Our weekly (mostly) look at media spin tactics: let’s dissect the PR and propaganda that aims to blow one’s own horn, bury one’s errors, resurrect the shambling zombie corpses of well-flogged deceased equines, and ooh look! A Big Distracting Thing!
The first question is always cui bono? The second question is what’s really going on?
Please note – this thread’s just for the analysis of media manoeuvres and their intended effects – discussion of other aspects of issues of interest belongs elsewhere. e.g. browse the archives | roundtables | open thread
Well for clickbaith there’s the SMH story on renovations at the lodge.
LOL. Nice one. Best spin of the week and it’s only Tuesday.
From the ABC website:
From the SMH:
ABC’s “PM” also made the same mistake:
Hmmm … oddly, News Ltd, while continuing to falsely call it a tax, at least quoted Gillard accurately, on this occasion, avoiding verballing her, this time.
Fran,
Being a regular reader of this column, I have noticed that Their ABC gets a mention in almost every instalment of ‘Spotlight The Spin’.
Noticing also that their reports of Question Time almost invariably put the Coalition in a good light and Labor as “under pressure”. First-hand witnessing of the actual sessions frequently shows this to be a skewed portrayal.
Grassroots movement starts up to counter the “We are the 99%” movement. It’s called “We are the 53%”
http://the53.tumblr.com/
Some background here. http://www.metafilter.com/108276/We-are-the-53
Indeed Cuppa
This morning, perhaps the worst piece of trolling spin I’ve ever heard on the carbon price issue occurred on Adam Spencer’s Breakfast show. Spencer was interviewing Albanese and twice explicitly challenged him to refute the claim that the government, in bringing in a carbon tax, was in violation of Julia Gillard’s promise that:
There will be no carbon price (sic) under the government I lead
Albanese of course is so punch drunk by now, that he wasn’t able to metaphorically biff Spencer about the head. Yet even when a listener rang up to politely correct him, noting that Gillard had clearly said “tax” in the famous quote but had reemained committed to carbon pricing, he insisted that the audio supported him. He then went on to argue that the government was facing ruin and to run the opposition lines on an early election.
This puts Spencer in the clear lead on trolling the government. He has insisted not only on running the carbon tax meme, but can’t even get perhaps the most persistently quoted troll right, effectively claiming that the ALP had totally abandoned for all time the idea of pricing carbon.
I’ve long thought that he was a vacuous rightwinger, which is why I rarely listen, and quickly turn him off, but on this occasion, I was in someone else’s kitchen and was more or less obliged to listen to the whole ugly business.
This is where #theirABC has got to.
I listened to that as well Fran, and had a similar reaction to you.
Good on the caller for holding her ground and not being intimidated by Spencer.
Seems that if he’s not endlessly rabbiting on about his boring family, he’s spruiking for the coalition like most of the ABC, with the exception of Deb Cameron.
Hilarious spin: “Gotta go, thank you”
News at hand, just to reinforce the ‘message’ of my previous comment. Caught out.
It’s reassuring to know that Australia is the only outpost of the evil empire that is immune to unethical practices.
Must be something in the waters.
Fran @ 5 – Unbelievable – and Spencer is a science guy too!
many australians would like to see the australian branch taken down a notch or two too, adrian, so really we’re not much different to the rest of the world.