Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth

Media watch

587 Comments

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  1. 251
    Greensborough Growler
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:00 am | Permalink

    Saying Virginia Trioli is quitting radio is like saying Howard is quitting as PM on Nov 24.

  2. 252
    Kate Ellis for PM
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:00 am | Permalink

    245 Bravo!

  3. 253
    Socrates
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:01 am | Permalink

    Kate Ellis for PM 228

    Sadly I must agree with you. The past ten years have demonstrated Howards amoral view of the use of power, and the cowardice of many so-called “journalists” in not even reporting it. But the fact that Howard got reelected despite both Tampa and Children Overboard has shown that, ultimately, the majority of Australians are selfish and don’t really care. No wonder governments don’t invest in the future. Most voters would rather have a plasma screen TV.

  4. 254
    Ashley
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:01 am | Permalink

    BV @ 245:

    Good points. Anyone else who feels the same should send off an email too… the ABC is pretty good at responding to allegations of bias these days. BV, any details as to where emails should be sent?

  5. 255
    tdt
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:01 am | Permalink

    thanks – back to work for me. hate for this to become a poetry appreciation centre.

  6. 256
    steve
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:01 am | Permalink

    One vote short of being a candidate. Maybe a run in three years perhaps, if enough signatures can be found.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/wouldbe-candidate-falls-one-name-short/2007/11/08/1194329409831.html

  7. 257
    middle man
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:01 am | Permalink

    did anyone see the GG’s story about the Latham article?? apparently “MARK Latham has thrown a bombshell into the 2007 election campaign, skewering some of Kevin Rudd’s central themes.”

    That is fantastic sub work!

  8. 258
    BV
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:02 am | Permalink

    There’s a contact link here:

    http://www.abc.net.au/contact/contactabc.htm

  9. 259
    Kirribilli Removals
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:03 am | Permalink

    Headline: Latham says Labor ‘conservative’

    When the GG whack this headline up, do they realise it’s just what Rudd has been trying to get the voters to think?

    How bizarre that in their desperate last minute agony, they actually reinforce Rudd’s theme because they just do not get it!

    Rudd’s out wedged, out played and out smarted the conservatives and now the poor old Government Gazette is trumpeting Rudd’s theme in it’s headlines.

    This just gets funnier and funnier.

  10. 260
    Ashley
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:03 am | Permalink

    BTW, BV (245) I think your point regarding having an unbalanced discussion panel is the strongest. The ABC is required to give equal weight to all sides, and as you have demonstrated 2 out of 3 of these commentators are not impartial.

  11. 261
    Tory Crimes
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:04 am | Permalink

    defo you middle man-but maybe 10 years ago you could have been on to something. But seriously over the years she has taken some anti-govt stances over things like VSU and she copped a lot of personal vile from a certain political blogger who has his own gossip site when she covered the story of the missing millions from the Melbourne Uni Student Union . Im not sure she is a blatant right-winger but another of these ABC journos who are too scared to take on the Tories and go overboard with wanting to be balanced (no punt intended)

  12. 262
    Lefty E
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:04 am | Permalink

    Lets sum it up: Our fourth estate is a national embarrassment. Bunch of press-release jockeys and compromised, second rate hacks. Few honourable exceptions.

  13. 263
    steve
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:05 am | Permalink

    ‘not impartial’?

  14. 264
    Ashley
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:05 am | Permalink

    257 (middleman) On ABC radio news this morning the Latham article was referred to as a “grenade”.

  15. 265
    Socrates
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:05 am | Permalink

    How is Latham criticising Rudd even news? Latham is not even a Labor party member any more AFAIK. By comparison, Malcom Fraser has sharply criticised Howard on many occaisions and it barely gets reported by now. Its not old news; its non-news. Is anyone actually going to release a policy today?

  16. 266
    Michael
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:05 am | Permalink

    SMH:

    The cost of home loans is set to rise by a further 0.25 per cent in the next month or two over and above the latest increase that is now being pushed through by the major banks after the Reserve Bank lifted official cash rates this week.

    National Australia Bank warned today that it couldn’t keep absorbing the price pressures that have been added to its own cost of borrowing which, in turn, is used to fund the mortgages it offers.

  17. 267
    The Keegan
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:07 am | Permalink

    Kevin Rudd should come out and deplore the Tele for suggesting Peter Costello is gay. We all know he’s not gay [insert Seinfeld rejoinder], he’s just a pr*ck.

  18. 268
    Rates Analyst
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:07 am | Permalink

    Where exactly did you see that Michael?

  19. 269
    middle man
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:08 am | Permalink

    a grenade???? oh that is too funny! If Latham says someone is conservative, most people would interpret that as a compliment. I cant believe the AFR thought latham’s views were even worth publishing.

  20. 270
    Michael
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:08 am | Permalink

    [269] – just go to smh.com.au

    you can’t miss it

  21. 271
    Fagin
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:10 am | Permalink

    Joe from WorkChoices I heard

    Tried hard to polish his turd

    It all came asunder

    With blunder on blunder

    When he was eaten by a Labor-Left bird.

  22. 272
    middle man
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:11 am | Permalink

    man this is a slow news day… Latham.. geez…. best get back to the salt mine. hi ho, hi ho….

  23. 273
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:11 am | Permalink

    I look forward to RN panel next Friday which will consist of Barry Jones, David Marr and Robert Manne. NOT!

  24. 274
    Rates Analyst
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:13 am | Permalink

    Thanks

  25. 275
    Gary Bruce
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:13 am | Permalink

    I like this from Crikey’s Early Campaign Edition: Day 26
    “Dear Sole Subscriber,
    Campaign day 26. 15 sorry days to polling. Not that we’re apologising for anything. No, sorry, but we’re not. I mean we’re sorry, but we wouldn’t want you to think that meant we were indicating anything other than a vague sense of generalised and certainly non-specific regret. Certainly not guilt. And it’s not our fault.”
    Brilliant.

  26. 276
    Don Wigan
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:13 am | Permalink

    It is a dull day when the trolls get so much attention.

    My theory on Tabitha is that she’s the latest innovation that Howard Junior brought back from Team Rove in the US.

    You remember that at the 04 election he used that computer-generated phone spammer to call up marginal voters with ‘John Howard’s Special Personal Message’ (it seemed to be similar to Homer Simpson’s Money-making spammer, “Friend, I have this great money-making scheme. Just send $5 and a stamped envelope to…”) on how important it was to vote Liberal.

    In this one the computer generates couplets and sends them in to left-leaning blogs to crowd up space and distract posters. Tabitha is not a person! She’s a computer program. Which is why she never engages in dialogue.

    Ave it 07, of course, is merely parodying Tabitha.

  27. 277
    adrian
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:15 am | Permalink

    Just flicked through the Tele at the newsagent downstairs – the ’sorry saga’ headline is fantastic for Labor. Don’t know about the rest of the article, but the headline says it all. Maybe they will support Rudd after all.

    The Tele’s interpretation of Trioli’s departure is completely different from the SMH’s version, the Tele being far more critical of her ‘failure’ as a broadcaster.

    And the SMH is doing its best to bury sorrygate. What’s going on?

  28. 278
    John Hunt Is A Coward
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:15 am | Permalink

    Don’t feed the liberal trolls. Best to just ignore them and talk about interesting stuff. I don’t bother even reading Glen’s posts. Too predictable and too boring.

  29. 279
    Julie
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:16 am | Permalink

    Ok, here is my story from the front lines here in Liverpool, NSW this morning.

    I stopped at the local Westfield on my way home from the gym to get a take away salad for lunch. I remarked to the lady who was preparing my salad that I “wanted to get home before the cricket started at 11am”. She said “oh, so you are a cricket tragic then?” and I said, yes, pretty much. Then I added that the only thing more interesting than the cricket at the moment was the Federal Election. She looked at me in all innocence and said “oh, when is that?”. I didn’t want to be rude and put my best “you’re kidding?? right??” face on. She wasn’t offended and took the look the way I meant it and told me “I work all the time and I don’t read papers or watch TV so I had no idea”. I caught my breath and told her it was on Saturday 24th November. Then she said to me “well, you seem like you know all about it, who should I vote for?” [I thought to myself, "you BEAUTY" and realized I probably wouldn't get a chance like this again]. I also remembered the KISS principle [Keep It Simple Stupid] and told her this. “Vote for your Labor candidate so that Kevin Rudd gets in as PM. Howard and the Libs have simply been there TOO long.” She said to me as she gave me my change “That sounds to me, thanks :)

    If she was on the level, I got one more onto the ship today :) :):)

  30. 280
    Socrates
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:16 am | Permalink

    Perhaps we could institute a “Tony Snow Award”, for the journalist making the greatest cnotribution to the continuation of right wing government. Do I hear any nominations?

    We could put up an online poll and allow people to vote for their favourite. Given the intellectual stature of most of the potential recipients, an Oxford Dictionary (Student edition) would be a good prize.

  31. 281
    Andrew
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:17 am | Permalink

    Why the competition? Shanahan is without peer, with a special mention to Ackerman

  32. 282
    CL de Footscray
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:17 am | Permalink

    275 – I suspect they’re not apologising for spreading paranoia and alarm in the ranks of pseph-bloggers …

  33. 283
    Julie
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:18 am | Permalink

    279,

    that second last line should read “sounds good to me”, sorry about that ……

  34. 284
    Dinsdale Piranha
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:18 am | Permalink

    Has anyone seen that rolling ad for the Greens? “Howard is Gone,” it says. “But who will keep Kevin honest?” Very droll. With senators like Kerry Nettle, Labor must be quaking in its collective boots.

  35. 285
    Betamax
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:19 am | Permalink

    Well said, Denmore @ 238.

    That is exactly FK’s problem: she feels an obligation to pontificate or theorize about politics. Unfortunately, her background is as a straight fact gatherer. She has no theoretical grounding in anything to base her comments on. No political science or economics, no real world experience of campaigning, no psephology, no sociology.

    So she fills the gap with sweeping, cliched statements, as you say. Usually ones that look at politics through the prism of unhelpful Lakoff-ian metaphors (eg a metaphor of politics as a fight/brawl; a week as being won/lost; parties “having momentum/stalling”)

    I for one have long been irritated with the way media privileges *other journalists* with a special knowledge of politics and society. Heck, ABC 702 is a perfect example — every week at least 2 different shows have a “journalists forum” where intellectual titans such as Jennifer Byrne — people who truly have their finger on the pulse of our world — share their important insights. It’s just not in the media playbook, for instance, to ask people who might actually have, oh, I don’t know, studied politics or society or media for a living to give their opinion? People who’ve actually done some research, gathered some evidence to base their opinions on?

    Apologies for the rant.

  36. 286
    seajay
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:19 am | Permalink

    I agree about Fran Kelly’s apparent bias; her silly claim about Howard’s momentum was supported by Lyndal Curtis who has been on the Howard campaign ‘bus’ all week – of course it would look to her like Howard had momentum. Why do we continue to get Kroger, Milne and the ubiquitous and oleagenous Henderson (who seems to deliberately drop his Gs as if imitating some upper class pommie twit) as ‘expert’ commentators on an almost daily basis? I know RN listeners will almost certainly pay her no heed but it buggers up the rest of my day getting annoyed about it.
    And then I think about WorkChoices, Nov 24 and the sweet vision of Howard’s resignation speech – oh joy oh joy.

  37. 287
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:19 am | Permalink

    As Michelle Grattan said this morning, the care factor about Latham comments out there in the electorate is zero.

    As she said he had his time and failed and the electorate already rejected him, and will not listen to him now. Pointedly Grattan said that the only people who will take any notice are journalists, commentators and politics tragics like us.

    Latham has already been scathing towards Rudd before so I can’t see this failry mild criticism having much impact.

    Of course Milne said that Latham statement about the fact that there is no affordibility crisis will be a ‘turning point’ in this election (for heavens’ sake, how many turning points we’ve had?) which will favour the coalition.

    As someone said, being labelled a conservative by Latham will be seen as a plus, if anything.

  38. 288
    steve
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:19 am | Permalink

    270 &274 Yes, Michael and Rates Analyst, seems that another Christmas Nightmare has just fallen into Howard’s lap.

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/christmas-nightmare-banks-to-up-rates-again/2007/11/09/1194329464130.html

  39. 289
    onimod
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:19 am | Permalink

    Trioli
    Landeryou aparently has a ‘thing’ for her. One of many mentions:
    http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2006/12/fight-fight-nasty-leftistes-slug-it.html

    Apparently being called out by a former PM isn’t enough to make you even remotely reconsider your mantra these days.

    I see Uhlmann got s mention a little earlier too. Chris, if you’re reading, (and let’s face it if you’re a political journo and you’re not skimming here you’re missing out), I have no problem with attacking and teasing the truth out of ALL pollies, but the intellectual bar needs to be raised just a tad – go watch a few decent barristers if that’s who you want to emulate.

  40. 290
    Pi
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:20 am | Permalink

    280 Socrates Says: November 9th, 2007 at 11:16 am

    Perhaps we could institute a “Tony Snow Award”, for the journalist making the greatest cnotribution to the continuation of right wing government. Do I hear any nominations?

    Andrew Bolt. He at least has some indication of the hammering that the libs are about to get in about two weeks.

  41. 291
    tdt
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:20 am | Permalink

    You’ve just trumped me Fagin. Top stuff.
    I’m in Hockey’s seat and I can tell you – Mike Bailey is everywhere. I’ve seen him three times in this campaign already. He’s a long horse, but wouldn’t it be great to see the weather man get up!

  42. 292
    ND
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:21 am | Permalink

    Johnny Howard is a jerk
    Give us back our rights at work

  43. 293
    ND
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:25 am | Permalink

    Vote ALP and the light on the hill
    Not Johnny Howard and the boys from Brazil

  44. 294
    peterm
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:25 am | Permalink

    Listening to Frannie’s panel this morning made be wish that they tried harder to get a panel of non-aligned people with something interesting to say, meaningful insights and nothing to spruik.

    Problem with that is the Howard style of spin government politicises everyone, you are either for them or against them.

    Same problem with Insiders – though I think Megalogensis comes closest to an interesting commentator.

  45. 295
    Pi
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:25 am | Permalink

    Funny how we don’t hear any ‘internal liberal polling’ leaks anymore?

    What does that tell you?

  46. 296
    CL de Footscray
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:26 am | Permalink

    Seajay et al – try news radio in the mornings. Marius Benson is the real thing. And you’ll hear stuff that only another 16 people will hear, so you can be first to spread rumours.

  47. 297
    Michael
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:27 am | Permalink

    Did Milne really say that Latham’s comments would be a “turning point”?
    That does seem very odd.
    Latham’s comments were really quite innocuous – surprisingly so. If anything, they feed into Labor’s narrative, not the government’s.

  48. 298
    Ashley
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:28 am | Permalink

    Funny how we don’t hear any ‘internal liberal polling’ leaks anymore?

    Not much from Labor either. You can draw the same conclusion, but for different reasons. ;-)

  49. 299
    Ashley
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:29 am | Permalink

    Did Milne really say that Latham’s comments would be a “turning point”?

    Milne has had so many turning points he is going round in circles.

  50. 300
    AM
    Posted Friday, November 9, 2007 at 11:30 am | Permalink

    The end is in sight for Johnny Rotten.
    At the end of the fight he will soon be forgotten

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