Gerard Henderson’s email exchange with Amanda Meade over Kerry O’Brien’s age is one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.
All documented in his quixotic Media Watch Dog blog; Hendo goes for the throat and bites himself on the ankle.
(You’ll have to scroll down to read the whole thing ’cause direct links to specific items haven’t been invented yet in Media Watch Dog World)
The thread exposes an all at once paranoia about the ABC and its leading man and sensitivity toward new, collaborative and open media.
According to Hendo, Kerry O’Brien’s age is some sort of a ‘state secret’ – a term guaranteed to bring to mind a cold-war-like like paranoia about dead communist leaders propped up like its Weekend at Bernie’s.
For Hendo, veiled references of the ABC as a hotbed of communists never go out of style.
No, that Meade got it from the horses mouth and that the information is apparently on a public record at Wikipedia – further backed up with a reference to a now three-year-old article in the Oz – none of this is enough for our intrepid Hendo.
For someone who lectures others about journalistic standards, I am genuinely surprised that you regard Wikipedia as an authoritative source on the public record. It is nothing of the kind. Wikipedia has its uses but it can be notoriously inaccurate and its many authors are effectively anonymous.
Yes, much like those who privately fund Hendo’s Sydney Institute.
You know, it’s always interesting to see how often those who lay claim to some kind of authority tend to hide behind pay-for-play walls rather than embrace open standards of information.
I also note that Hendo does not directly dispute the accuracy of the brief Wikipedia entry on O’Brien – which does include the dreaded fact that Red Kezza did indeed once work as a press secretary for the former PM, Gough Whitlam.
I can’t for the life of me see how publishing this exchange helps Hendo look like a dogged superhero for media truth and justice. In fact it makes him look like some kind of out of touch crank.
Kerry looks pretty sprightly for 63!
And there we have it. The real reason for raising the retirement age is a conspiracy by the ALP to keep Red Kerry in place on the 7.30 report. To the wikimobile!
Wow. It’s risible enough to complain that Kerry O’Brien was once a staffer to Whitlam (probably before I was born), but to complain that his age isn’t on his 7:30 Report bio?
Having said that, out of the stooges who end up on Insiders, he’s still probably the least contemptible one.
Sadly, ’tis true.
Pathetic that a man who’s never been a journo is the only one of the three AA Rightwingers on the couch who gets the whole ‘appearance of journalistic propriety’ thing.
It says here on Wikipedia that Gerard Henderson is a living person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Henderson
See how unreliable Wikipedia is?
BTW, Hendo’s birthdate isn’t recorded on Wikipedia.
Maybe Hendo doesn’t really exist.
Wow, like being “a journo” is like having been trained to be a Sanskrit reading Astrophysicist!!
Yeah, it is pretty unfortunate that the writer of ‘Media Watch Dog’ doesn’t know how to use Google for his research. That’s primary school level stuff.
Actually, I think the whole point of Henderson’s tirade is to let everyone know he’s in Who’s Who.
“Hendo goes for the throat and bites himself on the ankle.”
Indeed. A bit like this really.
Benedictus, I’m glad you think it has any point, no matter how inane. By the time I got to the end of that exchange I was (and I’m sure Amanda Meade also was) bashing my head dully and rhythmically against the nearest wall and muttering ‘I know you are, but what am I?’
What on earth is it all about?
Man who say “I don’t intend to continue this correspondence” in a huff and stomps off is no scholar and no gentleman. He silly.
If Kerry O’Brien is hiding his age, what else is he hiding? Is he also part of a Al Qaeda/Fabian/international banker/communist/illuminati/UN-world government/freemason cabal?
I thought so. I bet he’s not even a true ranga. This is even more sinister than the Da Vinci code.
I thought that exchange was just wonderful. It’s on a par with those stories about David Flint emerging from a broom cupboard to make a right and proper appearance at a hearing over which he was presiding. It somehow reveals the inner beauty of the man.
And, if I don’t have an entry in who’s who does that mean that I don’t really exist?
That was hilarious. I particularly enjoyed his attempt to have the last word after she’d pretty much told him enough was enough.
Niiiice. Hendo’s version of investigative journalism at its very best.
I reckon that with this he’s right-up there with Woodward and Bernstein in cracking the tough nut and getting at that meaty truth inside.
Fascinating stuff.
Onya Hendo.
No Mal, and you won’t exist unless you invent and run your very own private and secretive Institute For The Justification of Any Inane Liberal Party Policy and submit your pompous and overblown CV to the Publishers of Who’s Who.
Every one knows that.
What I want to know is how many kids Red Kerry has. I heard he’s fathered something like a dozen sprogs.
Man obviously has his own Cairns/Morosi hippy cult going—yet our hero at ‘Media Watch Dog’ just can’t see the wood for the trees. (I’m not kidding about O’Brien’s fecundity.)
Not quite as legendary as his correspondence with media watch [pdf.] But the greatest example of pedantry comes in the Sydney Institute quarterly Issue 33 – August 2008 (the preview of this post didn’t like the link so i will include it below.) In the correspondence section he includes an automated ‘out of office reply’ from Sally Warhaft (page 39/page 38 of the pdf)
But seriously, Henderson’s is a dry wit. How could anyone complain so much about the monthly only having a right-of-reply/letters section online, and then not allow comments on their “blog.”
I would agree with the comments that he is the best right-wing guy on Insiders. He is a bit of a downer though. Take the example from the 18th of May 2008 on the ‘final observation or predictions’ segment (link provided below to avoid the spam filter – if you follow the link, click on the clip and jump to around the 5:20 mark.) What is meant to be a light-hearted, end of the show bit with a few jokes or ‘leaked’ insights turns to ‘remember the holocaust’ with Gerard. Not that we shouldn’t remember the holocaust but it’s about picking the time and place, and his moment here is, for me, a bit jarring given the light nature of the segment normally.
Hmmm… i’m starting to look like the kind of pedant that Gerard is, like i’ve got files on him or something
Insiders link: http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2007/s2248096.htm
I guess if your father was a DLP-er you’re inclined to see red-heads under every bed.
Why do I get the sense that Gerard Henderson is writing his blog on a typewriter while on the phone to the ABC to complain … yet again…
There appears to be a concerted push on to force O’Brien into retirement, hence the question about his age. Christopher Pearson in last Saturday’s Australian wrote about how long O’Brien has been in the 7.30 Report job.
Lols Ginja.
How many turf wars can Leigh Sales handle in one day?
Re Sam@22. You’re so right.The steady drip has been noticeable for the past few weeks. What is it with these right-wing imbeciles with their petty campaigns. No wonder Gerard’s wife left him (although I believe his penchant for fawn(ing) cardigans was to blame). Likewise Christopher Pearson is becoming more and more rabid in his fairly recent (within the past few years) adoption of the Catholic Church and the freedom he believes it gives him to lie as much as he likes, presumably on the basis that all can be forgiven before he ascends to the great castle in the sky. On the other hand Leigh Sales is a mighty ambitious woman who may be aspiring to fill Kerry’s shoes before anyone else gets the nod.
Leigh Sales for 7:30 Report! Long live the Rangas!
Apparently Hendo Jr. was the ‘Dirty Lousy Parasite’*, not Hendo Sr. It was his father whom he’s mocked in print as a diehard Chifley fan with a hatred for the likes of Joe Lyons (“Joe Lyons was buried in a tuxedo! Ben Chifley never even owned one!” IIRC.)
*That’s what my old man called them.
Mandatory for any thread about Hendo. Breakfast with Gerard Henderson.
Liela at 24. Can we not go into Gerard’s personal life? Bit tacky that.
Nickws: Gerard Henderson gave a speech to the Fabian Society in 2006 in which he said his father was expelled from ALP for being a grouper. He helped his father as one of Santa’s little helpers.
The interesting thing about the split is how few people seem to have rejoined the ALP after the fall of communism. It seems despite the self-mythologizing, the split was about more than communism. It’s a bit of a counter-factual guess, but any grouper-types probably would have moved Right regardless.
…I meant many grouper-types…
This is all very interesting but aren’t we ignoring the big questions? Like if Leigh Sales takes over from Red Kerry, who has awesome enough hair to complement Tony Jones?
Henderson is clearly on the autistic spectrum.
Mr Denmore, that’d give autism a bad name. As a person with (fairly well concealed) Asperger’s, I refuse to share a disorder with Hendo.
He’s not autistic, he’s just a twerp.
@David Irving (no relation):
Well said. My son has not especially well concealed High Functioning Autism (as he gets older he’ll get better at pretending he’s not autistic in the social situations where that is advisable), and on his behalf I refuse to have him sharing a disorder with Hendo as well.
tigtog, pretending to be normal will get much easier for your son with age and greater experience of other people and social situations. (Although at nearly 60 I still sometimes slip up.)
Hendo and his old man were New South Welshmen, right? Plenty of Groupers there stayed in the party all along—Diamond Jim McClelland, Lloyd Ross and the recently departed Laurie Short, to name the three most surprisingly Whitlamite famous Groupers. (The entire NSW Movement was instructed by Cardinal Gilroy to stay in the ALP.)
Some went with Jack Kane in ’56 to the DLP only to drift back later (I think John Della Bosca’s father was one of those.)
In Victoria the still active DLP veterans in the union movement returned in 1985.
But the end of the Cold War, digger, is circa 1990. All the ex-Grouper and ex-Movement people who came back to Labor had done so by then. The rest were dead, retired and politically unengaged, Lib/Nat supporters, or micro party enthusiasts.
I don’t have any data to back up that last assertion, just a knowledge of Australian politics and a bit of common sense.
Sorry if I sound petulent, but I’m not a big fan of the theory that the DLP was a serious foundation block of Australia’s conservative Right (instead of just an allied organisation which provided some converts like Hendo). That’s just a cop-out, and sounds way too much like some kind of exculpatory clause for the likes of Howard and Costello.
(You’ll have to scroll down to read the whole thing ’cause direct links to specific items haven’t been invented yet in Media Watch Dog World)
That’s so sad. Is there nobody in the “Sydney Institute” who can show Hendo how to put in a link? Or does the “Sydney Institute” consist only of one guy – Hendo? Surely he has a niece or nephew who can show him?
“Hendo and his old man were New South Welshmen, right?”
A look at , Wikipedia, as we all know a dangerous and unreliable source of information, suggests otherwise.
See ,even its links go crook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Henderson
Who wants to form a posse with me to rescue the sweet blue heeler in the Media Watchdog banner?
Oh look, he’s underlined stuff because he’s cottoned on to the vague notion that important words and phrases somehow appear underlined in web published articles, but he hasn’t realised that they’re supposed to be links. Adorable!
“Who wants to form a posse..?”
Woof, woof.
http://i.pbase.com/g6/83/598683/2/79895925.JBnBHTTi.jpg
Helen @ 37, I reckon it’s great Hendo doesn’t do links. It makes the website almost completely unusable (and quite unreadable), and most people won’t be tempted back for a second look (particularly as it’s mostly a continuation of the stoush he and Manne have been having for the last 40 years anyway).
It’s a win for the forces of reason.
Nickws: I’d probably go along with a lot of that. What was the line about the DLP – it wasn’t democratic, wasn’t labor, and wasn’t a party.
It appears we owe Mr Henderson an apology according to http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/obama-and-the-tactics-of-truth-20090608-c0rb.html?page=-1
“In 2007 I referred to the United States President as Barack Hussein Obama. This seemed to me to be nothing more than a statement of fact. But no. Writing in the Crikey newsletter (February 13, 2007) the experienced and usually sensible commentator Richard Farmer accused me of being sleazy and, by implication, racist.
That was then. Last January, the US’s 44th President took the oath of office as Barack Hussein Obama. While members of the Obama camp attempted to play down his part-Muslim ancestry before November’s election, with the support of the overwhelming majority of journalists reporting the campaign, this tactic has now been completely junked. Now Obama and the overwhelming majority of journalists, who happen to support his administration, speak proudly of the fact that the first black American president has a Kenyan-born father who was Muslim.”
He might have a point at least technically.
Ah, this is what happens when you make the perfectly reasonable (but stupid) assumption that the Sydney Institute could only ever be created by a Syneysider.
But Henderson does resent the rhetoric of his old man’s class politics, even if Hendo Sr. was a reliable Victorian DLP-er (the anecdote I quoted is from one of his old ‘Age’ articles, IIRC).
Henderson is a true-believing Liberal although he belongs to a particular sub-species catholic, republican, anti-union (although not particularly free market apart from this) and anti-racist, unlike many other conservatives he lacks any sympathy for the racist extreme right. But his columns are either so-so debating exercises against an imagined left spectre or internal Liberal party arguments mostly directed these days to keeping up right-wing morale.
Tssk, of course he has a point technically. This is the kind of bad-faith argument he’s famous for. He would know, of course, that people on the Right were keen to put the “Hussein” in as a kind of dog-whistle, oh look, he’s got a middle name like who was that, oh yes, Saddam Hussein!! SCARY!!1! Of course, the beauty of this sort of thing is that later on you spread your hands, look quizzical (or the online equivalent) and go “who, me?”
Sorry, my ‘nym got mixed up with some weak joke I made days ago…