Glenn Milne picks up the gossip wherever he can, and happily spreads it around:
But in the extraordinary circumstances that now grip the governance of Australia, the “Comcar” drivers as they are shorthanded, have been talking.
And the talk is that one of their passengers, Julia Gillard is now expecting all three country independents, Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to plump for Labor when they announce their decision either Tuesday or Wednesday.
…
The Drum text messaged a senior National Party member of the Shadow Cabinet on Saturday night and asked where he thought the independents would go. The return reply as it whistled down the line was almost wistful: “Gone, Glenn, gone”.
Is his gossip right? We might find out today. But there’s one thing we can already be certain Milne has got wrong (my emphasis added):
Why wouldn’t someone like Alby Schultz, who, while technically a country Liberal is in fact virtually a bush independent, not consider positioning himself to get a cut of the pork barrel pie?
Electoral boundary FAIL
An example raised by Barrie Cassidy on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday: Wilkie in his negotiations with Gillard wrangled $340 million for a new hospital in Hobart. Wagga Wagga in Schultz’s electorate of Hume was on the same hospital priority waiting list. It’s still waiting. If Schultz went to the cross benches and supported Labor it would likely see a windfall for Wagga. Such is the venal state of hung Parliament politics at the present moment.
And just to be clear, it wasn’t Barrie Cassidy who mentioned Alby Schultz on Insiders. He did raise Wagga Wagga Base Hospital in an interview with Nicola Roxon, but the mangling of electoral boundaries came from Milne, both on TV and in his article. He probably should just stick to reporting gossip.
17 Comments
Piece after piece after piece by milne on the drum. And when I submit well worded and logic based criticisms of these pieces they are not posted.
I have taken to capturing screen shots of the process so that I can submit them to both an ABC ombudsman and to my local member of parliament so that ABC bias can be dealt with. Boy it makes me angry!
Two Bob , the more people that keep on submitting complaints to our ABC about Bias the better. I have sent another one in with times and program details. Looks like Rupert has moved in to the ABC.
Oh dear. I thought anyone could make that mistake while talking, but bursting into print without, ahem, checking a fact like that is unfortunate. Does he get paid for this stuff?
You wold think that after even News Ltd dropped The Poison Dwarf that should have set some alarm bells ringing at the ABC. If you can find me anyone writing for The Drum who is so consistently anti-Labor and pro-Liberal as Glenn Milne then I will eat my hat.
The sooner the ABC is privatised the better. If only to stop the left (and previously the right) complaining about alledged bias on a taxpayer funded TV station.
Scott your post explains much to me about your thought processes. And I have sworn to stop debating people with such disregard for their own intellectual credibility. I do hope that no one else feeds you.
You have to admit though it gets a little tiring, Twobob. When the Liberals were in government, the right wingers were complaining about ABC bias. Now that Labor is in, the bias has swung the other way. Lets just face facts and admit that no-one wants their tax dollars spent on an media organisation that promotes an alternative viewpoint to the one they hold. Better to sell it and move on.
Not doing it scott.
Bugger off Scott. It’s my ABC, and you and Rupert can’t have it. Slainte.
Well he was wrong, the comcar drivers were wrong. Katter’s decision was bizarre.
Perhaps a better option for the ABC would be the organization forced on the PBS during the Reagan era. They fund their programmes by donation from major companies and charities, in addition to annual donation appeals from community viewers. The Jim Lehrer report is one of their daily discussion programmes which should be compulsory viewing for Australian media aspirants (relayed here each evening on SBS) – has run for several decade initially under the guidance of Robert McNeill and Jim Lehrer. Right now the ABC provides very little quality compared to that offered by the PBS.
“StopMurdoch” tried asking about the monotonous frequency of Murdoch properties popping up on ABC outlets and got the following:
“Thank you for your emails, which have been referred to me for response.
I understand your core question to be this: “Are there any guidelines, or other relevant considerations, governing the appearance of persons employed by commercial media organisations (specifically Rupert Murdoch’s) as interviewees on ABC outlets?”
The short answer is no, at least not in the specific terms that you use in your question. All ABC content is covered by the ABC Editorial Policies, which are available in their entirety here – http://abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols.htm. The policies cover the use of specialist commentators in section 5.7 which states (in part): “It is ABC policy to provide a range of views on significant issues over time, ensuring the broadcast and publication online of a diversity of perspectives. To achieve this staff should use a number of different commentators and analysts.” Many of the examples you cite in your email are instances of ABC programs using commentators or analysts to help bring a diversity of perspectives to their audiences.”
See? All those Murdoch hacks are there to ensure we have a “range of views on significant issues”!
Privatizing the ABC is the most moronic suggestion anyone could possibly make..
It would instantly destroy some of its most important roles that we take for granted
1.Lifting the level of entertainment and drama…The Wire, Breaking Bad?
We would never even have those shows lifting the bar if it was left up to the drivel on commercial television.
2. Lifting the level of journalism
Ok so it’s not perfect (far from it), but damn it actually sounds LIKE journalism compared whatever that muck is on the other channels…Infotainment? whatever it is, its nothing like news.
portia, I find your assertion absurd. The ABC provides a service no other media outlet in Australia provides. You can name one quality program on PBS. The ABC has multitudes of quality TV programs, to site just a few : QandA, 4Corners, Foreign Correspondent, Catalyst, there are many more, maybe other contributors can name some more, but they’re the ones I can think of, off the top of my head.
Then there’s ABC radio, Radio National, ABC Classic FM, 774 and it’s equivalents across Australia. Only a fool would deny that the ABC provides a valuable service to Australia. No commercial station would be prepared to offer the service the ABC delivers to Australians, including emergency information in times of disaster. Maybe the ABC bashers should take off their ideological blinkers for a minute and genuinely examine the service the ABC delivers.
I watched Milne on ABC24 this afternoon and I thought his head was going to explode. He ranted and raved about an illegitimate government. Do we need this on the ABC?
I expect that the days of John Howard’s stacked ABC board must be numbered and as such the days of the poison dwarf’s employment there similarly numbered.
What an interesting outcome we will have, will Steve Fielding attempt to block supply? I seriously expect that this wingnut won’t go out quietly.
July 2011 is when the appointments expire. The Chairperson’s expires in early 2012 IIRC.
I presume you all picked up on the “Khmer Rouge’ line about Gillard in the pieceon The Drum? It’s one thing for a blogger to break Godwin’s Law, but a ‘legitimate’ journalist? I think there has already been an explosion inside his head.