Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison – A Crikey weblog

Monthly Archives: September 2010

And it’s goodnight from him

September 30, 2010 – 7:41 am

A few years ago, an academic from Australia’s drought-belt decided to start a blog about politics. Not many people read it but it made him feel better to have a place to put his opinions out there and to call out some of the nonsense he encountered in media commentary on politics. And at least [...]

By Tobias Ziegler | Posted in Site news | Comments (50)

Don’t you know who I’m not?

September 28, 2010 – 4:00 pm

There’s no argument that the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt has one of the most read blogs in Australia, so you’d presume that most of the people within the News Ltd empire would have more than a passing familiarity with it. It turns out, when it comes to The Australian at least, that’s not necessarily the [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in The Australian | Comments (12)

Massola raises the stakes

September 28, 2010 – 3:01 pm

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s post by Tobias on the Grog-gate “outing”. James Massola has written and had published by News a justification piece in which he spitefully raises the stakes: Jericho blogged as a hobby outside work hours. But he sent literally hundreds of partisan political tweets out, during work hours, many of which [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in James Massola | Comments (30)

Open thread September 27-October 1

September 27, 2010 – 2:37 pm

It’s a new week (in fact, most of Monday seems to have disappeared already), so let’s have a fresh thread. It’s the first sitting week of the new House of Representatives, so by Wednesday we should have a better feel for just how the New Paradigm is shaping up. The Senate, of course, stays in [...]

By Tobias Ziegler | Posted in Open threads | Comments (105)

The Grog’s Gamut outing: In whose interest?

September 27, 2010 – 8:22 am

Even if you haven’t read his blog, if you followed the media coverage of the election campaign there’s a pretty good chance you know about Grog’s Gamut. He’s the pseudonymous blogger whose pointed critique of the lack of policy questions from the press pack drew a lot of attention and sparked a debate, with journos [...]

By Tobias Ziegler | Posted in Grog's Gamut, James Massola, The Australian | Comments (71)

Weekend talk thread September 24-26

September 24, 2010 – 8:52 am

Let’s kick off the weekend with a fresh thread to discuss anything you like. I’ll start with this: I think it’s refreshing having an Opposition Leader courageous enough to openly abandon agreements he’s only recently made, purely in order to try to force Australians back to the polls sooner (to correct our inexcusable mistake in [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Open threads, Tony Abbott | Comments (118)

“Sound and fury signifying nothing”

September 22, 2010 – 9:31 am

It’s always nice to get under Janet Albrechtsen’s angrily-twitching nose, and apparently we “echo chamber bloggers at Crikey” have done just that in criticising her paper’s openly-declared War on the Greens. In suggesting that, if it wants its “news coverage” on the subject of, say, the Greens to be taken seriously, to be credible, then [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Janet Albrechtsen | Comments (109)

Actually, these dead fish probably not BP’s fault

September 20, 2010 – 3:12 pm

Today’s Crikey email starts with a list of “things declared dead as a result of the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and subsequent oil spill (53,000 barrels a day before the well was capped)” and includes this (now famous) image of dead fish in Louisiana: Dead fish that, for once, are not [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Crikey | Comments (4)

Open thread September 20-24

September 20, 2010 – 10:22 am

Cometh the week, cometh the thread. Use this thread to discuss anything that comes up during the week. A couple of bits of reading to kick things off: The Australian‘s Mark Day writes about the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Credit to him and his newspaper for addressing the issue. But it strikes [...]

By Tobias Ziegler | Posted in Open threads | Comments (129)

Tom Switzer – climate change concern troll?

September 17, 2010 – 1:59 pm

A guest author writes: I am not at all a fan of Tom Switzer’s work. His trite phrases and smug responses on #qanda a couple of months ago drove me absolutely, TV-shoutingly, cushion-throwingly, spare. Switzer seems very much from the school of ‘appear concerned so you can better conflate the debate’ and his most recent [...]

By Tobias Ziegler | Posted in Tom Switzer | Comments (182)