Apparently some “journalists”, like Joe Hildebrand (or his subeditors), no longer feel it’s necessary:
A GREENS politician has been told to stop bringing her husband to council meetings because he eats too much of the food.
Waverley councillor Prue Cancian was told not to bring her activist husband Chris Maltby to meetings because the ratepayer-funded catering could not sustain it.
The matter came to a head at last Tuesday night’s council meeting at which Mr Maltby, despite having been asked not to attend by general manager Tony Reed, again showed up. The Daily Telegraph has been told that at the end of the meeting there was no food left for the hungry councillors or their staff.
“The Daily Telegraph has been told”? By whom? More importantly, what did Ms Cancian say when the allegation was put to her? Did Hildebrand even put that allegation to her before publication?
If this was a genuine story of concern, and not merely an opportunity to bash the Greens by extension (which is, predictably, what tim and Andy have enthusiastically and shamelessly done with it), then professional competence – and basic fairness – should surely have required that the target of the attack at least be given an opportunity to comment before publication.
Were they, and it was excluded – or did the writer not even bother? Why? Does he not have a telephone?
I’ll keep my eyes open for further examples of this specific shabby conduct by other professional “journalists” – if, indeed, it has become accepted practice amongst the lazy or spiteful – because, and I’ll be very clear about this – they should all be called on it. It goes well beyond simple bias: it is using a journalist’s pulpit to attack someone without giving their side of the story a hearing at all. Particularly at the moment when the story is most damaging – when it is first broken and gains the most attention.
The practice is seriously damaging to public debate, and profoundly unjust, whoever does it.
UPDATE As regards this specific incident, Joe responds to us “hippies” in the comments:
In fact I did go to Prue and she refused to comment. Then I went to Chris and he also refused to comment until after I gave him several opportunities he eventually agreed to be quoted which I tried to get in before deadline. Sadly this wasn’t do-able and so I said I would re-top the story today. Luckily for posterity the whole exchange was captured on Facebook and I have included it below for your edification.
There is now an updated version of the story on the Daily Telegraph site to reflect this, and whilst it still appears to be a massive beat-up with the sole aim of smearing the Greens, it appears that Mr Hildebrand did contact the subjects of his piece before publishing the article.
It shouldn’t have been necessary for us to specifically ask him whether he’d done so or not, of course – it should have been made clear in the story. I’ve sent Joe an email asking why it wasn’t.
UPDATE #2: Joe’s response:
Sometimes sub-editors cut copy so that it fits in the paper. The website then uses the published version. In fact the original piece contained the initial no comments and then had Chris’s comments added but it was too late to make edition.
That’s still a serious problem – the Daily Telegraph‘s sub-editors shouldn’t be cutting those details out.
You might say – what does it matter? They hadn’t commented anyway. But if newspaper reports don’t let us know that when the answer is “no comment”, then people will forget to ask when there is a response but it’s not sought. It’s about keeping the gatekeepers honest.
If Joe doesn’t want to be caught up in this sort of thing, he should make a point of talking with his editor about how bad it looks for him personally when they exclude critical material such as any response from the person being attacked.
UPDATE #3: For the sake of clarity I’ve added “or his subeditors” to the first sentence. Joe is represented by what is published under his name, but of course there are subeditors between him and what’s finally printed. He claims that it’s the subeditors’ fault that the critical detail was excluded, and I have no reason to doubt that (although I don’t think it makes a substantial difference insofar as the subject is concerned), so I’m happy to make it clear at the beginning.
UPDATE #4: Thinking about the issue of bloggers commenting on journalists’ published articles, and whilst there’s a clear difference between what we do (where the evidence required for a reader to make up their own mind is right there in the link, and our allegations are limited to our interpretation of that text) and what a reporter does (publishing allegations that the reader has no way of checking), on reflection I agree that it is probably better for us to adopt best practice and give our subjects an opportunity to respond to our conclusions before we publish them, where possible.
I may have learned some bad habits from the example set by the previous “journalists” we were watching. Also, it hadn’t clicked that, unlike when I was just some guy with a blog, I can now actually ring the subject of a piece and say “it’s Jeremy from Crikey” and they’ll answer the phone.
Anyway – I’ll ring next time.
Elsewhere: despite the eventual publication of Mr Maltby’s response, Joe (and others) continue to run the juvenile “hungry hungry hippo” line as if he hadn’t said anything.
63 Comments
As soon as I’d read the piece, the term ‘smear-job’ leapt straight to mind. And of course, who should be straight into pompous blog comment but AndyBlot, mindless of the fact that he is commenting on nothing but hearsay. Only too predictable, really.
I read the article in question before I saw this and was disappointed in Hildebrand for indulging in such tripe. He’s much better than that.
I’m presuming that now that you are a (presumably) paid semi-journalist working for a professional news outlet, you called Joe Hildebrand to find out whether he in fact did seek comment?
If you didn’t, then this post is nothing but, as you would say, a lazy and spiteful exercise in Tele-bashing (the favourite sport of the inner-city Green).
That sort of shabbiness may be de rigeur on your cat blog, or when you’re trying (unsuccessfully) to keep an unlicensed elderly dentist out of the big house, but c’mon man, this is the big time! This is Crikey!!
‘Reporting’ like that is not much better than an article in New idea.
Shabadoo has a partial point in that contact could be made. But there is a difference between opinion writing as per blogs (See fact checking on Blair and Bolt’s sites) opposed to journalism reported in daily major newspapers. I guess the paper is the Daily though, which often uses The Sun in the UK as a major fact source.
You might have noticed, “Shabadoo”, that I’ve not alleged anything not directly apparent from Hildebrand’s piece. He doesn’t refer to having given them any opportunity to respond before publication. If he did give them that opportunity, then it isn’t in the published story, which is just as bad. Follow the link if you don’t believe me.
The contrast is that he quite specifically alleges conduct by Ms Cancian and Mr Maltby that may or may not be true and we do not know what their response is.
Your gotcha fails miserably.
As to the pathetic personal attacks in your final paragraph – the best you can do is point out that I sometimes post pictures of my cats on my personal blog (so what), and repeat tim Blair’s contemptible old smear at my job based on a dentist whose defence I did not conduct who went to jail? Pissweak.
Newspapers have limits of space, subeditors cut lines like “So-and-so declined to comment”, etc, all the time. You’re now a professional, paid blogger writing about the media for a site that exists in large part to comment on the media. Under the circumstances, it seems like it would be wise or at least fair to ring the reporter and just ask if he did lob a call into the councillor concerned. As you say, Do you not have a telephone? Either you would have found that indeed Hildebrand had called the councillor in question, and this would be a non-story, or you could have committed journalism and had the real scoop of getting him on the record to admit that he didn’t make the call. But this is just a piss-weak effort.
Your sophistry on this makes me think you have your blog’s slogan back to front. After all, you claim to be all about “exposing intellectual dishonesty in the mainstream media, across the political spectrum”, but aside from one fish-in-a-barrel whack at Clive Hamilton, this entire site seems to be devoted to creating yet another outlet for your feverish obsession with News Ltd papers in general and a handful of bloggers and columnists in particular.
PS: http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Vic-dentist-jailed-for-breaching-ban/2006/04/04/1143916511914.html
Update -
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25104634-5001021,00.html
Nice try hippies but the day is not yours this time.
In fact I did go to Prue and she refused to comment. Then I went to Chris and he also refused to comment until after I gave him several opportunities he eventually agreed to be quoted which I tried to get in before deadline. Sadly this wasn’t do-able and so I said I would re-top the story today. Luckily for posterity the whole exchange was captured on Facebook and I have included it below for your edification.
And of course if you look at the website you will see that the story has indeed been updated with Chris’s response at the top.
Have a cabbage on me.
Big hugs,
Joe
Joe Hildebrand
February 24 at 5:33pm
Hi Chris,
Joe Hildebrand from The Daily Telegraph here. I have been told that there are some concerns about you eating food at council meetings and would like to get your response for a story I’m writing this evening. I am on 04XX XXX XXX.
Cheers,
Joe
Chris Maltby
Add as Friend
February 24 at 6:34pm
Report MessageHi Joe,
I don’t have any comment on this, especially with such limited information as to who might have raised these “concerns” and what has been alleged the “concerns” might be.
Regards,
Chris
Joe Hildebrand
February 24 at 6:37pm
Hi Chris,
Thanks for getting back. My understanding is that the GM wrote to Prue asking that you – like other spouses – not attend meetings constantly and the mayor has endorsed this policy. But if you don’t wish to comment that is of course fine.
Cheers,
Joe
Chris Maltby
Add as Friend
February 24 at 7:12pm
Report Message
Joe,
I don’t think catering is the issue – its more a matter of there being an informal opportunity for members of the public who have sat through what can be very long and tedious meetings to chat with their representatives. I don’t really understand why the mayor or GM would be saying this was a bad thing.
Chris
Joe Hildebrand
February 24 at 7:16pm
I guess it’s a matter of protocol or something. So are you happy for me to quote you on the above?
Loading…
Chris Maltby
Add as Friend
February 24 at 7:29pm
Report MessageI guess so.
Joe Hildebrand
February 24 at 7:30pm
No probs. I’ll try to squeeze it in now. Should be a fun story.
Cheers,
Joe
Joe Hildebrand
February 24 at 7:35pm
No worries. Should be a fun story. Let me know if you want to have a shot back at your detractors tomorrow. Chris Maltby
Add as Friend
Today at 6:39am
Report Message
Joe,
Here’s my comment on the story – as posted to the Tele website:
You claim that “at last Tuesday night’s council meeting [I], despite having been asked not to attend by general manager Tony Reed, again showed up”. Both parts of this sentence are false.
I didn’t go to the meeting (which finished at 12:30am), so I can’t have been responsible for any lack of catering. Tony Reed did not ask me to stay away.
There are many other falsehoods and inaccuracies in the article.
This is simply a nasty personal attack on myself and my Councillor wife for political advantage.
Proud to be a “Greens activist”,
Chris
PS Thanks for providing balance to the story by using my comments… Joe Hildebrand
Today at 10:25am
Thanks Chris, I will try to get them to update the web story.
Having said that, I think it is a bit disingenuous for you to imply I withheld your comments. If you look at your first sentence in this exchange you may recall that you were originally not going to comment at all and only did so after I gave you repeated opportunities to and double-checked as to whether you wanted to be quoted. I then said I would try to get them in the story. Being late in the day this is not always possible – you’ll note it was cut to three paragraphs in the paper. I then gave you a further opportunity to respond more fulsomely today. You can find that written in my last message.
Cheers,
Joe
Chris Maltby
Add as Friend
Today at 10:37am
Report MessageJoe,
Can you explain why my comment has not been posted to the story though I submitted it at 6:30am today?
Chris
Joe Hildebrand
Today at 10:42am
I don’t know Chris. Maybe they just don’t like you, which is an opinion I am coming to understand.
Chris Maltby
Add as Friend
Today at 10:57am
Report MessageI guess that makes it mutual.
All the best…
“subeditors cut lines like “So-and-so declined to comment”, etc, all the time.”
They certainly shouldn’t. It’s critical.
“Either you would have found that indeed Hildebrand had called the councillor in question, and this would be a non-story, or you could have committed journalism and had the real scoop of getting him on the record to admit that he didn’t make the call.”
I’m not pretending to be a journalist – I’m commenting on journalists. On their published writing. The difference between my post and Hildebrand’s article is that you can check whether what I’m saying is true simply by following the link. You can’t check on what Hildebrand’s saying without actually going and contacting the people in his story. One is feasible for a reader to do, the other isn’t.
I’m not a journalist. I do not receive a salary as a journalist. I’ll get a cut of the advertising revenue from this site, but for my commentary, not my digging out of stories. I do not have the resources to go hunting down leads etc. And we never pretended we would – this is a secondary resource. The primary resource is supposed to be the actual journalists who go and do the footwork to report the facts on the ground.
That’s not my job.
As to this post the point, the critical issue, is that vital, fair details regarding the Tele’s allegations are not included in the story. Whether that’s because Hildebrand didn’t make the call from his News Ltd desk or because News Ltd doesn’t think that detail is important – that’s worthy of further investigation. But it doesn’t alter the initial point.
Which of course, in your haste to attack me personally in every way you can think of (seriously, repeating tim’s lame smear about the dentist was pretty contemptible), you’re doing your best to ignore.
Holy shit, you actually went and dug up the link. Creepy.
For the record, I did not represent that dentist in his defence. It was not one of the matters I’ve argued. I simply picked up a last-minute brief to sit in on sentence for him – well after the defence arguments had concluded – to check that the sentence was lawful and to explain it and his further options to him. I did not argue the case. I also did not tell the journalist that “I did not know” whether he’d appeal – I said “I couldn’t comment on that”.
tim Blair has long known the above, but has been disingenuously and dishonestly using it to smear my professional reputation ever since.
You draw your own conclusions about why he’d feel the need to do that. (He also has a wacky tale about a parking inspector he likes to twist in a similar fashion.)
Any publication that is going to be in business in two years time will be reporting, analysing and commenting 24/7/365. The term edition will be an anachronism.
Speaking just for myself, the old rules have been replaced by the one that tells whomever or whatever that you have a story than involves them, that you are contemplating publishing it in a very short period of time, and that they may wish to respond immediately, or later, or not at all, but are encouraged to tell their side of the story if indeed there is something additional they have to offer.
The right to a fair, accurate and commensurately fulsome response is as critical as ever. But it may not, as in the past, necessarily occur in one article fixed in time.
It is a tactic of media managers to delay stories. Telling these people that the story will ‘depart’ on time, with or without their immediate participation, is one of a number of answers to this. Particularly if the party you are writing about seeks to dilute the story you have outlined to them with a diversionary leak to a competing outlet.
Immediacy does raise important ethical issues. However the overriding concern of media managers is often to subvert plainly written and timely reporting of a story or an assessment the client doesn’t wish to see escape into the public domain.
The test ultimately will be whether an issue or event has been properly reported in a reasonable period of time, rather than the confines of a printed edition.
Shabadoo – Have you asked the same questions of Bolt and Blair for directly linking the story?
Does Shabadoo have a real name? If you are calling someone else’s professional ethics or standards into question, wouldn’t it be proper to come out of anonymity to do it? Just a thought…
“I do not have the resources to go hunting down leads etc” — mate, it’s not like I’m suggesting you uncover Watergate or the Khemlani affair, but if you have the time to sit at this and all your other blogs feverishly responding to any and all comers, then you presumably have the time to make a quick call to the Telegraph’s News Desk. Especially now that you’re doing so under the aegis of a respectable, incorporated media site, protestations of being a “secondary resource” aside. Does “secondary” = “unaccountable”? It seems like a case of one law for me, another for thee.
Oh, and I don’t think its creepy to Google for thirty seconds to see what the real story is behind the “contemptible smear”. It must be quite galling to be professionally misrepresented by The Age (or as you might ironically call it, “Teh Age”), if indeed you are right and this “primary resource” is misleading. How do you deal with the internal contradiction of being wronged by someone other than News Ltd.
Dam Buster, I’m not paid to do this, Jeremy is.
Shabadoo – Bolt and Blair are paid to do what they do as well. They have a lot more resources at hand to check the facts. Tim could even walk past Hildebrand’s desk and ask him in person. Do they do that? nope.
According to you Jeremy should be held to a higher level of scrutiny than Blair or Bolt. Which is it? double standards or same standards?
Meanwhile, away from Shabadoo’s rather simian attempts to pick up something, anything, to hurl out of his cage… back on the topic:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25104634-5001021,00.html
Right, and Blair and Bolt aren’t making accusations about a colleague’s ethics, Sear is. And the raison d’etre of this blog is to “[expose] intellectual dishonesty” in the media. So Sear and Co. have set the bar high themselves. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to understand: if you want to impugn someone’s skills and probity, which is what Sear is doing, give them the right of reply.
Not to deal with your crap, S.
“Does “secondary” = “unaccountable”? It seems like a case of one law for me, another for thee.”
No. There’s plenty of accountability.
It’s easy for a reader to check what I say simply by following the link.
It is not easy to check what Hildebrand says.
That’s the difference between being a secondary source and a primary source: you don’t have to take anything I say on faith, because everything required to make up your own mind is provided by the link. A news story in a newspaper, on the other hand, is quite different.
Hence the difference between journalists and columnists.
As to your continued fascination with my actual professional life (you know, the one that has nothing to do with this site) the AAP journo (published in both The Age and News Ltd papers) misquoted me, yes – but only to a very minor extent. The piece wasn’t about me.
In contrast, tim Blair has subsequently maliciously repeated his serious smear that the dentist’s sentence was somehow a reflection on my professional competence, even though he knows it isn’t true, and has known that since the day he first ran it. Pretty contemptible stuff.
Anyway, back to the topic of this dodgy piece by Hildebrand, if you can get past talking about me, my professional life, my cat, what I may or may not get paid, and any of the other irrelevant bullshit you’re trying to use to avoid dealing with the actual issue at hand.
“give them the right of reply.”
He does have a right of reply – unlike in a newspaper, he can actually post a reply right here, attached right to the post in question.
Well as per monkeywrench’s link it looks like Joe H has had his story checked and it is a load of rubbish. Looks like it was moe a slur than sub-editors snipping out bits.
Will Blair and Bolt also update their posts?
Joe has already responded, but it got caught in moderation, as did a number of other comments while I was arguing with our anonymous friend.
I’ll put the content of Joe’s comment in an update.
dam buster 2:16 : Of course they will, they are high-quality commentators of integrity and honesty.
And in news just to hand: Monkeywrench Not Holding Breath, as reported by Joe Hildebrand earlier…
hildebrandJ
Posted February 25, 2009 at 1:32 pm
What an absolute bull shit snow job Joe. Have you named all the ‘other spouses’ in a similar manner or is just because Mr Maltby has a visible profile through his political allegiance?
Childish and nasty journalism from Hildebrand.
As for his infantile response here…
Oh and Joe can keep his cabbage. I don’t like it, it gives me gas that smells like the Newscorp reporting standards.
I have a feeling Hildebrand is just trying to stir you/us up with his infantile response. That seems to be his trick of the trade, if you care to read his blog.
Here is the letter I have sent to the editor after they declined to add my comments to the “your say” section on the first story:
Your story about me in today’s Telegraph makes the claims that “at last Tuesday night’s council meeting, despite having been asked not to attend by general manager Tony Reed, [I] again showed up”. Both these claims are false.
I did not attend the meeting at all, so I can’t have been responsible for any lack of catering. At no time did Tony Reed ask me to stay away.
There are many other falsehoods and inaccuracies in the article, which is a nasty personal attack on myself and my Councillor wife by our political opponents for political advantage.
It is commonplace for local councils to invite local residents and ratepayers who sit through long and often tedious meetings to join their representatives for an informal chat, sometimes with food and drink provided. This has been a longstanding tradition at Waverley for the over 20 years I have been attending occasional meetings there.
I would presume that the current mayor would now like to keep this opportunity to her cronies only instead of the open approach of previous mayors.
I made a comment to your journalist last night but it was not included in the article. At 6:30am and again later I posted comments on the “your say” webpage, but these have not been published.
Your actions seem to be in flagrant breach of the Australian Press Council principles, particularly number 8.
I wonder if you will publish this letter?
Joe has also blogged about this on his blog.
Cheers,
Hippie Bron.
At least Joe claims to have got a laugh out of my new Facebook profile photo (which is where the two photos the published were obtained).
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1361620&l=d1fd4&id=605158770
“As a mayor I could not condone spending ratepayers’ money on meals for all of the councillors’ family and friends and anything else,” [Ms Betts] said yesterday…
Ms Betts said councillors’ family and friends should not have carte blanche access to catering”.
The clear implication of the article is that the guy is a fucking greedy pig – he ate “too much food”. Presumably this accusation sits poorly with him being a “green activist”.
But the statements quoted don’t support that accusation at all. Did anyone in fact accuse the guy of being a fucking pig or not? If so, who was it, and why weren’t they quoted as saying so?
seems like hildebrand’s been reading too many of timmy’s Al Gore is Fat pieces. this is gutter journalism plain and simple especially if as is claimed by Maltby that his clarifying comments were not published.
hmmm, why would this tactic seem familiar to me…..?
My favourite bit is Hildebrand saying — twice — that it should be a “fun” story. Fun for who?
Certainly fun for the first commenter on Hildebrand’s blog.
Geddit? Greens activist > hippie > pot smoker. Buckets of fun (pun intended.)
That was an incredily crap piece of ‘journalism’, but it doesn’t top this one from DT the other day : Dale Shearer’s wife died of cancer a short while, Dale Shearer has a serious car accident, so the DT runs a headline box on its online front page claiming Dale Shearer is being afflicted by some kind of ‘Curse.’
Yes, the Daily Telegraph really claimed Shearer’s bad luck was due to a Curse. It stayed up there for hours, even after dozens of comments attached to the story said words to the effect of “For f..k’s sake! A Curse? Are you joking?”
It only came down after I emailed the Daily Telegraph’s associate editor Tim Blair and demanded he get it removed for the sake of Shearer’s kids. Imagine having your kids visit you in hospital after a car accident and the first thing they ask you is : “Daddy, is it true that mummy died and you had a car accident because you’re Cursed?”
Screen captures are here :
http://tinyurl.com/byxg5r
This is the kind of reaction that this politically motivated and false story is designed to generate. On Bolt’s blog, Amazing Scenes (Wed 25 Feb 09, 1:05pm) wrote:
“Gaia again, O carbon based bipeds! Now, uptothebackteeth, leave Mr Maltby alone! When he comes to me, I want him nice and fat for the worms and other of my little darlings to fatten themselves and do all the wormy things that they do so well!”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/greed_politics/
This is a thinly veiled death wish against Mr Maltby.
silkworm: that is a hateful comment on bolt’s blog! and serves to demonstrate the hypocracy bolt shows in moderating. bolt and his followers are simply extremists, twisted by their own hatred and poisoned ideology.
Serves you all right. Who would bother to read the DT? That newspaper along with all others is just a propaganda pushing, gossip reporting piece of rubbish. It is a shame really because it should be the medias place to protect society from corruption and to keep our societys big wig accountable. It seems as if it is now simply another form of corruption. Joe H defense of his behaviour is just too hard to follow and shabawho sounds like he is employed by the blairboltienies as a cheergirl. Keep up the great work Jeremy and dont be so reactive to the dirty tactics used by the righters. To bring one personal life into an arguments just shows their poor breeding and lack of real arguments.
All that stuff about it being the sub’s fault is a crock of manure. I’m a sub and have been for many years, and one of the first laws of sub-editing is that you don’t cut attribution, you don’t cut substantiation and you don’t cut the subject’s right of reply. If space is so tight that you can’t run a story without those cuts then you find another page – or hold the whole thing over until there’s room.
Joe Hildebrand’s whoops-I-couldn’t-squeeze-it-in-before-deadline routine is hilarious. If he couldn’t get comment out of Maltby then the story should have at least acknowledged the fact that he had tried.
thanks for brightening up these humourless comments threads, Joe Hildebrand… Do you think you could come back to Melbourne and be funny in our little paper one day? Or does Sydney just too rich in material for a satirist to consider leaving it??
Love to Darrin,
Bearbrass
The anti-green campaigning at the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph mostly from Bolt and Blair is hysterically hypocritical. Neither saw fit to say anything much about Rupert Murdoch’s June 2007 announcement that “climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats” or to highlight the Green Hysteria stories that fill pages of the newspapers they work for. Both will link to the same wire stories in The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald, of course, to show how nutty those Fairfax journos are, without mentioning the same stories often appear in their own newspapers, under far more over-the-top headlines. Considering Blair is now an editor at the Telegraph, this is even more interesting.
Rupert Murdoch is the most powerful and influential Corporate Greenie in the world today, and Bolt and Blair both happily take his money. How many anti-logging greenies do you think work at sawmills?
Nor do they bother to tell their readers how Rupert’s Australian media employees are all working under News Limited’s ‘One Degree’ carbon reduction program. Nor do they tell their readers how News’ employees have been told they will have to ride bicycles or walk instead of taxi rides for short commutes, and that all company cars will be either hybrids or full electric, so Rupert can claim victory in his Corporate Green campaign to “fight global warming” (that both Blair and Bolt claim doesn’t exist) and reduce News’ carbon output to zero within a few years.
It’s the sheer shameless hypocrisy from the both of them that is so sickening. It’s like vegans working in a slaughterhouse. They both give the appearance of taking an anti-Green, Global Warming Is A Rotten Commo Nazi Lefty Conspiracy! stance solely to keep the readers that they have, while their boss sucks up to American liberals and New York greenies with his corporate ‘responsibility to the environment’ campaign.
Still, it’s pretty funny overall.
The story made it onto ACA tonight under the title “Hungry Hubby”
http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-au&brand=ninemsn&tab=m164
Note the councillor making the accusations in the segment is a LIBERAL councillor.
It’s amusing watching Joe give a Newspaper-101 lesson to you lot:
The sort of thing you might realise if you had worked in newspapers for a day or two. Apparently that’s not a prerequisite for running a blog dedicated to attacking them.
It’s a bit like Antony Loewenstein writing a book about Israel before he’d even travelled there, or for that matter commenting on journalism having been fired from Fairfax.
Do you guys not see the irony of questioning the professionalism of these people when you aren’t in any position to have a qualified opinion in the first place?
By all means, attack their commentary as might be expected in any debate. But if you are going to focus on professional journalistic practices, you might as well be offering your opinions on astrophysics. I’m sure you guys will learn as you go, but my suggestion in the interim would be to avoid writing in real-time as you learn this stuff…
Shit, it’s “Shabadoo”, an old troll from Antony Loewenstein’s blog. Perhaps Daniel Lewis, Loewenstein’s latest and greatest stalker, dragged him/her along. The more the merrier, I say. We already knew that the cages were being rattled; these ring-ins on the backline suggest that the rattle may have been louder than we thought.
“The sort of thing you might realise if you had worked in newspapers for a day or two. Apparently that’s not a prerequisite for running a blog dedicated to attacking them.”
Apparently you missed Bridgit’s retort above, Daniel:
“All that stuff about it being the sub’s fault is a crock of manure. I’m a sub and have been for many years, and one of the first laws of sub-editing is that you don’t cut attribution, you don’t cut substantiation and you don’t cut the subject’s right of reply. If space is so tight that you can’t run a story without those cuts then you find another page – or hold the whole thing over until there’s room.”
My point was that this information is vital. It is not optional. Leaving it out is a serious problem.
That the DT thinks it’s so unimportant to give the other side that it can be carelessly excluded is of great concern.
Jeremy – Spot on. Why did they go after only one person who in reality had actually not been the one responsible.
On reflection, if they had of waited for the formal response by Maltby the story becomes a non event and exercise in muck raking. Which we now know it is true.
Toaf, you appear to have confused “Stalking” Antony Loewenstein with merely ridiculing him.
I have been stalked by Irfan Yusuf, and I assure you, know the difference. In fairness, I could probably evade Irfan by walking up a short flight of stairs.
Moreover, despite Loewenstein’s incessant complaining about “Death threats” etc. I and everyone I know have never felt the slightest inclination to visit Antony Loewenstein at home. I’d say “home or work” except he’s unemployed.
This ain’t stalking, Toaf. My comments about him tend to surface on other blogs, simply because he has never published any of my comments to his blog. Oh yes, Antony “I’ve been censored” Loewenstein is a bald hypocrite. Antony “Let the debate continue” Loewenstein routinely kills any comment he doesn’t agree with. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, normally that would be acceptable – his blog, his rules. But for a guy who built a modest career on the notion that he’s been censored for his views, it’s downright hypocritical. Add that to the list of his failings…
If I am compelled to slag him off elsewhere, it’s his fault alone. Not that he ever responds to anyone’s criticism anyway, believing objective criticism to be a Zionist Bullying Tactic.
Oh, and by the way I’m not holding my breath for Pure Poison to lay into Loewenstein for any of these faults, despite his ongoing publication in Fairfax and Crikey media.
Daniel, the New Oxford American defines “stalker” as: “a person who harasses or persecutes someone with unwanted and obsessive attention”. Your interest in Loewenstein is obsessive, unwanted, at least. He might also say it’s harassment. I’m not one to bicker over definition, but it certainly sounds like you are stalking him. Whatever gets you off, I suppose.
Awesome trolls on this blog.
Toaf, given the all-encompassing obsession with Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair in these precincts (“BlairBoltWatch” anyone?), suggesting that I somehow “stalked” Loewenstein is a bit rich…
I think this would have come across better if you raised a few examples of this, Jeremy – it appears that you are overly sensitive when it comes to issues relating to the Greens.
It’s the first one I’ve seen since this site launched, Chuck.
Your “overly sensitive” conclusion is fatuous.
Shabadoo – there’s a huge difference between our writing about Bolt and Blair’s ARTICLES PUBLISHED BY NEWS LTD and “stalking” some minor figure’s personal life.
Weeeeeeeeell, Jeremy, that’s a mite disingenuous. Everyone knows that you have a real glass jaw when it comes to criticism, even as you obsess about Bolt and Blair (and posted about Blair for years before he joined up with News Ltd) …. as to personal stuff, well, you’re the one who puts his life in the arena, and then constantly shifts the goalposts about what is fair game for others to attack versus what you are allowed to say.
Shabadoo, if you interpret the denizens of a certain right-wing internet blog community as “everyone”, sure.
As to “putting my life in the arena” – mate, Blair and his less restrained associates have certainly done some considerable digging for things I never “put in the public arena”. (Although they argue that, for example, anyone having a profile on a dating site is putting that out there to be used by their political opponents. And it’s probably my parents’ fault that they’ve “put their phone numbers in the arena” by having them in the phone book. And so on.)
If this is a good example of what this blog is to produce, then people, any cent you get out of ad clicks will be like winning the lottery.
Less than two dozen regulars (including the staff), and Jeremy, you’ve not done yourself any justice in response to Shabadoo’s criticism.
I like to think I’m pretty fair, I certainly try to be (hence the name), and in all honesty, I would say that you buggered this one up.
Shabadoo: 1
Jeremy: 0
(or Joe 1, Jeremy ZERO)
To use one of your own favoured phrases Jer… F A I L !
This falls strictly under “who cares?”
“I think this would have come across better if you raised a few examples of this, Jeremy – it appears that you are overly sensitive when it comes to issues relating to the Greens.”
Chuck speaks The Truth.
I said ‘appears’ Jeremy. That’s just how I and it seems John reads it too. I would argue that there is some truth to it.
Shabadoo: I would have to disagree. I have seen certain things that a certain mouthpiece for the right-wing faction of the Labor has blogged about Jeremy and his family members. Nothing glass jaw about that.
Shabadoo, I said you were a troll, not a stalker. Lewis is the stalker.
So, John… it doesn’t matter when a newspaper declines to publish a target’s response because the example I used here was when they were smearing a Green?
Right.
Chuck – “I said appears”?! FFS.
“Evenhanded”? Yeah, sure you are.
You come across like a pompous know-it-all in this thread, Jeremy. My point about you being overly sensitive when it comes to the Greens stands as evidenced by your response.
No, I just have little tolerance for the stupid “condemnathon” argument, which is essentially what your “helpful suggestion” boils down to. ie, my criticism of the Daily Telegraph here is less valid because I haven’t criticised a broader selection of targets for the same thing – despite the fact that I openly acknowledged that in the post and said that I’d be keeping an eye out for them, and declared that it was unacceptable from any source.
Regarding your latest update: Elsewhere: despite the eventual publication of Mr Maltby’s response, Joe (and others) continue to run the juvenile “hungry hungry hippo” line as if he hadn’t said anything.
It was actually “Hungry Hungry Hippie” and far from being juvenile, one of the best headlines I’ve read in a long time. Maybe you should read it a bit slower?
P.S. Toaf, Loewenstein is one of the most obsessive bloggers I’ve ever come across. At least I demonstrate thoughts about other matters. I only raised him as a useful illustration of my point, about idiots.