Our first weekly media spin tactics thread for 2012: 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! Cui bono? 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
I’ll kick off…
Today’s Australian has an article titled Survivors of fatal voyage to try again.
It’s trying, in that “more-bad-news-on-boats” way to show the government’s asylum seeker policy is a {debacle|disaster|catastrophe} etc.
Some of the asylum seekers from the recent foundering off Java involving up to 200 drownings have escaped and are trying to get another boat to get to Xmas Is. claiming
In case youse were wondering who’s to blame and at fault in all this, there’s this statement:
Apparently you don’t even have to make it here now. All you have to do is survive an off-shore tragedy and it’s your get-out-of-jail-free card for instant entry and presumably, citizenship. You can start demanding things of the Australian government by virtue of having enough moolah to pay-off a dodgy (read: “homicidal”) people smuggler, twice.
There’s been a bit of this “demanding” business about lately, with one of the survivors of the 2010 Xmas Is. shipwreck recently claiming on 7.30 that the loss of her husband on the rocks of Xmas Is. meant we had to speed-process her relatives to come here on a “Family Reunion” basis.
Some of the survivors of the recent sinking also blamed the Australian government for – wait for it – putting out misleadingly optimistic estimations of the number of people drowned in the first couple of days after the tragedy, thus generating false hopes among the survivors. That line was in the SMH. Go figure!
However, one of the survivors, quoted in today’s article, said this:
Oops!
So Nauru wasn’t a deterrent, at least to this guy and the people he claims to be speaking for, after all!
And then there was this:
So, to avoid waiting another two years, the same time that less well-heeled wretches from Burma, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have to wait (dare I utter the “Queue” word?), our would-be new chum, Esmat Adine, has been in contact with people smuggler Sayed Abbas – each of them in their respective prison cells on mobile phones – and is going to give it another go. Either that or he wings it back to Afghanistan. Bad Gillard government! Naughty! They’re “forcing Esmat to hand himself in the the Taliban. Why? Because he doesn’t want to wait with all the others.
If The Australian thinks this article is an argument (albeit vaguely) against the Gillard government’s Malaysian Solution, then they’d better get their mainstream writers back in the saddle pronto. I’m talking of The Greats here: Dennis, Matty and Greg Sheridan.
As an… ahem… guest writer over the Chrissy-New Year’s break, Debbie Guest, the article’s scribe. just doesn’t cut it as an A-list debacle monger.
She’s managed to put the Malaysian Solution squarely in the frame as the one option that would actually work to deter people getting into unseaworthy boats and chancing their lives at a break for Australia.
They don’t care about an extended stay on Nauru, or even processing in Indonesia (as long as the latter conforms to their “demands” that it be rapid processing), but the thing they fear most is having to join the UNHCR queue for a couple or three years, along with all the others fleeing their homelands, just like proper refugees with papers, identities, the UN rubber stamp and everything.
Everything, that is, except the lazy few thousand you need for airline tickets from Dubai, then to pay-off some corrupt Indonesian customs entry officials, then for the bus trip to a fishing village and then to pay-off Sayed, the friendly people smuggler, so friendly he even does business from his jail cell.
Just who is kidding whom here?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/survivors-of-fatal-voyage-to-try-again/story-fn59niix-1226234426830
{copy link to Google and then click on the search results}
tl;dr
Less is more in blog commentary, Bushfire Bill.
Did I really read news from the U.K. that a dyslexic servant of the Queen notified John Howard that he had been awarded the BOM (British Order of Merit) when the Queen had clearly instructed him that the correct Award was the BUM (British Upstart Mastery). Perhaps others may care to add their understanding of the true meaning of the BUM award.
I was blogging when you were in short pants, tigtog.
Two pieces of advice, Bushfire Bill, as you seem to be new around here.
First, look above the comments box:
Second, don’t mess with tigtog.
Policy rules are fair enough, but go easy on Bushfire. He’s a refugee from Poll Bludger, which is in hiatus until 9th January.
His comments on the media, though lengthy, are invariably astute -as is this one Fisking the OO.
Among other luminaries, Andrew Elder cited him as much more astute than the MSM on the real issues.
Don
I’m not sure why Andrew Elder’s recommendation ought to carry any weight around here, except, perhaps with right-of-centre people. I suspect most of them will largely approve BBs sentiments anyway.
I’m stopping now as any more than the above will count as stoushing.
Andrew Elder’s good value, Fran, and he should be whatever section of the political spectrum you come from. Trying to explain to my mum why I don’t read newspapers any more, why I am dissatisfied with the media, and why I get a lot of my news via blogs, I decided to share this link with her. She found herself agreeing.
What is Rupert up to? Any guesses? He now has 43,907 thousand odd ‘followers’. Most of whom probably despise the man, or at least what he has come to represent–the reprehensible. I have a very lonely hashtag #notfollowingRupertMurdoch.
That’s an excellent link, Down and Out.
It’s old news now, of course, but the media reaction to the Cabinet reshuffle was about the biggest wad of anti-government codswallop since the mock outrage over the set-top box program for pensioners.
@ 9:
Well, 43,907 is an odd number
How many followers would the other Rupert get?
@Bushfire Bill at 2:00 pm
ORLY? Doesn’t matter on a site where I’m the moderator and you’re not. I’m quite willing to believe that you’re a very cogent commentor with bags of expertise, but I certainly hope that your expertise extends to making allowances for the local netiquette. Otherwise, I’ll start cutting your comments off at 500 words, OK?
We’ve just posted a reminder on commenting guidelines including:
Please note, the guidelines include a note on excessively long comments.
Thanks for the reinforcement, Brian. I do NOT want to discuss moderation decisions on the blog, but occasionally pointing out to folks where they are hovering on the brink, I think might be useful.
Anyway, further debate on the issue re Bushfire Bill’s tl;dr is now off topic, and if anyone submits a comment on it, it will probably be deleted. Please read the comments policy reminder first if you are tempted.
@11 definitely ones more ‘true’.
Some time later, 45,838 oddities.
@ 15:
Wouldn’t that make them evenities?
Down & Out
For all I know, Mr Elder may now be a person of considerable intellectual and ethical acumen and thus someone to whom the under-informed and right-leaning might turn for guidance on interpretation of contemporary politics, his past attachment to the most ardent of the parties of the boss class notwithstanding.
As soon as I discover some evidence that this is so, I promise to report back. Until then, I’m going to discount the recommendation.
He is. You could make a case that he is surpassed by Grog and Possum, maybe Tim Lambert, but he is in that league and offers excellent analysis of the MSM and the current political scene.
Classic unintended comedy from Gerard Henderson this morning, lamenting a hallucinated drift to Teh Left by the ABC…
I’ve got a lot of time for Andrew Elder’s blogging and commentary here myself, and always take his recommendations under consideration. However, we do have house rules.
In 500 words or less…
Nobody Liberal Senator from Nowhere, Simon Birmingham, thinks the new Adelaide Oval revamp is a rort, presumably to be used to concrete Kate Ellis into her seat:
But wait… The SCG is getting a revamp with some Federal money too…
… but with Barry O’Farrell involved in this one, will Simple Simon resume whingeing about rorts?
The Feds have upped to ante from a paltry Adelaide $30 million to a flashy Harbour City $50 million – “taxpayers’ money”! – and the site, while technically in Malcolm Turnbull’s Wentworth, is just over the road from Tanya Pilbersek’s Sydney gig. That’s close enough for another Labor mate-ette isn’t it?
Judging from George Megalogenis’ write up of the door-stop at the Adelaide announcement…
… the media would be positively itching for a fight over the extra $20 million for Sydney, wouldn’t they?
{crickets…..}
@19 Good spotting AndyC, Gerard just gets more unintentionally funny with each passing year.
He doesn’t see thecomedy in lines such as this:
Coincidence!? YOU DECIDE!!
He then goes on to argue that what is needed in the ABC is effectively an affirmative action employment program for conservatives. Given their apparent inability to secure broadcasting positions based on merit, or, as Gerard himself admits, an surfeit of talent, they should get a nice affirmative action push up the ladder.
Poor Gerard, relevance deprivation is a cruel fate.
BB @ 21 – I don’t know anything about the SCG improvements, but the Adelaide oval revamp has been quite controversial for quite some time. Given the huge cost (over $500 million) that many people think would be better spent elsewhere. And how little the users of the oval will be contributing to the cost.
Also what is included in the election comittment for the cost has been changing (“we need more money” or “we didn’t mean to imply that this was included” ) so its not surprising that extra fed money is going to attract a lot of media attention as it will be seen by some to be bailing out the state government.
Mercurius @ 22 – I’m sure that there are many in the ABC who would support affirmative action appointments, although perhaps not of that flavor
I’m bemused by John Howard’s order of merit. The Australian MSM have noted in passing that David Hockney also got in but none seem to have looked any further. If you check out the list of current members http://bit.ly/tqvztI you’ll see they are a seriously intellectually high powered bunch so the only possible explanation of Howard’s membership is his excellent unconscious imitations of the Reverend Collins. I don’t think too many of them will be keen to sit next to him at their annual dinner.
Down&Out@8 That Elder article is excellent. I’m shocked. Maybe it is proof that the hate media is now so bad that it is even alienating its natural allies.
Ian Milliss@25
If the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles are “seriously intellectually high powered” then I am the reincarnation of Roger Bacon.
Does it count as spin that the Gillard government failed to adequately welcome the touring Indian cricketers? They weren’t seeking asylum, after all, just lunch.
That should be “failed”, in scare quotes, really, given the team’s early arrival and access to an air conditioned coach.
Rager@27 I assume you don’t have the faintest idea who any of the others are and why they are important. Do some research.
Ian Milliss@30
Firstly, it is Roger not Rager. Secondly, how you incorrectly deduced my mention of only of father & son to include all recipients is beyond comprehension.
Greg A @28 eleven years we had that so called cricket tragic in charge of the country and not once did he do something useful for the cricket team, with the Indians at 3 down before lunch, this is another example of Gillard quietly delivering for all Australians. i await with barely concealed awe what she has in store for the US swim team and the UK cyclists in London later this year.
Make that 4-down before lunch GregA
Gerry article spotlighted @ Loon Pond….for the hol lols.
“One can imagine him handkerchief draped over head, earpiece attached, and quoting a little T. S. Eliot about rolling his trousers.”
http://loonpond.blogspot.com/
Following AndyC and Mercurius on Hendo, there was this classic
Maurice Newman the best in recent memory? This is the bloke who claimed that there was a credible scientific case against climate change. Trouble was, all he could find were a few quacks.
Good riddance to a Howard crony, I say. Shame Gerry missed that connection, but I think I might resubscribe to Crikey. I’d love to see what Latham has to say in his regualr Hendowatch piece.
Yes, GH is really getting beyond a joke. The comments supporting him are a bit of a hoot as well. Angry of Mayfair anyone?
Patrickb,
Having read the responses to Henderson’s ill-founded and predictable rave, it is reassuring to see how many disagree with him. Of those who do apparently ‘support’, him I see the same old chorus of ‘commenters’ who rally to push right-wing slogans at any opportunity.
That pesky Julia Gillard: she just can’t do ANYTHING right. Now she’s upset the Indian test cricketers. The teaser, India fury at PM, was on the front page of the SMH. What could it mean?
By the time we made it inside the e-fold to see just what was the problem, the Indians’ mood had calmed, going from outright “fury” to merely “hot and bothered”:
The Prime Minister of Australia had kept the Indian cricketers – no doubt princes all in their own country – waiting for a disgraceful 15 minutes out in the street like common peasants waiting outside, for instance, the Dehli Cricket Ground… and in the heat too!
Doesn’t Ms. Gillard realise the country that runs World Cricket runs the World itself? Should not the relevant ambassadors be called in? After all…
Good God! It’s already an “affair”, “bordering on the farcical”! Can “debacle”, “catastrophe” or even “beginner’s diplomatic mistake that Kevin Rudd would never have made” be far behind?
The grim, tight-lipped Indian captain, M.S. Dhoni, should be congratulated for showing such restraint in uttering only “No comment” when the situation warranted a declaration bordering on outright War.
It just goes to show what a klutz our incompetent PM can be. She kept Alan Jones waiting for 10 minutes. That was bad enough. We could laugh that off as the self-important radio flounce being up himself far too far. But 15 minutes lingering, listening to the Kirribilli cicadas, for the Indian cricket team is too much to ignore. This “being late” business is getting to be a habit for Ju-Liar.
But it gets worse…
Mr. Dhoni,
“Eyebrows raised” now? This woman hasn’t a clue.
Why can’t Quentin Bryce just sack her, so we can have an election and get a real Prime Minister into the job?
Let’s face it: Tony Abbott wouldn’t have been late.
And even if he was, a sotte voce “Bullshit” or a “Yeah, shit happens” would settle the matter decisively. These bluff Aussie-bloke methods of closure were good enough for Nicola Roxon and that grunt who died in Afghanistan. Why not the Indian national cricket team?
If only the sub-continental national team had been able to give our bowlers a beating this morning to match the front-page beat-up our senior Fairfax newspaper gave this story. They’d be 0/300 by this early stage of the Sydney test instead of 5/97.
BB, surely in amongst the many knifes in your kitchen drawer there must be a short and sharp one somewhere. You are not cutting the mustard wielding a broad axe to split peas for that curry in the Lodge.
cf. #4.
@ 40:
How do you know the ages of everyone who replies to you? And how can you be certain that they are all younger than 17?
Bushfire Bill is lapped up by the ALP cheerleaders over on Poll Bludger so I dare say he isn’t used to any sort of criticism.
I stopped reading his essays when he started the daily posts ripping the shit out of his partner’s junkie son & g/f on the disability pension, ‘Bogan Son’ and ‘Miss Disability’ I think he calls them.
Odious.
True, but alas all to real.
Try looking after a junkie who’s left his kids for others to bring up, coupled with a screwed up bi-polar meth addict and welfare bludger who won’t seek treatment, who overdoses on pills in your house, all while you are paying their way in full, then see if you don’t need to vent occasionally, or else go stark raving mad.
Well I, for one, can’t wait until PB re-opens…
“That should be “failed”, in scare quotes, really, given the team’s early arrival and access to an air conditioned coach.”
Yep. Really. If you turn up early for a Prime Ministerial function in Australia – or India – it’s pretty much expected that you ‘make your own arrangements’ until the appointed time.
What I suspect has happened here is that someone at a fairly senior level in the Indian team management has stuffed up re arrival times and has shifted blame accordingly.
Bushfire Bill, my apologies for having unleashed this school yard brawl @39 (awa to TT and Brian). Look, I like to view spin from different angles, as it adds more depth to the game, so you and your contribution is welcomed by me. However, as TT @2 pointed out to you quite aptly and succinctly
Most of us here have no appetite for spin on spin and remember – noblesse oblige, particularly as a guest on someone’s blog.
Yes. At least there you get thesis and antithesis, as opposed to nodding heads in unison.
People like Elder for example, are appreciated there for their writing and their thoroughness, not condemned forever for once – in the distant past – having been a Liberal party member. A reformed “sinner” is much more precious than someone who has never had an impure thought. Read up on your parables.
Yes, PB’s full of Labor tragics (not all of them members, including me), but at least there’s some passion and quite a few years in government, over the years, to lend some weight to that.
Greens and the namby-pamby Left need to realise that the warm inner glow of being right all the time doesn’t substitute for getting things done, some of them imperfectly, but done nevertheless. There’s always the chance to value-add later on, but if you don’t do something in the first place, then you’ll never get the chance to see what-if.
I admire Bob Brown (he’s a true hero in my book) for the way he takes on the Murdoch press, and for the way he realises the importance of and acts upon the practicalities of realpolitik. But when he retires I despair for a party that will be taken over by someone like the deluded SH-Y.
The Labor government is copping a lot of flack from the media for joining with the Greens in a loose coalition, bending somewhat to the Greens’ more stringent demands, and they are bleeding a lot because of it.
The Greens should appreciate that if Abbott ever gets into power they will get zilch from him, a bit fat zero, a return to the Dark Ages of politics here, and that Labor is better as an ally than the Coalition is as a belligerent enemy.
But maybe the Greens and the soft Left in general don’t care, as long as they can throw a spanner into the works from time to time, maintaining their saintliness, at least to themselves.
Merc said:
I’m indifferent. While he is perhaps more strident and self-indulgent than most, Bushfire Bill‘s contributions are no more vacuous than your run-of-the-mill conservative chest thumping drive-by trolls we get here from time to time. When he returns to the comforts of his special place to trade in ALP-spin with a sympathetic crowd, I daresay he will fade from memory more quickly than a mediocre takeaway or an issue of the Daily Telegraph in the hairdressers or on a seat in the train.
It’s been too long since I’ve been over here, and clearly I haven’t kept up.
Some of this toing and froing about Bushfire Bill and Poll Bludger would probably seem more in place on a Saturday Salon thread. Alas, there seems none now.
My apologies if I have been outside or on the border of breaching posting guidelines. (I did introduce Andrew Elder in defence of Bushfire’s media analysis, and that set another hare running about HIS political purity!)
I could go on in defence of BB or some of the points raised, if I could find the right thread. As it is, it’s getting away from Spotlight the Spin topic.
Good points, tigtog, Brian and Ootz. Some others have been a bit snarkey.
Bushfire Bill@47
Not if Abbott wins and arrives at the same dead-end street in which Labor found itself at the last election. Then, Abbott will unashamedly sleep with The Greens and a few Independents solely for the pleasure of wearing the captain’s armband.
Roger, I doubt Abbott has the intellectual fortitude to compromise with the Independents or (especially) the Greens. Recall the last election, when he couldn’t even make an agreement with three conservatively-inclined Independents. The man has the stubbornness of a mule and only half the wit.
@Don Wigan,
There’s always a Saturday Salon/open thread! When it’s fallen off the front page there’s a link right there in the sidebar section labelled “Not Sure Where To Comment?” – just click on the pic of Descartes to go to the archive of the latest Salons. You’re very welcome to pick up on discussions that are veering off-topic on this thread on the open thread.
Thanks for honoring the local mores re netiquette, Don – it’s much appreciated.
Ladies and gentlemen: let’s leave the dissention and stoushes behind. Let’s get back onto spin. Let’s get onto PR dodgy tactics. Let’s get onto propaganda campaigns both incompetent and immoral. And let’s choose one in particular that every thinking person here (and a few of the unthinking ones) can stand together in dislike and disgust.
Folk: I present to you the current GOP Iowa campaign.
Cheers, tigtog.
Actually, after that posting I did eventually find the Salon – from your link at the top of this thread! Should’ve looked around more in the first place.
Looking through it, it seemed rightly seasonal discussion – so I decided to let the whole thing die out anyway.
Thanks for correcting my comment @50, tigtog.
“He received a boost yesterday when media magnate Rupert Murdoch used his new Twitter account to urge Iowans to back Mr Santorum.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-04/romney2c-santorum-paul-firm-up-as-iowa-favourites/3757532
What’s going on here, Aunty? I thought this bloke, Murdoch, was in serious legal strife and not someone to be giving character references for a potential presidents.
The Australian is doing a lot of “revealing” lately…
They say it so blithely, so they can have a go at Bob Brown I guess, but maybe they should tell Tony Abbott too.
And I just lerved the members of the Greenhouse Alliance:
Distortion enough, buckets of it there, already.
Full membership of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network.
Foxes? Henhouse?
Talking of spin, Their ABC gives a free kick to the Coalition’s Michael Ronaldson.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3757520.html
Thanks for that ref, Cuppa. The comments are pretty good fun. Had to last at one sympathetic one who thought he raised some good points, but that it was a pity he didn’t have the answer.
This is the same drongo who thinks he can weaken Mr Cheeseman’s grip on the once-safe Liberal Party seat of Corangamite by letters to the Warrnambool Standard referring to himself as “Senator for Corangamite”. The only seat in Australia that gets a Senator.
Yes, you have to wonder what the ABC is doing giving this pretentious tosser a guernsey.
Don Wigan,
I’ll give them one thing. They might know (and care) little about policy. But when it comes to Spin, they’ve written the encyclopedia.
I’ll post this on the Spin thread rather than the Climate Clips thread, what a crock.
“”Marine biologists say they have discovered the world’s first hybrid sharks off Australia’s east coast, a potential sign the predators are adapting to cope with climate change.”"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-03/hybrid-sharks-found-off-australia/3757226
Mercurius @22, I will support a mandatory 50 per cent quota for conservatives as presenters and commentators on the ABC if it is coupled with a mandatory 50 per cent quota for communists as corporate CEOs.
“mandatory 50 per cent quota for communists as corporate CEOs”
LOL
No place for spin in Test cricket? Concentration on the Tendulkarn Ton allowed two batsmen (on the opposing team) to get centuries first.
BB@58
That’s not spin – you are just reading it wrong.
Quite clearly it is the Australian Industry Greenhouse (causing) Group.
I must admit to a certain schadenfreude that the Princes Of Cricket, the same ones who chucked a tantie because they were kept waiting by a mere Prime Minister, have been smacked down by a talented commoner from the working class Sydney suburb of Liverpool.
Situation “bordering on the farcical”, “eyebrows raised” or not, the angled report of that particular tummy-up was easily this week’s greatest beat-up.
Paul
if you want a a mandatory 50 per cent quota for communists as corporate CEOs, then the People’s Republic of China is the place to be.
Except that in China, Terry, the CEOs are communists in name only. I suspect Paul’s suggestion referred to actual conservatives and actual communists rather than purely nominal ones.
Perhaps this is the nub of the problem. Since not all conservatives or communists are the same, you’d have to offer a range of possibilities. On the right, there’d have to be religious moral-majority reactionaries along the lines of Family First or (since he’s topical) Rick Santorum who has promised to annul all gay marriages and likes DADT. You’d have to have some Tim Blair Sinclair Davidson types who’d no doubt be wanting abolish the ABC or at the very least auction off the parking and rent out the foyer space to Fox. You’d have to have some LaRouchie conspiracy fans and Piers Akermanistas and Blotsters along with Gary Johns, some more mainestream conservatives like Rudd, Bowen and Gillard.
On the “communist” side you’d need some Trotskyists (Cannon-Robertson, Cliffite, Pabloite and Barnesite, Healy-North) Stalinists (some assorted (orthodox, Kruschev, Mao, Hoxha) some anarchists similar to Bakunin, Kropotkin, and of course some IWW syndicalists. I’d favour having some deLeonist-style social democrats as well.
In amongst that you probably need some Deep as well as more mainstream Greens just to round it all out.
This way, everyone gets a turn.
[Moderator note: wall o' text deleted - 716 words. Grasp the cluestick more firmly, please.]
HT: Pure Poison
In late December the Australian Press Council found that a series of articles in The Daily Telegraph about the National Broadband Network “contained inaccurate or misleading assertions” describing one of the statements published in the Tele as “clearly and seriously inaccurate”. The Daily Telegraph was therefore obliged to publish the finding in full, which they did….. On page 104…… On Boxing Day {…}
Gosh …
My @62 confirmed,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/04/media-101-how-to-jump-a-shark/
Bloody Murdoch… ohh wait……….
Gillard’s broken trust with the West: Colin Barnett
Or is it?
Colin Barnett…
Another Gillard renege, or so it appears to be. She’s broken another agreement, betrayed a “trust” (as the headline puts it). Dare we say she told a lie, went back on an assurance she gave to Colin Barnett?
Well, no, it was only an “in-principle” agreement. And who set out the principles?
So Howard never “finalised” (nice phrase that, “had been finalised”, passive voice, implying Howard was just about to sign up), not with Colin Barnett, not with Alan Carpenter, Barnett’s predecessor, not with Geoff Gallop, not with Carmen Lawrence.
We have to go back to Richard Court, who lost office in 2001 to find out who Howard didn’t “finalise” with. The six years of Labor government after that just might have had something to do with his absence of mind and lack of “finalising” resolve.
I guess it was Howard who reneged after all, just possibly because the state government from 2001-2007 was a Labor one, and now Barnett (through The Australian) is trying to hold Gillard to an agreement that was never made by someone who was last Prime Minister 5 years ago and had had his entire Prime Ministership of 12 years to do so.
Nice spin.
The Australian government wants to develop a co-ordinated, national response to the centenary of Gallipoli.
There’s three years to go. So they hold a series of focus groups to look at the idea.
Someone mentions “branding”.
Suddenly – according to that paper of record, The Daily Telegraph – the RSL and “veterans” are “furious”. That’s them over there, kicking garbage bins over, bashing the dog, red in the face, shouting at strangers… “furious”.
The government wants to co-ordinate a commemoration of national significance. Perhaps they’re going to pay a graphic design company some bucks for a logo. Maybe run some TV commercials. All pretty standard stuff. We had a competition for a flag not so long ago, and for a national anthem, even an Opera House. It’s the way these things are done. The investigative gurus at the DT have “revealed” the government has spent $103,275 so far. Sounds cheap to me.
How would the RSL do the same job? Probably spend $103,275 hiring a graphic arts company, and conducting focus groups. But these incompetents in Canberra have no right to meddle with matters of such gravity, notwithstanding that Labor was in power during both wars when the Anzac tradition was born and developed.
One thing’s for certain: if there was no logo or national response, then the DT would be whingeing about that, too. But by fudging about with the exact nature of just what the focus groups are for, the DT manages to imply that Gillard is selling off the Anzac Tradition to the highest bidder, for profit (just whose profit is not discussed in the article, maybe because there is none).
Read the comments if you can stomach them. Just the latest comment at the foot of the article says it all:
Guaranteed to inspire at least 50 calls to 2GB this morning, with Chris Smith doing the whipping up: “Incompetent Brown/Gillard government that hates Australia and our Diggers now seeking to profit from grubby commercialization of sacred centenary for base profit motive”.
And if it’s all explained properly, and no profit motive is involved: “Hero daily paper and Voice Of The People radio station stop Anzac rort.”
Good story both ways.
Geez, they’re casting about for anything nowadays at News. MORE government incompetence.
Now the “Much-hyped Antarctic runway” at Casey station, “launched with great fanfare by then Environment Minister Peter Garrett in 2008″, is
“turning to water”.
You do wonder what their “Let’s Get Labor and the Greens” workshops must be like. I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall at one of them. The mental anguish at “revealing” yet another instance of mismanagement, poor planning and outright incompetence versus what seems to be at least anecdotal proof that Global Warming is real would be a sight to behold.
A definite sign of the times…
Seems readers at the SMH are complaining that Google maps, via their iPhone GPS apps, won’t let them drive from Sydney to Byron Bay on the Pacific Highway.
Some are also getting lost and confused between Melbourne and Sydney. Apparently Wagga Wagga gets in the way, or is it Wagga Wagga gets out of the way? Not really clear on that.
Q. So what’s the beef?
A. There’s a “Google glitch” that doesn’t recognize the Pacific or Hume Highways in some places.
One plaintive commenter wrote:
I know that the SMH is in a desperate rear-guard action to try to spin its “geek” credentials in these days of ubiquitous digitization and falling newspaper sales, and loves to slag Google off at every opportunity, but… ever heard of following the signs, guys? It’s worked so well for years.
Followup to the Anzac Branding story.
The DT has written an editorial, spread the story to the News web site (which has added Jeff Kennet’s opinion – negative) and 2GB has already taken up the cudgels. Today’s does of anger and outrage seems destined for a full bootstrap campaign.
One other comment from the DT article says it all about the utter incomprehensibility of what’s going on, nasty-wize, out there:
Nice sentiments.
I appreciate the contributions, Bushfire Bill – they’re all good examples.
It thus pains me somewhat to feel compelled to ask you, in the spirit of our comments policy and channelling Mr Bennet, to “let the other [commentors] have time to exhibit”.
Jumpy@62 I’ll bite
It also appeared in the other socialist outlet news.com.au http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/hybrid-sharks-found-in-australian-waters/story-fn5fsgyc-1226235304370
After your followup with the anti-science of WUWT @72 I doubt if anything can be said to convince you that there is not a global science conspiracy that includes ABC and every scientific organisation.
Climate change is happening/has happened/will happen more. One of the expectations of that change is alterations to the range of various species – I don’t know how to put it simpler than that – some animals increase their range of habitat, some shrink, others just shift a little or more than a little. These expectations are now being observed and there are several papers on these observations.
Some range alterations may see very closely related species now reoccupy some common area, and this could lead to hybrids (like Sapiens with Denisovans and Neanderthals as we now know via DNA) – like the Pizzly
These do not prove climate change – and the article did not say that – even if that is the spin you tried to put on it.
What it did say is that this may be expected to occur given climate change driving habitat range alteration.
Or it could be a scientific conspiracy and we’re all out to getcha
BB @73
Agree with you about the spin quotient. Not sure what Carmen Lawrence was doing in there though. She was WA Premier way back in the early 1990s – before Howard’s time.
Jumpy has well and truly “jumped the shark.”
David @ 79
I said @ 62 it was Spin, @72 I found someone that actually contacted the researcher ( you know, what journalists are sposta do) and found she had been misquoted. Simple.
Email your comment to the offending (lazy) journalists if your upset.
IMO if this ” blame everything and anything on AGW” continues, you message will find more and more deaf ears.
Here’s some examples;
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Could you please divide these into ” genuine ” and ” spin “
BB @ 76 – Given that some people will drive up the wrong way of a one way street if the GPS tells them to I think bad mapping data is newsworthy.
What is interesting is that apparently people have more faith in Google’s mapping data than they do that the roads authorities would provide signage or notification to them that major roads are closed. Probably says something about the general population’s faith in government competence (whether its deserved or not)