Crikey’s editorial today (reproduced over the fold with permission) picked up on the political significance of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s critical remarks about the conduct of News Limited papers in publishing the concocted email at the centre of the Utegate affair (and its subsequent implosion from an opposition point of view). While Media Watch did a top notch job of examining the ethical issues arising from this publication, Rudd and Gillard haven’t suddenly put on hats as media critics in some academic sense. Crikey correctly observes that it’s a recognition that the “power of the press” to shape political outcomes has become a paper tiger, though that should have been obvious from the complete lack of any discernible electoral impact of campaigns such as that of The Australian in favour of Howard in 2007, and of the Courier-Mail against Anna Bligh in this year’s Queensland election. Nor would Rudd and Gillard’s comments have been spontaneous musings – when such coordinated and complimentary comments are made, you can be 100% certain that a particular political strategy has been decided upon.
There might be a residual sense in the minds of some media players that political coverage plays a “Fourth Estate” role. But the reality is that the excesses of the media now extend to brazen partisanship and a desire to be active political players. That this desire should be completely out of alignment with public opinion should come as no news to News. And it’s right and appropriate that there be accountability for its pathologies when they’re particularly prominent. If you live by the sword, and all that…
In other news: John Hartigan responds, and takes a swipe at new media for good measure.
As practising political pragmatists, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister both did something counter-intuitive this week. They openly and deliberately criticised News Limited.To outsiders watching the daily cut and thrust of politics, these may seem innocuous acts. But inside the political tent there has been an unstated but closely observed rule for decades that publicly poking a stick inside the cage of the country’s biggest media gorilla is not a career-enhancing move, given News Limited’s long-standing predilection to deploy its newspapers to campaign personally and vindictively against anyone on its enemies list.
Yesterday, the PM twice attacked The Courier-Mail in an ABC Brisbane radio interview (with the wife of the editor of that newspaper, as it happens), and this morning on ABC Radio National the Deputy PM explicitly criticised News Limited for its journalism in covering the Utegate matter.
These are not uncalculating politicians. By poking a stick inside this particular cage they are making a meaningful statement about media power: how it is evolving and diffusing; how the spectre of Murdoch no longer acts as a curb on politicians doing the right thing; how new media is recalibrating the unhealthy influence of the old media establishment; and how political leaders now feel confident enough to believe that the machinations of one newspaper empire can no longer unseat governments, destroy careers or turn political tides.
Kevin 1, Rupert 0.
I loved this comment at the end:
“Immediately following the speech, Hartigan destroyed a mechanical loom”.
“Courier-Mail against Anna Bligh in this year’s Queensland election.”
hmmm, I think that did draw blood from the Bligh Govt. The LNP should not have 34 seats. However come next election they should have much much more following what has transpired ‘100 days’ after the election.
The interesting bit here is not John Hartigan ranting about bloggers (about 50% of established journalists do that; the other 50% are figuring out how to get on board). The interesting bit is about the plans to cut back the News Ltd. Canberra Press Gallery presence. This primarily means cuts at The Australian, and has me wondering how secure Chris Mitchell’s tenure there is.
Why didn’t they criticize the Canberra Times for publishing false allegations of an illegal internal investigation of the then Minister for Defence resulting in two expensive and time wasting investigations in support of a a lame duck, nepotistically corrupt Minister who they finally had to sack, proving the opposition to have been correct from the get go?
Key part for me is “how the spectre of Murdoch no longer acts as a curb on politicians doing the right thing“.
Even if that’s a misstatement, I think it is accurate and I like it. I’ve helped sell a uteload of “is that the truth or is your News Limited” type stickers ad shirts in the last few years, but even I’m surprised at how widely they have spread (and the particular vehicles I’ve seen them on).
Where can I get some moz? Public mocking by the citizenry seems to be an eminently desirable thing to encourage. A community in which people like Milne and Bolt and Lewis can’t walk the streets without triggering mass smirks and sniggers would be a saner, healthier place.
Hit ‘em in their egos where they’re most fragile.
News Ltd had a whip hand as new media began to attack old.
From the moment the “Rivers of Gold” classifieds income was clearly headed south for Fairfax, News Ltd should have pounced, and been delivering on-line services that would have made it the envy of all in the land.
Instead, they chose to try & ignore the elephant in the room while Fairfax, the ABC, heck even ol’ Crikey tweaked their on-line delivery to lead the market (such as a market exists at all). News’ sites have been shocking, even those within the beast will admit.
The other asset that’s been abused has been The Australian. What should be a broadsheet that exposes the life-style obsessed Fairfax papers for the fluff they are has become an inconsistent, nit-picking, occasional hysterical embarrassment. And the weekend edition is following Fairfax into lifestyle hell, just for good measure.
The notion of News’ management criticising the new media forms that are making them fast redundant is equal parts sad, and funny.
Hartigan can’t paste on the fig leafs fast enough.
He should look overseas and where it is widely believed that the Murdoch media is simply an extension of the Conservative political parties.
The problem for News Ltd in Australia now is that if they have already for a long time pressed the limits of credibility (the last effort going over the cliff) and should they decide to harder in being anti Labor it will become just too obvious and negate any effect at all.
The last effort of there was astonishing and inexplicable and has not been explained.
How on earth can a supposedly credible and major newspapers stable publish an incendiary story that affects the government of the day, without thinking it important to put the statements of the Govt to the effect that the allegations were most likely false? Hartigan’s comments on the matter were an embarrassment.
I note that he also said that newspapers probably didn’t need to print the Government’s ’spin’ which to me means, ignore what the Government says and print what suits you best, as spin can be defined as anything the government says.
Keep attacking the blogs, the best way to promote them.
Ken@6: Republic Print (http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Republic-Print) in Sydney make them, The Greens often have them on their stalls at events as do random other lefty groups. Someone at the Newtown DIY market in Sydney sells them too. Or just print your own
Actually the Courier Mail had loved to rubbish the LNP/Coalition for years before the election. It attacked both sides, saying that the LNP were an incompetent opposition and the ALP had dropped the ball with services such as health and education. Really, the media had a view that the real problem with the election was finding the lesser of two evils.
Oh, and its interesting how you just mention the Australian as the only News Limited paper supporting Howard, because I remember an awful lot of the companies newspapers coming out in support of Rudd. I remember the front page the day before the election, Rudd was the WHOLE of the front page and the headline read something along the lines of “The Man For Our Times.” And went on to say that the Courier Mail completely supported Rudd.
They published the ‘Hanson’ photos, they ran with the ute email story….are they perhaps a touch gullible?
News: Limited.
Economical and all that.
The Courier Mail was so anti the Bligh government it was emabarrassing. I am sure that the bias was so obvious that it lost any impact. I will not buy the rag which has less news and relevance that the local throw aways.
The australian is no better really. Now if I were in the Fairfax stable I would think about promoting home delivery etc to Qld. I know print is a declining medium but there is probably 15 years of life yet.
Hartigan:
fails to maintain a proper traditional distinction between journalists and readers.
[Clutches pearls]
[Looks for fainting couch]
[Locates fainting couch, drags to more salubrious location]
[Rolls eyes, clutches pearls again]
[Faints]
Wombat most of the Courier’s criticism of QLD Labor was due to the poor services it was providing – health was an absolute mess.
The reason why Labor kept power was because we’ve had an incompetent opposition for years and a media that has absolutely savaged them. The Courier has told readers for over a decade that the opposition were in no state to run things and were just an incompetent bunch of fools. The criticisms for both parties were true, the problem is that party faithful have a habit of only seeing the negative publicity they get and then all of a sudden the press is agains them!
I haven’t heard what Rudd and Gillard said but if it is true [that's just caution on my part] that they have criticised Ltd News then that is a momentous occasion in Aust. politics.
Over at Poll Bludger Psephos has stated repeatedly that the first rule of Aust. politics is not to annoy Rupert [or words to that effect].
If 2 of the most calculating politicians in the country see fit to deliberately break that rule then we have reached a watershed where the previously unquestioned power of Ltd News has been openly questioned and is in their normally astute judgment able to be treated with the [lack of] respect it deserves.
And about time too.
Jack, while I think the Courier Mail is more anti-ALP than anti-LNP, that’s not the biggest issue here. My problem with the rag that it is the sort of paper that supports Bligh’s privatization of government services, but will blast her anyway for breaking her electoral promises.
I would have more respect for the paper if it really delved deeply into the pros and cons of selling off government assets (and referred to Victoria and NSW’s failures in this area). Or all the bloody TransApex tunnels and bridges being built at the moment. But it is not that sort of paper. It doesn’t do much analysis, or big ideas. So I find it takes me less than 10 minutes to read the interesting bits.
“I haven’t heard what Rudd and Gillard said but if it is true [that's just caution on my part] that they have criticised Ltd News then that is a momentous occasion in Aust. politics.”
hannah’s dad, I am not surprised you have not heard it. As I mentioned on another thread I believe it is largely being ignored by the press. Rudd made his first crack some days ago. His and Gillards words on ABC, most recently, have also been deemed unimportant.
I guess we should not be surprised but it seems a story is only considered a story, by Aunty, if Newscorp thinks it is.
Well, do be fair, sensationalising the breaking of election promises by the press would happen to any government but I do understand what you mean Down and Out. I’m studying a journalism degree and if there’s one thing you notice, its that Murdoch is a populist – he’ll go with the feelings in society and pick a winner. That’s why when some politicians start to go bad, they really go bad. News Limited is only really neutral when things are so even no winner can be picked and he’ll sit on the fence.
It is true, News Ltd is on the wane but lets not delude ourselves that they still are not the most significant non-govt actors in the public debate.
Take today’s horrible beat up on the front of the Australian about a ”wages breakout” to coincide with new IR laws – all the pollies (Swan, Rudd, Gillard) responded to the story as if it was serious and the ABC news tonite treated talk of a wages break out as if it was a real possibility. Of course it was rubbish
Hartigan’s diatribe, portentously entitled “The Future of Journalism”, is not a response to a criticism of News by the government, should the apparent assimilation in the lead in this thread is taken as that.
Rather it is a rabid and desperately defensive attack on web journalism and all its ilk.
I can see where Hartigan is coming from – he is grieving the loss of the rapidly diminishing political clout. Yes, there is a loss of revenue too, although he claims in the address that in Ostrelia it is nothing like in the UK and the US, and that the antipodean office of the firm is going great guns. (Just watch what happens when the fibreoptic to the door arrives, Johnny).
But clearly more than anything, Hartigan’s address revealed his, and his boss’s, anxieties about the inroads made by the Net. So Crikey, and blogs such as this are in the crosshairs, clearly seen as burglars stealing from the master’s table, stealing the political clout, and devaluing its currency by giving it away and worse still, allowing commentators without a warrant from Rupert a free go at the levers of public opinion. What a bloody outrage, eh?
His language reveals his anxiety – he likens blogs as dens of iniquity and their purveyors as criminals: a blogsite he won’t name matches the “identikit” picture drawn by Morlock lieutenant Robert Thomson, who said “blogs and comment sites are basically editorial echo chambers rather than centres of creation. And their cynicism about so-called traditional media is only matched by their opportunism in exploiting it.”
Thomson, who is WSJ’s Australian-born editor and Morlock’s bum person has been at the forefront of the Canutean wave-beating exercise for a while, likened Google to a parasite, and a tech taperworm. Thus Hartigan quoting Thomson as an authority on the subject of web journalism and blogging is most revealing, especially about where the orders are coming from, how Rupe feels about it (was the word “echo-chamber a Freudian slip?) and the fact they are all shitting themselves down in the bunker.
Finally, note this from Hartigan: “In May, almost 600,000 recipes were printed by readers. Not just downloaded, printed. Since January, 6 million recipes have been printed from the site. Incredibly, this tells us what Australia has for dinner, on what nights of the week. Pumpkin soup is very big on Tuesdays. This is an incredibly powerful proposition to take to an advertiser. ”
Yes, incredibly, he is boasting that News Limited puts out recipes for the punters online, like some bit of cheese in a moustrap, all the while so it can put in spying cookies and other logging software inside the readers’ computers to check if News’s tastecom.au online readers are printing out recipes so it can then log the details and use the info to flog to advertisers. Mmmm, yummy.
It is good to know what the enemy is thinking and what they fear – us.
Read the address on the Herald Sun site at http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25718006-661,00.html?from=public_rss
Would this be the Murdoch whose masterful grasp of the intertubes is such that he’s about to lay off 30% of the MySpace staff for lack of business?
Rudd and Gillard going for News Ltd was good fun, hope they keep it up. And they should also have a look at the ABC News Rooms, where the hourly news bulletins are written, and broadcast across the nation.
It seems our post-Howard culture wars ABC news writers do it to a set formula these days: first read News Ltd to find out what the news is, like melboure crime dynasty developments, the latest road kill in Argentina, Michael Jackson’s children, and which footballer is confessing to rape today, and then repeat. Alternatively, report a positive government initiative, and follow it immediately with an opposition spokesman frothing about how disgusting this is, and it will mean the end of the world. Follow this with five minutes of reporting on every men’s sport being played on the planet, including all the groin injuries.
Howard succeeded better than we might be prepared to admit, at least inside our ABC News Rooms.
The trouble with control-freak Rudd is that he wants to control the media just like he controls his ministers and government. Anyone who doubts this should do a google search on Lachlan Harris. As for the supposed bias of publications I note Mark conveniently left out the Courier Mail coverage of the 07 election. I was also under the impression that the Oz endorsed Rudd in their final editorial before the 07 election. Someone correct me if that’s wrong.
‘Take today’s horrible beat up on the front of the Australian about a ”wages breakout” to coincide with new IR laws..’
And Hartigan wonders why bloggers think his papers produce partisan crap? They ought to give up trying to create the illusion they are there to offer fair and unbaiased news and opinion and just admit they are a thin imitation of FoxNews.
The way they go on you would almost think that the real worry of some in the murdoch media is not loss of revenue, but loss of an ability to effectively in a vacuum slag non conservative political parties.
Hartigan and his staff will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the realisation their opinions are not much better or useful than many a person off the street.
Harto’s speech was so lacking in perception it sounded like one of Dennis Shanahan’s famous pre-election Newspoll columns on how 2 and 2 really added up to John Howard. He praises the Huffington Post but fails to note that it is 90 per cent aggregation with a few columns on the side. Indeed Pembo ( I love all the O men at News Ltd) copied it for Punch. If Punch isn’t a news aggregation site ripping off the work of all and sundry then what is it. And they don’t pay their columnists so you get dunderheads like Bronny Bishop bloviating at length proving again that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. He wonders about political coverage without wondering whether it was the total twisting of reality during the 2007 campaign that had people wondering about the quality of journalism at News Ltd especially its “quality” flagship The Australian. His bleats about good news sounded like the old dears at the Anglican Church womens’ guild “oh dear if only they covered the good news the world would be so nice.” Except we suspect Harto’s idea of good news is, as one other said somewhere else, stories about blokes with their dicks caught in vacuum cleaners.
The disturbing thing is that the hatred of the blogoshpere, well that part of it not under the News Ltd umbrella, seems to be part of a corporate mantra. At first we may have thought it existed only in the foetid brain of Chris Mitchell and his butt monkey Christian Kerr. But now it seems to be official policy.
What Harto misses is the reason that Mumbles, Possum, Poll Bludger et al have a following is that they can read things like opinion polls and draw real conclusions unlike News Ltd which seems incapable of understanding its own polls. Then there is its vendetta journalism. Robert Manne is a favorite target but today The Oz did a reverse vendetta with pike by ripping off his cover story from the Monthly and making it the main feature. Good get Cameron.
Also today in the Oz we have day two of the union scare campaign harking back to 1981 for fuck’s sake!!! It is based on the myth The Oz is pushing that pattern bargaining is allowed under the new laws. It isn’t but hey why let that stop us?
We have the hysterical anti-green anti-global warming stance of the Australian which one would have thought is read by people who can makeup their own minds. They and the vast majority of Australians know the Oz is talking crap on this and a whole lot of issues They see it on the front page and then they get screamed at by the Albrechtsens, Sheridans (today’s, another fantasy piece) and any other loony they can get to write for them. Michael Costa on economics and governance?
Everyone knows he was hopeless as a treasurer and now we are expected to receive his pearls of wisdom as though they are holy writ. I could go on. The reason we read Crikey and the rest of the the blogosphere is we don’t like having our intelligence insulted by Chris Mitchell’s merry band of delusional lunatics.
And Crikey, how about making a note of every story the Oz runs (unattributed of course) which it read about first on Crikey. I think I see about four or five a week.
Finally, As Harto got his Walkley award for journalistic leadership he announced there would be no swingeing cuts at News Ltd, he would hold the line blah blah blah. At the time he spoke he was throwing journos out of the lifeboat and he hasn’t stopped since.
The Internet presented problems for newspapers but they could have been tackled. The fact that newspapers are failing has nothing to do with new journalism it is all to do with bad management and dinosaurs like Harto who thinks by making a few “bold” speeches to a bunch of sycophants at the Press Club will show he has the answers.
If Harto and his pronouncements are the answer we are asking the wrong question.
And have you really looked at the front page of the Australian newspaper today? The lead story opens with:
“FFFKevin Rudd and Wayne Swan yesterday called for…”
Somebody please tell me what “FFFKevin” means. I’m sure it can’t be nice.
The Oz’s line is very odd, their editorials (written by Allen Wood?) largely support a Keynesian response to the crisis but The Oz then keeps on side with its loopy right constituency by running wingnut columnists who wanted a cleansing recession and nitpicking about school spending.
They’ve got one very good writer in George Megalogenis. He is always perceptive and worth reading.
I’d just like to followup on a point made by Jack about the mass media getting behind Rudd alst election and how horribly partisan it was.
He’s right they did. But only once it was seen in the polls how inevitable it might be. Up until then they were behind Howard all the way. Go into the archives and look at it.
As for the ABC…while the ALP is in power it’s not a problem.
Any criticism of the government makes it stronger.
As for Rudd and Gillard being unprecedented in criticising the media. Come on. The culture wars were all about bringing all the media on line by being ‘balanced.’ That is singing the Coalitions praises while being open enough to write screeds about the ALP ‘rooning’ Australia.
I’m fine with constructive debate. That’s why I stopped buying newspapers and started reading blogs and forums. I’m not alone. And that’s why journalism is dying. I remember the old days when journalists used to actually leave the office to chase stories rather than rewrite media releases. Now get off my lawn!
‘As for the ABC…while the ALP is in power it’s not a problem.’
I can’t understand this line of reasoning. I would have thought that it’s an insult to democracy, not to mention its audience for a public broadcaster to be consistently partisan to either side of politics.
In the end all it will succeed in doing is devaluing the integrity of the organisation, and I think that public broadcasting is too important to let this happen.
Also Rudd and Gillard are not just criticising the media, they are singling out the all powerful (or so they would like to believe)News Limited, something which I cannot recall any other senior politicians doing.
What I mean Adrian is that I think the government being criticised, especially by the government run media keeps it honest. Pity that outside comedy shows during the Howard years it didn’t happen much. And even then there was constant criticism of those comedy shows.
Oh and why would Howard and co come out against News Ltd? They had the perfect relationship. As long as News was constant in it’s praise they got all the media releases they needed to rework.
Of course in the end they shot themselves in the foot. It’s dead easy to write partisan style rubbish.
(If in ten years time the same pattern is repeated with the ALP I’ll be just as annoyed.)
I thought something might have been up when there was a small article in the Curious Smell yesterday about Rudd’s interview with ABC presenter Madonna King (who is also a Curious Smell columnist IIRC). The text was boilerplate “Rudd dodged the question”, “Rudd criticized News Ltd for publishing fake emails”, etc but the headline was “Rudd bashes messenger”. Quite a nasty headline IMHO, and petulant to boot.
It’s like that Rudd hairdryer story. Reported everywhere as fact. We only know that it might be fake due to Rudd’s comments. On Rove.
Truely the plastic turkey story of our current political gen.
jethro the actual interview is available on the link below. The pointy bit can be found @02.29, near the end.
In fact , of course, Rudd answered the question thus…
“When this ute was lent to us, it was fully declared on the pecuniary interest register,” …….
It was a case of Newscorp reps, and King, not being happy that the question was answered the way they wanted it. And hell, he had the hide to criticise the bastards who were out to get him, on the basis of the fake email.
http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2009/07/pm-kicks-off-commonsense-cabinet.html#comments?program=612_morning
BTW full text of the Hartigan speech here http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/we_will_survive/
Strangely enough the comments there match ours in a lot of respects. Teh right and left agreeing on something for once?
Re: tssk
I’m studying journalism at uni and one of the patterns that is clearly evident is that the murdoch press is very popularist and will back a winner – ie. so when someone starts to lose, his press will turn on them in a heartbeat. The press often supported howard because he looked like a winner, and when rudd looked set to win they conferred that support over to him.
Btw your statement about the ABC being alright when Labor is in power – both sides on the political spectrum get pissed off at the ABC – under hawke there were complaints about bias against the ALP, and the same happened to howard.
Amusing article from Guy Rundle News Ltd is the Soviet Union.
The Greg Sheriden entry is particularly good.
I quite liked the fate of the Cut and Paste editors.
That was hilarious, adrian. Thanks for sharing it.
Hatigan said that blogs were written by “extremists” in his speech to the press club this week. Coming from News Ltd’s CEO…..do I even have to finish this sentence?
We all know that News Ltd is an extension of the Liberal Party, don’t we? Every single fake scandal aimed at Rudd has involved News Ltd – and usually Glenn Milne. They are part of an apparatus that includes all the business groups, right-wing think tanks and the Coalition.
Whenever a bad story about the Rudd Government hits, don’t we all automatically go to The Oz?
The thing to understand about News Ltd is that they will never give Labor any quarter whatsoever. Any attempt to placate them will be a waste of time. They will viciously go after Labor and the Greens no matter what they do. As governments all around the world turn to state intervention – out of sheer necessity – the Murdoch empire is becoming more and more hysterical.
The Libs whinged constantly about the ABC, maybe it’s time the Left started really calling the Murdoch empire what it is: a propaganda outfit for the Right, not a legitimate news organisation.
P.S. What’s the front page story on The Oz today? A scary union story. Nuff said.
Ginja at #40
“We all know that News Ltd is an extension of the Liberal Party, don’t we?”
No we don’t.
I disagree.
I think it is the other way around.
{Actually I’m just being a pain in the bum cos I broadly agree with you I just want to appear combative, its irony, or at least I think irony is the appropriate word.]
And the Libs are an extension of others besides Ltd. News.
I noticed a brief, there it was gone, blink and you’ll miss it, report the week before Malcolm’s forged e-mail affair smothered the news that Malcolm had given a speech to the Business Council of Australia focusing on the ALP carbon reduction scheme that was defeated in the Senate about that time.
In the speech he asked the BCA to come up with their desired amendments to the legislation and he would put them forward in Parliament.
Sock puppet style.
In return for being their parliamentary mouthpiece he asked the BCA to publicly support the COALition outside parliament.
Mutual back scratchies.
So maybe I was a bit harsh above, rather than one being the extension of the other perhaps its just a coin, two sided, COALition on one side , big business including Ltd News on t’other.
Janet Albrechtsen as Leni Riefenstahl in comments is pretty darned priceless too.
Here’s the fun bit from Madonna King yesterday, good bit starts with about 2-29 to go.
http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2009/07/pm-kicks-off-commonsense-cabinet.html?program=612_morning#
Meanwhile, there are “admissions” that the Washington Post was about to sell access for cash. As expected, it’s caused quite a stir:
I wondered if this idea ever crossed Rupert’s mind. Maybe. But he prefers to communicate his bias, rather than that of others.
Whoops. Hartigan criticised ‘a blog’ for running with the line that they were not wrong for long (or something similar.) Tim Burrowes took this to be directed at his site Mumbrella. Today he has a perfect comeback, pointing out, that with newspapers, you’re wrong forever.
Julia walked all over Trioli on ABC TV News this morning. It was fun to watch.
I hope she was wearing high heels.
thewetmale@46, thanks for that. That story is priceless. I wonder if any of his staff is game enough to point it out to Hartigan.
Paul @ 47. I enjoyed that too.
Glad youse enjoyed it. Don’t know if Julia was wearing high heels but every time Trioli tried to put a talking fault eg its all Labor’s fault our Indeigenous people are unerprivileged; or What on earth did you think you were doing attacking News Limited like that – (subtext – we might have to go out and look for stories ourselves here at the ABC – ) , Julia smiled, and as nicely as possible, without saying it, told her she was a flamin’ idiot. Like I said, it was fun to watch.
Mind you, is my interpretation -other might have seen it differently.
It shows how thin-skinned journalists are. Rudd and Gillard have made a few mild comments about a massive stuff-up by journalists, and News Ltd has a big sulk.
Hey News Ltd, you were part of a slimy attempt to knock off a PM! You more or less accused Rudd of corrupt – or at least sleazy – dealings. Do you honestly think Rudd hasn’t a legitimate point to make?
News Ltd journos get so touchy about this kind of thing because, deep down, they know they’re not real journos, just propagandists and hit-men.
Let’s all just imagine the world without the Murdoch empire.
Ginja@52, the thing that gets me, is that they always seem to get away with it. This was an attempt to get rid of another elected government by another Malcolm via very dodgy means.
Elements of the press were complicit in it and we are all expected to just forget it till they try it again. Probably with better timing, just before an election, as they have before.
Rudd and co may well have finally taken on the fourth estate for no other reason than things can’t get any worse than the run they getting in the press, anyway.
And it makes a complete joke of the notion of him being the great media manipulator that they have just chosen to mostly ignore or quietly sulk about his complaint.
Paul
I just watched the Gillard/Trioli thing.
I agree with your evaluation.
I particularly liked Julia saying that if she were to check the footy scores in the paper she would expect them to get the scores right and saw no reason why the same standard should not apply to political reporting.
And she smiled.
To continue the sporting analogy a dinky little Trioli lob on the tennis court was smacked back with timing and precision for a clear winner.
With a smile.
Just one of several such winners in the lop sided game.
‘Rudd and co may well have finally taken on the fourth estate for no other reason than things can’t get any worse than the run they getting in the press, anyway.’
Possibly Rudd and Gillard might not mind a big fight with News Ltd as it could push them over the edge into outright FoxNews mode and thus loose credibility and effectiveness with anyone except the rusted on right. Alternatively if people become aware that News Ltd is fighting with the Govt they will view their news and opinions with a little more skepticism than usual.
And in any case others are probably right, Rudd has nothing to lose since the Murdoch media is already acting like his enemy it cant get any worse without seeming obvious.
But it is about time News Ltd got called for continually hit balls foul and calling them home runs.
It will be interesting to see what the AFP come up with in regard to dodgy media activity and the public service and Defence.
hannah’s dad @ 54,
Also liked Julia’s take on Rudd not going on ABC Breakfast TV. My reading – Kev has got the common touch which is why he goes on Rove etc. And he goes on Lateline and the 7.30 Report to face the tough questions from the real journalists – well,Red Kev is a real journalist, but he does talk to the other bloke. He’s just not interested in feeding right wing trolls like you. [Julia smiles nicely.] (Again, my reading of the sub-text, not what our Julia actually said.)
God, when is this woman going to be PM? I can’t wait!.
joe2: you make a good point about Malcolms. We shouldn’t forget Murdoch’s role in the dismissal.
Yeh, Ginja@57 if they hadn’t rubbished Rex and his petrodollars Gough might have held his nerve about them. It was probably more about old money aghast at the thought of procuring cash from anything other than the traditional sources.
And Arabs to boot, forsooth.
Yairs, Harto’s speechwriter/transcriber misspelt the name of Robert Thomson (as Thomsen), the editor of the News-owned WSJ. As the address was printed in the News Limited pubs the error is there for long. Harto wants to be known as Polly-Anna from now on.
On another matter, I read somewhere that Rupert who sacked the recently late Frank Devine from the Oz, explained it thus: “he was one of my mistakes, but I love him.”
It’s a strange family outfit. Now take Chase Carey’s moustache…
The method with all the “scandals” that News Ltd has thrown at Rudd seems to be publish first and ask questions later – in the hope that something will turn up.
There’s a name for this: crap journalism (crap even by News Ltd’s standards).
Turnbull seems to have been operating on the same theory.