mean, if you went before Ray Martin and made that comment in an interview, he would ask you what your evidence is. But Ray Martin is making all these allegations about improper...

ANDREW BOLT: Hear, hear, Gerard, right on.

GERARD HENDERSON: ...about improper influence. There's no evidence of improper influence. What there is evidence from, is growing incompetence of Channel Nine, which I think a couple of years ago was the leading current affairs organisation in the country, and it's now slipping very rapidly. And if that's the best they can do, then they ought to have their act looked at. And then what then happens is when John Howard has got a very anti... a very hostile media, that kind of very unprofessional gig with the worm then runs into papers like The Age, which are hostile to the Government. 'Rudd's decisive win, 65 to 29'. Well, I thought John Howard didn't do badly.

TONY JONES: Your own main organ of record, the Sydney Morning Herald, did pretty much the same thing?

GERARD HENDERSON: No, much more professional, it didn't run that at all. have a look at the front page. I think the Sydney Morning Herald handled it well...

So what are the implications for Channel Nine now that they've upset the culture warriors? Well Bolt explains today:

'Attention, Ray: The issue at stake is not that of the right to speak, but of the right to a fair hearing. A hearing free for just a few minutes from Nine’s spin - and yours.
Nine’s disgraceful and, in my opinion, deceitful behaviour this past week also raises other issues.
Here’s one: How honest is this Left-lurching station, and how trustworthy its most famous face?'

Oh No! It seems that now Nine joins the ABC, SBS, Fairfax and countless journalists on the naughty naughty bias list.

'As the journalist-run club told the TV stations: “Clean feed of the debate to be available to all media outlets on condition live broadcast is not ‘wormed’ or otherwise changed . . .”
Why? Because the Liberals wanted viewers to be free to watch Howard (and Rudd) debate and draw their own conclusions, without some TV station first trying a stunt to manipulate opinions. '

Is Bolt serious? 'to manipulate opinions'? The most rational reason why Nine wanted a worm is because it's a commercial television station, hence why they love corny gimmicks like these to draw in the crowds. This is far from evidence of a left-wing conspiracy, it's evidence of what the ABC would be like were these guys to get their wish for it to be privatised. The conspiracy continues:

'You’d think Martin would have been pleased, given we read only last month he’d agreed to host a Labor fundraiser.'

Again, Oh No!!! A Labor fundraiser!

'It’s also true that for half the debate the Canberra journalists on the panel steered him on to topics of raging interest for Howard haters - reconciliation, global warming and Iraq - and well away from more practical concerns, such as hospitals, water and jobs for the next generation.'

Once again Oh NO!!! Those dam lefties in the panel! Who put comrade Paul Kelly there? What's alarming is how low Bolt appears to rate the Iraq war, global warming and reconciliation. "let's do away with such rubbish and get to more practical concerns" he cries.

And after all this whinging and alluding to a conspiracy of reds what in the end was the catalyst? A fucking worm. A bullshit gimmick of the sort we're all now very used to from commercial television. Their McCarthy-like behaviour has reached brand new heights all because of a little, silly, tiny worm. Of course Bolt's argument is completely overshadowed by the fact that the National Press Club pulled the feed to Channel Nine, intending for viewers screens to go black, because it had offended a political party.

A fucking worm.

Wormy Troubles

Things are definitely fishy when a channel loses it's feed of a political debate simply because it uses a worm. Conveniently for the Gov, that worm appeared to be cold on them that night:

'Nine Network news boss John Westacott has criticised the National Press Club and the ABC for "doing the bidding of the Liberal Party" when it pulled the network's election debate feed last night.

"It was a disgraceful performance," Westacott told ninemsn.
Westacott said Nine was warned twice — first by the public broadcaster's production chief and then by the Press Club's chief executive — that its live feed would be pulled if it continued using the worm, an interactive graphic that measures audience reaction to the speakers .'

'Westacott described the eventual decision to cut Nine's feed to the debate between Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition leader Kevin Rudd as "the most disgraceful act of censorship I've seen in 40 years of journalism".'

It's all a bit odd. Why should the ABC care if Nine uses the worm?

Press Club vice president Glen Milne said the political parties set the terms and conditions of the debate.
"We were chosen as the neutral venue and provider and the broadcasters, of their own free will, entered into agreements about those constraints as well," he said to the ABC.
"Now when Nine walked away from that agreement and used the worm, it breached an agreement it had with the parties, not with the National Press Club."

Concerning.

The Oz Kicks An Own Goal

The Australian's Cut & Paste decided today to give a sample of John Hartigan, chairman of News Limited, talking up the diversity of journalists at News Ltd papers. It hasn't appeared on the website for some reason (maybe someone panicked after giving it a good thought) but I tracked down the whole speech. Here's the section that was given:

'I read our newspapers every day. I look at the coverage of politics across the group, the tone and treatment of stories, the leaders, the views of our columnists and our contributors. There is no evidence of a blanket order from the top. Because there simply isn't one. What you will see is our people completely at odds with each other. Piers Akerman giving The Australian a spray and getting one back. Or Malcolm Farr, Denis Shanahan and Christopher Pearson separately taking a different stand from Paul Kelly, Janet Albrechtsen and Andrew Bolt. If we are following a script we are doing a very bad job.'

Geez! Would Rupert even need to give these guys a script!? Sure, they may disagree on minor details here or there but we can rest assured that they'll still all be voting for the Coalition this coming election. They certainly aren't "completely at odds with each other" as John argues, in fact they're pretty much completely behind each other.

Bolt's Oft Repeated Disgrace

Andrew Bolt is about as regular as clockwork, though I'm sure we're all very aware of that fact. After reading this in The Australian:

'A MAGISTRATE seeking to preserve an Aboriginal toddler's "cultural identity" ignored warnings from child protection workers and put him into the care of his violent uncle, who four weeks later tortured and bashed the boy almost to death.
The 26-year-old uncle was sentenced to six years in prison yesterday after admitting to beating his 20-month-old nephew so severely that the toddler was fighting for his life in intensive care for three days.'

I knew without a doubt that Bolt would use it shamefully as another stick with which to beat his enemies in relation to the Stolen Generations. And viola, he did:

'As I’ve said many times, the stolen generation is a myth killing black children:'

What simple minded, partisan nonsense his argument is. Since his been destroyed by a mountain of historical evidence this has been his most recent, and most ridiculous, tactic. To convince Australia that the Stolen Generations should be denied he precedes to guilt them into disbelieving it, because as he says, regardless of the evidence for it, 'it kills black children'. So we're asked to not bother researching the evidence for ourselves because in doing so we'll simply be complicit in their deaths. This argument is tantamount to telling Armenians to stop mourning their past genocide if they would prefer better relations with Turkey. Just deny it no matter what happened, and all will be well. But let's look at this case as it happened:

'The boy, whose father was in jail for child rape, had been left homeless after the murder of his mother.
The decision of the Children's Court magistrate in October last year came despite the opposition of the Department of Human Services, which had raised concerns about the uncle's long criminal history and inadequate accommodation.
Indigenous leaders Boni Robertson, a professor in indigenous policy at Griffith University, and Warren Mundine, the former national president of the ALP, attacked the magistrate's decision to ignore the uncle's criminal and drug histories.
"It makes a mockery of the whole concept of child protection," Professor Robertson said. "Whoever made the decision to put that child in the care of that person with a history of known violence, they should be held culpable for what has happened to that child."'

No shit!!! What an immensely stupid decision! But if we are to follow Bolt's logic the magistrate can be absolved of his stupidity because the "myth" of the stolen generations is the real underlying culprit. The fact that this point would appear convenient for Bolt after his shrill denials of the Stolen Generations is of course of no consequence. To illustrate the magistrate's exceptional stupidity once more:

'The court heard yesterday that the uncle -- who lived in overcrowded conditions in the outer-southeast Melbourne suburb of Dandenong and was battling addictions to various drugs -- told police he "lost it" and started hitting the child in the head with an open hand because the boy was playing with his food.'

Who's Taking Pot Shots Now

The Australian's double standards are truly amazing. After attacking the ABC and Fairfax for 'teaming up' against News Limited and commercial TV:

'The choice of items clearly demonstrates a political nexus exists between the ABC and Fairfax that in turn fosters a culture of lazy investigations based on taking pot shots at commercial television and News Limited papers.'

The Australian two days later launches this pot shot against The Age:

'But it radiates hypocrisy to denounce the Government over nuclear energy while warning of the dangers of greenhouse gas. This appears to have escaped The Age, where the coal-powered electric lights are on but no-one seems to be home.'

There's of course nothing new in this, but given that this jibe has been written two days after it's recent whinge it would appear that the editors over at The Australian don't even know they're doing it anymore. It's like eating now, or going to the toilet. They must arrive at the office and automatically begin to ponder the various topics through which they can lambast Fairfax, the ABC, the Left and Robert Manne because this would simply be the only way for them to deliver any comment at all. Otherwise they'd be lost.

The Australian Strikes Back

After Media Watch had a stab at The Australian on Monday night the editors must have decided that that's enough and decided to go out all guns blazing. Pieces were written for the opinion page, the media section, and the editorial to lambast Media Watch for it's crime. These articles did present many sound points, and many bad ones, but the efforts of The Australian just came across as sour grapes. Media Watch has picked up some of their journalists on some strange reporting, the editorial states:

'Or if Fairfax journalist and former Media Watch presenter David Marr had broken all the significant stories on the Australian Federal Police treatment of Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef that Media Watch would have devoted half a program criticising him for one obscure point of his coverage, as it did with The Australian's Hedley Thomas?'

This incident was not an 'obscure point', it was a matter of Thomas removing a key sentence from a section of the first Haneef transcript to make it seem as though the Police had made yet another bungle. It's hard for anyone to look at what Thomas wrote, and what the transcript says, and come to the conclusion that it wasn't deliberate. This is exactly what Media Watch should be looking for. The editorial goes on:

'The Pachauri matter is merely symptomatic of a bigger Media Watch malaise where there appears to be an entrenched institutional bias of which the perpetrators may well not be aware. It is a bias that is quick to believe and reinforce a view that this newspaper is hostile to Labor and gives the Government favourable treatment. But this view is contrary to the fact that there are few complaints from senior Labor Party officials and politicians about the treatment they receive in our news pages. '

Note that it's careful not to include it's opinion page as this is where The Australian's own entrenched institutional bias resides. One only needs to look at it's pages throughout this week to note the imbalance. Yesterday, not one lefty, today, one, maybe one and a half, but this is typical. I'm sure they've heard complaints about this as I've listened to Labor politicians mention it myself during broadcasts of Parliament.

'The choice of items clearly demonstrates a political nexus exists between the ABC and Fairfax that in turn fosters a culture of lazy investigations based on taking pot shots at commercial television and News Limited papers.'

Because The Australian simply never takes pot shots at the ABC and Fairfax.

The fact is that The Australian has a point in that Media Watch suspiciously dodged some important issues this week and went after some banal events. But their efforts at payback are ridiculously over the top, three pieces on three different pages? Just one article in the media section would surely suffice. Poor babies.

More Logic From Planet Janet

Janet is quoted in Cut & Paste today railing against those fools who think The Australian has a right-wing bias:

'ONE of the problems with those peddling the line that there's some sort of wicked bias at The Australian is that they've really failed to grasp that there has been an incredibly important political realignment over the last decade over a range of issues.
We're now questioning multiculturalism, we're talking more openly about what it means to be a citizen, on education, on economics and on welfare and, indeed, on indigenous welfare and politics. There has been a huge shift, and I think that those who rail against The Australian have simply failed to catch up.... '

'The Australian reflects very much those mainstream Australian views. And I think the people on the Left who constantly rail against some sort of nasty bias emanating from The Australian newspaper simply haven't caught up with what's happened in Australia over the last decade.'

What breathtaking logic! Let's put aside the fact that The Australian has played an active part in swaying public opinion to the Right on the very issues Janet mentions and focus on the rationale. By using this logic, it would be quite alright for the ABC or The Age to demonstrate a left-wing bias as long as the majority of the population is left-wing. Indeed, she doesn't even try to defend The Australian against such allegations she merely attempts to justify it's slant by claiming that since Australia is a right-wing country, The Australian should be a right-wing paper. Anyone who disagrees with this view has simply 'failed to catch up'.

Since those at The Australian appear proud enough of their Janet's defense to quote it in Cut & Paste we can expect to see more editorial attacks on left-wing 'psycho's' and 'coalitions of the whining' and a continued unbalanced Cut & Paste and Opinion because after all, it's merely representing the majority view.

.........Oh and they've got Philip Adams!!

Australian Hypocrisy

I honestly now don't know what to think.One minute I think I've got these guys pegged, the next I'm floundering in confusion. In retaliation for slack given it recently over it's appraisal of newspoll The Australian now asserts that 'bias is in the eyes of the beholder':

'THE measure of good journalism is objectivity and a fearless regard for truth. Bias, nonetheless, is in the eye of the beholder and some people will always see conspiracy when the facts don't suit their view of the world. This is the affliction that has gripped, to a large measure, Australia's online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people's work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society's pool of knowledge.'

What I can't understand is why it's in the eyes of the beholder when the accusations are directed at them, and not when they direct them at others:

'As The Australian has observed on many occasions, the ABC continues to be afflicted by what seems to be almost an endemic bias.'

Indeed, on the very same page today they're having a go at the SMH for biased reporting. So how can we ever take these guys seriously?