http://northcoteknob.blogspot.com/2005/05/chrenkoff-affair.html

A follow-up on next week’s Media Watch? Should be interesting…

There should be some sort of scale at work here: You Must Be This Untruthful To Register On Our RADAR. Anything less and you may even get a Tim Tam for being willing to pretend to be an honest journalist for a week.

Mark: The point of the Sheahan story was not that Sheahan is an ass, but that a paper like the SMH will put the personas of it’s star writers ahead of what, for want of a better word, I’ll call the truth. So they missed the Hun scandal. They can’t cover everything. It’s only Melbourne anyway.

This is preposterous, Mark. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There are many ongoing themes - non-disclosure of financial interest, self-censorship in reporting adverstisers, merging of news and advertising, plagiarism and other deceptions, cash for comment, ceque-book journalism the inadequacy of the Broadcasting Tribunal - and the root causes that tie these all together - media monopoly, general erosion of journalistic standards and ethics, governments’ failure to regulate. The way you talk, it’s all about grammatical errors and other cock-ups, a kind of highbrow Funniest Home Videos. Here’s a challenge: list three major items this year that struck you as both trivial and divorced from issues of systemic rot. At least, get up from the computer and pay attention next time it’s on.

On the Larry King show, a caller says that the Republican convention was one of the most hateful things he’s heard, he’s a republican but that was the reason he didn’t vote for Bush.

Larry King then asks a question, and the audio is bad at this point.

Then there’s a break:

In the break Robertson whispers to his advisers. “That guy was a homo as sure as you‚Äôre alive”

His adviser comforts him, saying that he didn’t look rattled. He then tells Robertson how to twist his way out of calls like that.

Next the spin doctor tells him that he‚Äôs spoken to the producers and asked for the calls to be screened. He wants to see some “balance out there”.

Three of the callers were Homosexuals claims Robertson.

Robertson then says to his adviser that the producers of the show are trying to set him up.

–end–

Its funny to see Robertson label these callers, who he can’t even see, homosexuals. But is the clear spinning going on, and the paranoia that its a setup, and that they’ve got to spin their way out of it, rather than just honestly confront the issue that’s the eye opener.

James, no it wasn’t me. I did see it and I think that’s been the high point so far this year. But I still don’t see MW getting to grips with why this goes on and on. I’m not at all convinced that it’s impossible to address those issues in a short programme - in itself demonstrating the linkages between different types of media scandal would have an educational effect - rather than treating everything as a seemingly isolated breach of ethics. They’re not - they’re reflections of big structural problems with the media in general - including, I’d argue, ABC TV.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/05/09.html#a2847

Its a video of Pat Robertson on the Larry King show. Robertson takes a few phone in questions from callers who are critical. Then there’s a break. Its what gets said in the break thats the killer.

To do as you suggest requires background, context and a documentary length program, which if the ABC chose to do, would simply form another example of leftist bias for the mouthpiece mob.

I think Media Watch is doing all it can reasonably be expected to do.

In the meantime Good News from Iraq, (to *Albrechsten* the issue):
1) 100 prison inmates were not proven to be screwed up the a*** or wired to the mains.
2) Only about a 100 Iraqis were killed in a day or so, instead of a thousand
3) The new government did not appoint Allawi or Chalabi as treasurer
4) 30% of the working population are employed
5) C4 and Semtex futures have improved in Iraq.
6) US patent laws have not allowed the modification of garage opening electronics for use in IEDs (improvised explosive devices)

So easy to write the good news from Iraq !!!