Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison – A Crikey weblog

Monthly Archives: May 2011

Someone’s desperate here, Greg, but it doesn’t look like it’s the Government

May 31, 2011 – 8:18 am

The Australian on Saturday: SOUTH Pacific nations including the politically fragile Solomon Islands are appealing to the Australian government to make them part of a new Pacific solution for processing asylum-seekers… Sources told The Weekend Australian that an approach was made by the Solomons government some time ago through Australia’s parliamentary secretary for Pacific islands [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Greg Sheridan | Comments (12)

Battering away

May 30, 2011 – 2:28 pm

In addition to the Daily Telegraph’s nasty hatchet job on Cate Blanchett, they’ve also decided to ignore the message in the pro carbon tax ads and spend their time attacking the delivery. Nothing better demonstrates the paucity of quality analysis on this subject than complaints about the imagery used behind Michael Caton during his part [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in Daily Telegraph | Comments (27)

Just Say Boo

May 30, 2011 – 11:57 am

On the back of the Daily Telegraph’s beat up about methadone in detention centres, the Herald Sun’s resident medical expert, Andrew Bolt, decides to weigh in: Just say no This grows more farcical by the day. Now, we cannot be sure if these addicts are boat people, but we can be sure that if they’d [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in Andrew Bolt, Daily Telegraph | Comments (13)

#Categate

May 30, 2011 – 7:00 am

More than once while writing about News Ltd for Pure Poison I have said to myself “That’s potentially the stupidest thing ever to be printed by a newspaper”. And every time I say it, I think that having hit bottom things can only improve. Once again the Daily Telegraph has shown me to be a [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in News Ltd. | Comments (83)

Open Thread – May 30 – June 3

May 30, 2011 – 6:07 am

Good morning, rise and shine, it’s the start of another week. To help you feel better about the start of the work week take a listen to some Lazy Susan. Bobby Fischer: from prodigy to pariah He played some of the most sublime chess ever seen. Then, as a new book and film illustrate, he [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in Open threads | Comments (142)

Weekend talk thread – May 27-29

May 27, 2011 – 12:24 pm

The weekend is only hours away so it’s time to slip into a fresh open thread. To help keep you away from the lawnmower here’s a few tidbits. Behind the scenes at Al Jazeera English How to spot a psychopath Should video games be defined using film or literary terms? A look at Australia from [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in Open threads | Comments (125)

Who’s the sook?

May 26, 2011 – 10:39 pm

Senator Stephen Conroy has drawn the ire of News Limited papers the Daily Telegraph and The Australian due to a novel media management strategy. Conroy has begun issuing general press releases whenever he responds to questions from the Oz and has indicated that he’ll take similar action with the Tele, with the reasoning being that [...]

By Dave Gaukroger | Posted in Daily Telegraph, The Australian | Comments (48)

Misleadenfreude

May 26, 2011 – 3:56 pm

I think the Herald Sun is proud of these results of online polling of its readers: Anyone want to coin a word for the bittersweet sentiment of cheerful satisfaction in your ability to manipulate your customers into embarrassing ignorance and shortsightedness? There’s probably a clunky compound German word like schadenfreude, but it’d be handy to [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Herald Sun | Comments (49)

And Miranda has a go

May 26, 2011 – 2:21 pm

Even I am getting sick of writing about this Greens vs News Ltd story more quickly than the latter’s stable of fanatic polemicists. Here’s another one, from today’s Herald Sun, with Miranda Devine attacking them over bats (the literal, flying variety): The activists fighting the eviction of protected bats destroying Sydney’s Botanic Gardens, and the [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine | Comments (7)

Late-to-the-party Janet wants to express her outrage, too

May 25, 2011 – 9:43 pm

Competition: pick the most ridiculous lines in this late-to-the-party Greens-bash by Janet Albrechtsen, published today in The Australian. I’m inclined to go with her apparently non-ironic description of her employer as part of “a free and sceptical press”, but there’s also this hilarious strawman: Too much of the mainstream media has let Brown glide effortlessly [...]

By Jeremy Sear | Posted in Janet Albrechtsen | Comments (17)