The Australian farewells a former editor:
Inevitably he figured prominently on the hate list of the Left: right-wing ranter, senile fascist, CIA agent, were among the many corrupt libels loaded on him. Paul Keating sneered at “that old fart”. Although Devine sometimes fancied himself “an IRA hitman manque”, he never retaliated in kind.
Quick note to my future obituarist – I’d be perfectly happy if you didn’t waste space whinging about the people who “hated” me. (Even if you really, really want to have a go at them, in a situation where they can’t really respond, for your own reasons.) You would not be doing my memory any favours.
ELSEWHERE: The Australian has some form for this sort of thing.
UPDATE (4.20pm): They have now removed the above paragraph from the linked obituary. It does not include an acknowledgement of this fairly major change. The only evidence for that remaining is Google, until it replaces the link with the amended version:
Maybe, if News is going to pull this kind of stunt, we’re going to have to use screengrabs (instead of searchable blockquotes) in the future.
UPDATE 9/7: There’s a version of the original here.
26 Comments
Yes, similar thing in Bolt’s forum:
“”Sad to hear about Melbourne icon Jimmy Styne and I am sure we all wish him and his family well.
But the clock radio comes on at 6.30am on the news this morning and who do I hear talking about it, none other but the “nerd” from Queensland who would not know a football from a hockey stick,being Kevin Rudd.
It sounds sceptical,but Rudd has become almost a serial ambulance chaser,prepared to use any event good or bad for his own self promotion.We use to think Bob Hawke was good at this, but Rudd is streets ahead on this one.
Shame Rudd cant speak as easily and openly when asked a simple question that requires just a yes/no answer
Frank of Malvern
frank (Reply)
Fri 03 Jul 09 (08:14am)”"
And the infinitely charming Gordo kicks in with:
“”Gordo replied to frank
Fri 03 Jul 09 (10:45am)
Amen Frank. It made me shudder watching that little weasel with all his “sincerity”
Note that the idiot Frank can’t even spell Jim’s name correctly and Gordo can’t even mention Jim, he’s in such a breathless pre-orgasmic hurry to drop a little hate on our Prime Minister
THAT’S – OUR PRIME MINISTER GORDO, YOU NASTY ************ !
Got a bad link there Jeremy; “404 page not found”?
I’d be perfectly happy if you didn’t waste space whinging about the people who “hated” me.
1. Even obituaries have space restrictions, Jeremy… and
2. that’s assuming anyone would actually print one.
Fixed, Chade.
Lame, Pedro.
it seems the Australian have changed the story jeremy to take out the attack bits.
Very interesting, Confessions. Post updated. Chade – I think that’s why the link wasn’t working when you tried it. They were busy amending the original version.
It does not include an acknowledgement of this fairly major change
Funny, neither do you acknowedge the change in your original 4.20 update. There’s certainly a lot more there now than 20 minutes ago….
and good on them for changing it to a more dignified reflection. Even for a partisan ideologue like Frank Devine it’s a bit much for his obituary to be taking shots at political foes in my view.
And duly noted, Confessions, that you weren’t going to miss the opportunity to get your own partisan “shot” in.
pedro: your ignorance about certain issues is unremarkable. what is noteworthy however is you keep spraying it about on the internet for all to see.
Please read some of devine’s commentary, especially in his later years before you commit yourself to further idiocy.
Even for a partisan ideologue like Frank Devine it’s a bit much for his obituary to be taking shots at political foes in my view.
And duly noted, Confessions, that you weren’t going to miss the opportunity to get your own partisan “shot” in.
pedro: your ignorance about certain issues is unremarkable. what is noteworthy however is you keep spraying it about on the internet for all to see.
And then, totally ignorant of what it says about him or her:
Please read some of devine’s commentary, especially in his later years before you commit yourself to further idiocy..
Confess, do you smoke or use nicotine lozenges as they say it (nicotine) makes the brain worker better and may help your from contradicting yourself from one sentence to another
“Funny, neither do you acknowedge the change in your original 4.20 update. There’s certainly a lot more there now than 20 minutes ago….”
Nice attempt to drag us off-topic, but there’s a considerable difference. For the record, I added the text following the first sentence of the update within ten minutes of uploading it, before anyone had commented, when I went and found a screengrab of the google reference to the original article. It did not change the meaning of the update. It added to it.
In comparison, News Ltd’s edit to their obituary is a MAJOR change – the subject of this post, in fact – and they have simply removed it without acknowledgement and are pretending it was never there.
Entirely different circumstances. But I can see why Pedro would rather talk about my very minor edit than The Australian’s sneaky one.
I had a similar issue with Bolt on several occasions where I cursed myself for not taking a screenshot before the sly edits took place. I used to copy my replies to Bolt onto stickynotes and keep them on the desktop for use when the Moderators snipped me for trollism.
Pedro, your arse is showing again.
@ tee: i realise you are a newbie here so perhaps you are unfamiliar with pedro’s usual trolling efforts, this time by shouting LOOK OVER THERE!!!1! about devine as well as jeremy’s post. Pedro’s trolling occurs regularly because she more often than not is incapable of understanding the very basic premise of what is posted here – not unlike your own failings in this regard vis a vis TZ’s post below.
My point is pedro clearly has no idea about devine’s writing, particularly in his later years, otherwise she would never have taken a shot at my accurrate description of him as a partisan ideologue. if you want to side with her that’s fine, but at least make sure that you get your facts right first.
In comparison, News Ltd’s edit to their obituary is a MAJOR change – the subject of this post, in fact – and they have simply removed it without acknowledgement and are pretending it was never there
This is indeed the issue, and anyone can now see why they changed it: using an obituary reflecting on someone’s contribution in their life to attack your political opponents is in very poor form, and i’d bet they got complaints about the original piece.
I think this just shows the mindset of the AUstralian these days where anything, no matter how ‘off limits’ can and will be used to push their political barrow.
Fuck, that’s a 217 word obit! Surely it’s only an abstract? There’ll be a longer one in the print edition? The guy had a very interesting life, and he was an important Oz employer—he deserves the full thousand word treatment that that paper usually gives to everybody else who gets an obituary, famous or not.
(On second thought, Devine might have requested only a brief article on himself at his passing. Which makes the vitriolic para all the more ridiculous.)
Confessions, Pedro—Frank Devine was most certainly a ‘partisan ideologue’, but he was also capable of rising above that. Confessions, just ignore Pedro. Pedro, just go and try your nitpicking-of-people’s-simple-opinions act at Bolt’s blog, champ. I dare you.
Nick – they did give him a longer obit. But they’ve now pruned it down to take out extracts like the one that prompted this post.
Malice and incompetence all mixed together. That’s News Ltd for you.
Malice towards whom, Jeremy?
Confess:
Are you infirm? You accuse Pedro and others of being pedantically partisan and then offend the rule you expect other not to break. You should apologize to the site owners for take things down several notches in IQ.
Nickws: i was thinking more of the stuff he wrote in his later years – the Rudd hatred was as visceral as it was bizarre.
{I am as certain as I can be that the answer to your question is ‘no’, but we’re not going to start speculation about the identity of commenters – Toby}
You should apologize to the site owners for take things down several notches in IQ.
goodness, what a drama queen!
shorter tee: apologise, apologise, APOLOGISE!!!1!
lol, thanks for the saturday entertainment!
Drama queen? hahahaha.
Confess, you’re very amusing in the same way one would find a dog chasing its tail. Whatever you you don’t bite it.
Both of you, stop dragging this thread off-topic.
Sure thing, Jeremy. Just a point though, Confess was the one that took everything off topic. All I did was present the reasons why her/his argument was retarded.
Do you have answer to my question thought. Where was a malice?
The malice that Jeremy spoke of was that which was directed towards “Leftys”.
For the purposes of the author of the obit, Frank Devines’ death was a good chance to bash Leftys.
Maybe Frank would have approved, but if that’s the case, then let us see what his daughter has to say about the issue.
In the meantime, can you point to any obiturary that speaks of those who hated the deceased rather than those who lovted him?
Think about it tee, what kind of sick bastard would celebrate a man’s life by telling the congregation about those that hated him?
Are you seriously trying to defend this shit?
Cheers
Marek:
Yes, good point as always.