Author Archive for Phil

Hmmmm, I wonder if….?

Published
by
Phil
1 day, 21 hours ago
in Blogging, Levity, Media and Terrorism
. 25 Comments

Piers Akerman Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 08:18pm:

The involvement of Britons among the terrorists responsible for the murders of more than 150 people in Mumbai last week signals another milestone in the march of multiculturalism and the failure of Western and democratised nations to deal with Islamists.

News.com.au November 30, 2008 05:40pm:

A BRITISH actor who played one of the London suicide bombers in a television documentary was saved from the Mumbai attacks after police arrested him as a suspect. Actor Joey Jeetun, 31, who played suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer in a British television documentary 7/7: Attack on London, was in Cafe Leopold, the popular expat and tourist haunt near Mumbai’s landmark Taj Mahal Hotel when attackers stormed both venues and other key targets on Wednesday.

Priceless! So, this is how rumours get started.

Affirmative action needed

Published
by
Phil
1 month, 1 week ago
in Film, TV, Video etc and Media
. 47 Comments

Just a follow up to a previous post.

It appears that no matter what the ABC does it just can’t find enough sympathetic Coalition voters to balance a Q&A studio audience and keep Senator Abetz happy.

Mr Scott said the ABC pursued “a number of different strategies” to bring together a more diverse audience, including contacting law and accounting firms, the Australian Retailers Association, the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, the Australian Christian Lobby, the Australian Family Association, Young Liberal groups and every state Liberal MP within one hour’s drive of the ABC’s Sydney studios.

“We have tried a number of different things to try and ensure that we have all the viewpoints represented in the audience and I think we have,” he said.

“I understand that Liberal MPs were approached asking whether in fact they were aware of people who might like to come and join our audience.”

Of course he forgot to memo the ABC board and I’m surprised the Young Liberals couldn’t find a bus load of guys like this charming young chap within an hours drive of the ABC studios?

Or maybe it’s just that they are all too busy charting the complicated metrics of bias in our cultural institutions and wasting everyone’s time making Senate submissions to attend.

The Canadian election: Déjà vu all over again

Published
by
Phil
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Foreign Elections and Politics
. 17 Comments

Liberals 76 (26%), Conservatives 143 (38%), NDP 37 (18%), BQ 50 (10%), Greens 0 (7%), Other 2 (1%)

The Canadian election is all over and the result is yet another minority government for the Conservatives. The turnout was low and it looks like Canadians went with the devil they knew given the current economic climate.

The Liberals failed to make a dent, the NDP improved but to no effect. As is usual the Greens failed to garner much support on a percentage basis let alone win a seat and Bloc Quebecois did it’s usual thing in winning the majority of seats in Quebec.

Yes the Conservatives increased their representation and would like to claim some kind of mandate but a minority is a minority no matter how you spin it, so, Canadians will probably be back here again in a couple of years with the Conservatives vainly looking for a majority, quite possibly with a new leader - there is no question there will be a new Liberal leader; the academic Stéphane Dion failed to impress.

I suppose the good news is that any potential excesses of Conservative rule will be tempered by a wall of notionally progressive voices in the opposition benches; working together seems to be the political meme de jour right now anyway.

By the way, I was really interested in these hypotheses mentioned at the Poll Bludger because the Canadian election was mentioned.

Hypothesis one, from Peter Brent at Mumble: “Canada’s one-term government going for re-election (after only 18 months), amidst world economic turmoil, should provide some clue as to how Rudd & co might fare at the next election.”

Hypothesis two, from Adam in Canberra at this place: “It’s curious that the financial crisis seems to be working in favour of the incumbents in NZ (on the basis of one Morgan poll) and (I think so far) Australia, but against the incumbents in the US and Canada. That would suggest that conservatives are being blamed, not incumbents.”

Based on this one result it looks like the economic climate may favour the status quo, as long as they are seen to be doing something, so as Peter Brent mentioned, maybe this does hold a clue to the future for the Rudd government; now that it’s finally found a media narrative to run with.

The Canadian Election: Lost in translation

Published
by
Phil
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Elections, Foreign Elections, International and Politics
. 3 Comments

The Canadian Election has finally reached its final weekend (Tuesday vote) with all the usual campaign he said/she said stops along the way to polling day and strangely featuring an episode of duelling plagiarists, one which drew our very own former PM John Howard into the campaign.

As expected the early Conservative lead in the polls has narrowed, to the point where the Liberals may be in a position to pull off a surprise win; or it’s gonna be a Groundhog Day minority Govt all over again.

As it currently stands the Conservatives sit in the lead just outside of the MoE on 32, Liberals 27, NDP 19, Greens 12 and Bloc Quebecois 8.

Continue reading ‘The Canadian Election: Lost in translation’

Tim Dunlop off to smell a few roses

Published
by
Phil
2 months ago
in Blogging and Media
. 24 Comments

I thought I’d do this quick post to note the passing of Tim Dunlop’s Blogocracy Blog at News Ltd.

This will be the last weekend open thread; in fact, it will be the last thread of any sort here at Blogocracy. I have handed in my notice and I am finishing up today. I do this with a great deal of sadness but also with a sense of excitement about new prospects.

Establishing his blogging cred at Road to Surfdom, Tim became one of Australia’s notable and most thoughtful bloggers so it was no surprise to see him get a gig somewhere in the MSM. It wasn’t without some early difficulties but the blog found its space and audience and Tim probably delivered what the editors wanted.

It’s easy to be critical, but as any full time blogger knows, two years plugging away at a very busy blog is hard work and can rub the creative edges off any writer.

Happily we hear that Tim is off to recharge his creative batteries; that will eventually produce a book, something that I’ll look forward to, so he should know he’ll sell at least one copy.

So long and thanx for the fish Tim.

Coalition voters wanted, apply within

Published
by
Phil
2 months ago
in Film, TV, Video etc and Media
. 23 Comments

Eric Abetz is at it again.

Senior Liberal Eric Abetz believes the ABC TV political talk show Q&A has failed in its attempt to provide a representative cross-section of the community because the audience was overwhelmingly made up of Labor and Greens voters.

Rather than seeing conspiracy everywhere, has Abetz considered the possibility that Coalition leaning voters have not applied to join the Q&A audience in the same numbers as Greens and Labor voters?

So, the important question for Abetz to ask of the ABC is how many self-identified Coalition voters have applied to participate as a Q&A audience member?

I’m sure the sign up form database would provide him with the answers he’s looking for, though I suspect he may not like what it reveals.

Or is it that Abetz prefers to take a free kick at alleged bias and lack of balance at the ABC rather than a deeper look at what may be a statistical or political (cultural) anomaly?

By the way, I presume he’s been happy with the panel representation to date.

Candidatus interruptus

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 1 week ago
in Elections, Foreign Elections, Politics and USA
. 40 Comments

I’m still scratching my head over this bit of political crazy.

John McCain has launched his second Hail Mary pass in a month. On Wednesday he called for a suspension of the presidential campaign—no events, no ads, and no debate Friday—so that he and Barack Obama can head to Washington to forge a bipartisan solution. Even more than his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, this gambit feels like a wild improvisation someone in the McCain team mapped out on his chest: OK, you run to the fire hydrant, cut left, and then when he gets to the Buick, John, you heave it.

First John McCain picks one of the least qualified people in American political history as his VP running mate, now this.

It’s not looking like solid decision making by a supposedly serious Presidential candidate and what’s worse is that he now wants to postpone the debates of the VP candidates into the hazy future. Why? Because it’s becoming increasingly obvious that his handpicked running mate just isn’t up to handling the pressures and rigors of a campaign.

Today’s events call into question his decision making capabilities. John McCain is looking like a befuddled old man, unable to start a task and finish it; attempting to short circuit the hard work required of an issue or event with a stunt that garners nothing but short term political mileage.

The Canadian election: Puffin edition

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Foreign Elections, International, Politics and Polls
. 6 Comments

Yes just like everywhere else Canada is now in the throes of election fever with the polls set for October 14, so as a lapsed Canadian I do take a cursory interest in the goings on in the Great White North.

We’re a week in but the early gaffe must go to the Conservatives for the above political ad of a Puffin crapping on the opposition leader, Stéphane Dion, a priceless moment in political advertising history and another sign that Canadians really are different to their American cousins - political attack ads are clearly not their forte.

Continue reading ‘The Canadian election: Puffin edition’

Holidays in blogging hell

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Activism, Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Developing world, Media and Politics
. 5 Comments

picture.jpg In The Blogging Revolution Antony Loewenstein takes us on a personal journey through some of the more difficult places in the world to blog. Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China.

It’s a timely book on the importance and necessity of blogging and the open web given recent un-informed opinions by writers like Christian Kerr.

The book is also important in that it more thoroughly expands on ideas expressed in David Burchell’s clumsy opinion piece in the Australian in July of this year where he attempted to contrast the “pseudo-expertise and vituperation” of Western bloggers with their counterparts in the less democratic corners of the world; using Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez as an example.

The most impressive thing about Sanchez is her complete disregard for the bad habits of Western bloggers. She refuses to engage in histrionics, vainglory, pseudo-knowledge or personal posturing. Instead she trades in the gentler arts of allegory and satire.

Sanchez is also mentioned in The Blogging Revolution and Burchell is right. She does not engage in the histrionics of so many Western bloggers (mea culpa) but then again our personal circumstances are different to those that live in repressive states.

Are critics like Burchell and Kerr right? Are non-Western bloggers really better than their western counterparts? Are they less vituperative and undergraduate in their opinion? Does living in an information poor society mean that their views can be nothing more than that of a pseudo-expert? What do non-Western bloggers sound like? The Blogging Revolution gives us a peek behind the government filters.

Continue reading ‘Holidays in blogging hell’

Floundering in a sea of conflation

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 3 weeks ago
in Media
. 30 Comments

Let me state at the top that as someone who has totally swallowed the online media/open web Kool Aid I wholeheartedly agree with Paul Sheehan on the failings of the MSM. As his headline states, they are floundering in a sea of change.

You don’t have to look far. Organisations like the Herald are not merely in a battle for market share. They are in a battle for survival.

It’s all been said before and by smarter people but I still welcome Sheehan to the MSM navel gazing ranks, hopefully he looks deeper into his own writings in order to understand why so many of us are disaffected with their performance.

Oddly enough, in this post I come not to damn the MSM but to praise it (context in a minute). Here is Sheehan on the medias attempt to “get” Sarah Palin.

Little has changed at the Times since the McCain hatchet job. The difference between the paper’s coverage of Governor Palin and the parodies of her on the internet has been only a matter of degrees. You can see that the fix was in when the Times, and Obama-adoring journalists, kept mentioning Palin had not written her powerful acceptance speech, while failing to mention that all the candidates delivered speeches that had been scripted for them.

[Emphasis mine]

As soon as I read this para I instantly thought of Jay Rosens recent post on the culture war option that the Republicans were about to embark on with this choice, in particular their media strategy.

Continue reading ‘Floundering in a sea of conflation’

Obama on O’Reilly

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 3 weeks ago
in Foreign Elections and Media
. 32 Comments

I continue to be impressed by Barack Obama’s ability to handle difficult situations and his willingness to speak directly to an audience that may be skeptical about his ability to lead.

Bill O’Reilly is not the easiest guy to sit down and have a conversation with but he controlled himself while asking questions from his and his audiences conservative viewpoint, Obama handled all of it with aplomb, and there is no question that he’s well briefed across a range of issues and topics and appears relaxed and comfortable in big and small occasions.

The background here is that this sit down was personally brokered by Rupert Murdoch in response to the Obama campaigns complaints about Fox News’ characterizations of him. This looks like a win for Obama.

Continue reading ‘Obama on O’Reilly’

Too early to tell

Published
by
Phil
3 months ago
in Blogging and Media
. 18 Comments

Crikey’s Eric Beecher was quoted in this Sally Jackson piece as saying online media will not be able to bridge the quality gap that’s being created by the long emergency we’re seeing in the usual MSM outlets.

Mr Beecher warned that Fairfax’s decision this week to sack staff at its flagship broadsheet newspapers — The Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney and The Age in Melbourne — would blow a hole in this country’s traditional quality media that all of the new media’s bloggers and websites would not be able to fill. He said that included the online publications he was involved in, such as Crikey and Business Spectator. “What’s at risk here is the role of well researched, serious journalism to act as a check and balance in the system of democracy,” he told ABC. “Online media can replace part of it. The four websites I’m involved in employ 30 or 40 full-time journalists, which is quite a lot in independent media terms, but compared with 300 or 400 journalists on big daily newspapers it is fairly small.

I don’t necessarily think he’s wrong but I do think it’s way too early to tell, after all we’re still in a period where a thousand flowers have yet to bloom.

But he warned that few observers had predicted the current threat to quality journalism.

Odd, I distinctly remember seeing Philip Knightley speak on this exact topic a few years ago here in Sydney, and he wasn’t the only esteemed MSM survivor to sound a warning, it’s been said for years.

Continue reading ‘Too early to tell’

The Fairfax business improvement program

Published
by
Phil
3 months, 1 week ago
in Media
. 24 Comments

Fairfax sheds 550 jobs.

Newspaper, radio and internet group Fairfax Media will sack 550 staff as it struggles to contain costs following its merger last year with Rural Press and its acquisition of Southern Cross, amid a downturn across the media sector. New seven-day rosters will be introduced at the company’s Sydney newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald in order to avoid duplication and a review undertaken of Melbourne operations.

From the staff memo.

There will be criticism from some, inside and outside the company, that these changes, particularly in editorial, will compromise quality and critical mass in the metro mastheads and their mission. We reject that. This initiative has been carefully constructed by the publishers with full regard for the integrity of their mastheads. Our newspapers will remain true to their heritage and their values of quality and excellence.

Ok then. There are better media commentators who will no doubt analyse this to death but to this blogger the cuts are just another installment in the slow decline of the standalone newspaper as a community and public service.

Update: The News stable weighs in with Brad Norington and Mark Day providing some good commentary on the cuts as do Caroline Overington and John Lyons.

Turnbull in the corner

Published
by
Phil
3 months, 1 week ago
in Politics
. 40 Comments

Judging by this news item in the Fairfax media, tonight’s Four Corners warts and all profile of Malcolm Turnbull sounds like a bucket load of fun.

In a profile on the shadow treasurer to air on the ABC’s Four Corners tonight, Mr Turnbull is identified as the insider who passed on secret notes indicating Mr Packer would publicly stick to the law but would privately exercise editorial control over Fairfax.

Timely because it comes slap bang in the middle of the run up to Peter The Ditherers biography launch and important questions about Liberal Party leadership issues and tensions arising from that event.

Fun prime time viewing for the whole family. Bring the popcorn and consider this an open thread if you’re watching tonight.

7’s lies, damned lies and medal counts

Published
by
Phil
3 months, 2 weeks ago
in Nationalism and Sport
. 59 Comments

One of the things that has given me the $hit$ watching Channel 7s coverage of the Olympics is the adjusted medal count; this thrown up when the “real” medal count doesn’t appear to meet early morning breakfast expectations. In Mel and Kochy’s world we’re always number one if you massage the figures the right way.

Truth be told I don’t like any medal count by nation; aren’t the Olympics supposed to be about singular human athletic achievement? By that measurement Michael Phelps is absolute number one and at this point he matches Australia in gold medal achievement. Maybe that should make 7’s adjusted list, an asterix or footnote would help their simplistic exercise.

Just to prick the early morning in studio Green and Gold flag waving jingoistic bubble for a moment, are we ever number one on any adjusted list?

In a recent post More Intelligent Life asked the medal count question and showed us at number two in Athens, second to the Bahamas. And then there is this site whose approach to the tally currently throws up Jamaica as the top dog. Pass the dutchy!

What about medals based on the money spent on sport science, or GDP, or the number of beaches added to grains of sand multiplied by days of sunlight? Or the number of former gold medal winners who failed to take gold this time around? On the latter metric I think we really are number one.