Gerard Henderson has published the latest entry on his blog, Media Watch Dog (best viewed in Netscape Navigator 2.0 or Lynx). And he has, once again, some great scoops. For instance, did you know that Kerry O’Brien once worked for Gough Whitlam?
Mr O’Brien was once a senior staffer for former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam – although you would never know this from reading Red Kerry’s CV [what about the ABC's commitment to the public's right-to-know? - Editor].
Apparently, the ABC’s failure to disclose that O’Brien worked as a press secretary for Gough Whitlam and Lionel Bowen in the 1970s is a great fraud upon the public – rather than simply reflecting that his 7.30 Report bio is intended to highlight his lengthy and prestigious journalistic history. But it’s shameful to keep the Australian public in the dark – if only there was some easily accessible way they could find out about Red Kerry’s shady resume.
But Gerard doesn’t just have the dirt on the skeleton in Kerry’s closet. He has the latest gossip, fed to him by a Coalition staffer who had a conversation with Kerry on Budget night:
The Coalition staffer’s note of the conversation – which was witnessed by another Coalition staffer – is as follows:
O’Brien was visibly…[delete this word - let's go with "tired and emotional" instead, Editor] but was friendly and candid. He was aware that he was talking to Coalition staffers….
Coalition Staffer: “Kerry , you realise…I respect Peter [Costello] a lot.”
O’Brien: “Well good luck to you then – I don’t. He doesn’t like politics; he has always been the first one out of here (Canberra) on Thursday. Peter Costello does not have the nation’s interests at heart. He is only in it for himself, always has been, always will be. He needs to get out.”
Coalition Staffer: “I actually really respect some of the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era.”
O’Brien: ”Howard and Costello never recognised the importance of their reforms. Costello simply rode on the consequences of the Keating and Hawke wave of economic reform.”
Setting aside the question of whether Kerry’s (alleged) opinions about Costello were right (and for the record, I think he’s right on the money), this raises a couple of interesting issues.
First, is it terribly troubling news to learn that Kerry O’Brien might have certain political opinions? Journalists are voters too, and I don’t for a minute imagine that each of them has their own political opinions. What matters is that they don’t let that affect the way they behave when they’re journalising – if their political attitudes affect their ability to ask incisive questions, uncover facts and report on events, then it’s a problem.
In just the same way, I don’t have a problem with the fact that there are conservative journalists. What I have a problem with is journalists who engage themselves in advancing and assisting their preferred political agenda, rather than reporting on political events.
But it seems Henderson is trying to snidely imply that O’Brien’s reporting must be biased, both because of his past employment and his expression of views on current events – never mind that those views were expressed off-camera, in a private conversation.
Second, was it reasonable or appropriate for Henderson to report the conversation? Here’s his justification:
Now, normally Nancy would not publish the note of a conversation conducted in private on a dark Canberra night or morning. But this is what the 7.30 Report’s political editor Michael Brissenden did concerning a conversation he and two others had with Peter Costello in 2005. Mr Brissenden’s release of the details of this off-the-record conversation a couple of years later was specifically approved by Kerry O’Brien. [For the full details of the saga see "Dining Out With The ABC: A Warning", The Sydney Institute Quarterly, Issue 34, December 2008 - which is on The Sydney Institute's website.] So, clearly, Mr O’Brien can have no legitimate complaint if someone records, and someone else releases, the record of a conversation held with him.
There are some cliche responses that might be appropriate here – “two wrongs don’t make a right” and “you’re giving up the moral high ground”, for starters.
But Henderson also seems to have looked only at one side of the equation. Yes, Brissenden (apparently with O’Brien’s approval) disclosed a private conversation. But the decision to report the conversation was made because it contradicted public statements made by Peter Costello. The journalists involved (not only Brissenden, but Tony Wright and Paul Daley) took the view that it was in the public interest to report the conversation in 2007, when Costello denied having planned to challenge Howard if required. Henderson attempts to argue that he is also serving the public interest:
Nancy has revealed the details of Kerry O’Brien’s (private) thoughts in the interests of the public’s right-to-know, of course. She believes that Mr and Ms Citizen have a right to know that Kerry O’Brien’s line on the Howard/Costello administration is a standard Labor line – namely: “Hawke/Keating “Good”; Howard/Costello “Hopeless”. In other words, praise the Labor Party; damn the political conservatives; and pass the tequila.
This seems a weak argument to me. Naturally, the public has a right to know where a journalist may have a conflict of interest. But interests need to be distinguished from mere opinions or preferences. Once again, the issue for me comes back to whether it can be demonstrated that the journalist’s capacity for professional reporting is affected. Henderson begins with the presumption that O’Brien is biased, but he needs to demonstrate this with evidence more compelling than, “But he made Malcy cry!” Until then, I fail to see how Henderson’s great revelation can be argued as serving the public interest.
26 Comments
Where the hell did this alleged conversation between a Coalition staffer and O’Brien come from? Henderson doesn’t link anywhere, he doesn’t cite anyone. Who the fuck is Nancy? She’s a ridiculous literary device invented by Hendo in his role as a ’satirist’, isn’t she?
Anyway, O’Brien’s personal beliefs appear to be Rightwing Labor. Shouldn’t Hendo be trying to expose said beliefs so as to wedge the 7:30 Report host against the Greens? I would have thought that was the respectable middle-of-the-road Hendo thing to do…
“Mr O’Brien was once a senior staffer for former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam – although you would never know this from reading Red Kerry’s CV”
That’s a fair and balanced analysis from someone who was once John Howard’s Chief of Staff – although you would never know this from reading Hendo’s blog. What I did learn from his blog is that he came up with the idea of Media Watch before the ABC did. Whacko!
Andrew linked to this and posted about it yesterday http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/red_kerry_really_is/
The real question is how dare Andy and Gerard try and use a conversation in a bar to suggest that Kerry O’brien is biased in his work. Coming from Andrew this is the height of Hypocrisy he is so clearly biased. Is he saying that in the ABC one can not even hold a private veiw. Grow up, this is yet another facile “bash the left” exersize by a right floundering in their own personal wilderness unloved by the electorate and out of power. This is up there with “Finding Nemo is Green propaganda”
What matters is that they don’t let that affect the way they behave when they’re journalising
this has been a beef of mine for a while, that the ABC for eg lately seems bent on insisting on idealogical ‘balance’ rather than articulate and incisive political analyses. Shows like insiders and Q&A are perfect examples: who wants to hear (let alone what insight is gained from) the highly partisan nonsense from Ackerman, Bolt and Milne on insiders (at least Marr is amusing), and labor and liberal MPs on Q&A?
I’d much rather hear from the likes of brian toohey, george megalagenous, Laura Tingle and Lenore Taylor from the AUstralian who are non-partisan and offer insightful intelligent commentary. Whenever ackerman goes on he constantly gets corrected by other pannelists, and whenever bolt goes on he pushes one of his idealogical barrows. It serves no purpose and gives no insight whatsoever, so why indulge these people if serious commentary is the objective? And more importantly why does henderson not condemn this as lazy partinsanship in political analysis?
As for o’brien’s alleged political allegiances, who cares so long as he holds ministers of whatever persuasion to account (which he does). Maybe hendo would be more comfortable if the ABC used the same current affairs template as Today Tonight or ACA and broadcast from the gutter. At least all political parties look the same from down there.
For fuck’s sake Howard was in for 11 years – Red Ken, Tony Jones and the ABC really did some damage there.
Left wing commentators are happy to criticise Labor. They are left-leaning but are not apologists of cheerleaders for the Labor Party.
Bolt is even accusing Laurie Oaks of being a Rudd cheerleader for fuck’s sake.
Confessions @ 4: hear, hear. The sooner the ABC gets over its obsession with ideological “balance” (which always seems to equate to inviting some Right-wing idiot onto a program to spout some partisan agenda), the better it will be for all concerned. Bolt and co can go back to enjoying each other’s company in the privacy of secret societies like the IPA and the HR Nicholls Society, and the rest of us can get on with the serious business of trying to understand the world without the interference of professional obfuscators.
At the height of the attacks against the ABC by the Howard government, not long after their second or third stacked enquiry, and the instigation of the ABC oversight committee (whose head was on $200,000+ a year from memory), Kerry O’Brien had an interview with Howard at a time the government was embroiled in several controversies.
To say Kerry was soft on Howard and molly coddled him through the interview would be an understatement. Howard was allowed to get away with blatant obfuscation and misdirection whilst the questions Kerry asked were exactly the ones Howard would want to have asked, allowing him to segue into spin on how great his government is.
Yet with all that I was gob smacked the next day when the ABC website had posts from people saying the Kerry wasn’t reverent enough to Howard and one letter to the editor in a major Melbourne paper saying that Kerry O’Brien didn’t treat Howard with enough respect deserving of a PM of his stature.
Can’t win with the Right. Even if the ABC became completely acquiescence to the Right and their mouthpiece as Howard wanted, the RWDBs would still complain it’s not Right enough.
Also interesting is the timing of Hendo’s spray. Releasing it on a Friday when there is no Red Kerry 7.30 report on and no chance for Kerry respond until the following week could be described as cowardly. There appears to be a tactic from the conservative media to attack anyone who might seem to favour the govt as seen by Bolt and Akermans unjustified attacks on Ken Henry.
Kerry is obviously a lefty but I know he always gave Kim Beasley a harder time than John Howard.
“Also interesting is the timing of Hendo’s spray. Releasing it on a Friday when there is no Red Kerry 7.30 report on and no chance for Kerry respond until the following week could be described as cowardly.”
That had crossed my mind, but seriously I’d want Henderson to stick the boot into me, I reckon it would make me look better.
Bloods05 @ 7: i’m more than happy for bolt and his ilk to stick to sunrise and shock radio because those programs make no claims to broadcasting serious current and political affairs. In fact it’s those programs which are best suited to bolt/ackerman’s/milne’s over-simplistic viewpoints – outlets that don’t require the audience’s attention span for more than a couple of minutes.
To say Kerry was soft on Howard and molly coddled him through the interview would be an understatement.
whenever howard went on 730report he wore a permanent sneer as if he didn’t really feel it was his duty to appear in interviews that weren’t a jocular, backslapping love-in like he got with Alan Jones and John Laws. only the howard luvvies in the wingnut faction of the liberal party would think he was being treated harshly by the ABC.
But of course unlike News Ltd Gerard, who seem to be the shadow Liberal Party while the real one is flailing around like mixed up losers.
I always find it funny when the News Ltd people complain about bias when the greatest and most persistent example of bias around the world is in News Ltd media.
This is just jealousy personified. They can’t come to grips with the fact that Kerry is a highly respected journo with higher abilities and standards than theirs and less partisan than they are.
If Kerry came out with the same partisan leanings they show every time they write something there would be an apoplectic outcry far and wide. It isn’t odd of course, we come to accept it from the right who in trying to highlight bias are usually blind that they greatest example of it.
Kerry rips into Labor MPs as much as any, he is not soft on them.
Maybe Gerard would like to count up the ex Liberal hacks working for the Murdoch media who for a decade sucked up to Howard and rolled around on their backs for Howard like ignorant puppy dogs.
If Gerard want’s to find a real issue it should be the Liberal Party bias of the media and how they let the Howard govt waste our futures by throwing away $314bn+
“To say Kerry was soft on Howard and molly coddled him through the interview would be an understatement.”
How sad, I would have thought that Kerry would be principled enough to refuse to do such an interview. I was under the impression that Howard just got better and better at being interviewed, if you’re right Mobius Ecko I’ve pretty much lost all respect for Kerry O’Brien and the 7:30 report. I’m assuming that If Kerry O’Brien and the 7:30 report are willing to go soft on PMs for whatever reason then so are Tony Jones and Lateline. Now I’m fucked, I like(d) both those shows.
And remember folks this is the Gerard who wrote an article for the Age singling out John Clarke and brian Dawe as examples of ABC anti howardism. Gerard is just bitter that he hasn’t got a gig in the media anymore and Andrew wants to be the face of the 7.30 report so we will take him seriously, as if.
What pathetic “journalism” from Henderson. And what weak worl from Bolt to suggest he is “uneasy” with it. Unless Kerry O’Brien is on the ABC at 2:30am, who gives a stuff what he says to someone in a bar.
Had no idea ABC emplyees were not allowed to have opinions
If he was uneasy with what Henderson had done. then don’t link to it. Simple…
Dog whistle, dog whistle. WHITLAM! Shock, horror, Armageddon, Ragnarök!
My GenX offspring was all of (wait for it – SIX years old – ie, from the earliest years of GenX) when Whitlam was dismissed! All of Gen Y & and almost all Gen X have no personal memory of Gough’s term in office (tho he’s still a Boomers’ icon)! So Gee Folks, Hendo’s short Philippic is sooo not relevant a way to entice Boomers, Gens X&Y, and the c43% of Gen Blue who (according to Possum’s graphs) didn’t vote Tory even in 1996, to trample everyone in the rush to vote for ….
I’d have said “the current Liberal rump” if the tenor of Hendo’s script wasn’t “Fabulous Pete (aka The Smirk) Costello”! Maybe, Pete’s being a Boomer (Uni education free, thanks to Gough – Oh, the Ingratitude, “more strong than traitors’ arms”!) – Hendo might entice others of Smirk’s generation from ALP/Green ranks? Even better, Hendo might entice Gen Y & those Gen Xers young enough to have been to uni (or missed a place) after Smirk became Treasurer (ie too young to remember Gough’s government). Ooops, didn’t Smirk soon cut places & raise uni fees to stratospheric levels, thereby alienating quite a few from those gens?
Blowing the Whitlam dog-whistle to ALP voters (or 2PP preferencers) who are either “rusted on” or “too young to remember”, is a good example of just how out of touch with the electorate current Liberals (inc Hendo) are. So out of date, in fact, that the only similar example I can remember is Hawke’s riposte “Isn’t that where the Reds are?” to Fraser’s comment that people should hide their money under the bed if Hawke & the ALP were elected – and The Reds really didn’t get there until 1951-2!
confessions @11
Bolt is on Today not Sunrise, not that there is any difference between the two shows.
RobJ that interview particularly sticks out as it came at the height of the ABC attacks by the government and not long after Alston had his stacked enquiry into ABC bias that recommended the oversight committee, whose head ended up being paid $200,000pa or more from memory. His pay made some news at the time because Howard was telling the ABC it had to cut the fat.
Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was was one of the most ardent attack dogs against the ABC, and still is to this day.
But most of all that interview stood out more than any other because I was gob smacked the next day to read in a letter to the editor a strident attack on O’Brien and the ABC for not being reverential enough to our “great” PM. The interview could not have been more cordial and powder puff.
Anyway you look at it, and if you did a study on it, Howard more than any other PM that I know of was given an unbelievably easy run by the media, even what would be considered Left wing media. I think the situation was like America with Bush because to lambaste Howard was to be considered almost traitorous as he was saving this nation from a despot with WMD, terrorism and the supposed hordes of boat people coming here.
Blowing the Whitlam dog-whistle to ALP voters …
Expect more of that.
Tony Abbot said this on Insiders this morning: “I fear Barrie that having seen the introduction of Whitlamism in economic policy, we’re now going to see the introduction of Whitlamism in Indigenous policy and that’s the last thing that we need.”
Gerard Henderson has published the latest entry on his blog, Media Watch Dog (best viewed in Netscape Navigator 2.0 or Lynx)
Too generous, by far.
Gerry is best viewed in hieroglyphs or cuneiform.
Mr O’Brien was once a senior staffer for former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam
If Gerry-atric went far enough back into Red Kezza’s past he would discover that he used to poo and wet his pants before he was toilet trained, couldn’t put two words together when he first turned up at kindergarten and use to throw tanties in the supermarket.
If Gerry-atric went far enough back into Bolt’s past he would discover he worked for the ALP.
If Gerry-atric went far enough back into the dictionary of oft trotted out latin phrases, he would discover the term ‘non sequitur’. (Not sure if there’s a latin phrase for ‘cherry picking’.)
“Bolt is on Today not Sunrise, not that there is any difference between the two shows.”
One has the ‘Reject the Recession’ dancers and one does not.
Only because the other one didn’t think of it first.
Ah well, at least when Hendo publishes something, he doesn’t sneak in and delete it hours later. LOL
He should delete the lot. No-one would mind. Or notice.
Henderson is a hypocrite of the first order. Not once in his fairfax columns when discussing national politics and John Howard did he declare he, Henderson, used to be Chief of Staff to Howard in the mid 80s. Furthermore when Henderson slams the ABC not once does he declare a conflict of interest that he is an employee of the ABC for his weekly broadcast.
I wrote to fairfax and asked why Henderson failed Journalism 101 in failing to declare conflict of interest. Their response? That Hendo is an opinion columnist and not therefore a journalist.
So there you have it. That’s why those on the right get away with this. They’re not held to higher standards because their bluster is opinion … not fact.