Author Archive for Phil

Fresh OzCar thread

Published
by
Phil
1 week, 6 days ago
in Apocalypse, Crime, Ethics, Government, Law, Media, Politics and Technology
. 229 Comments

The Punch doubles down on OzCar with David Penberthy claiming that the email that is/isn’t is now a ‘red herring’ and that ‘Turnbull wasn’t shopping the fake email about’. Stablemate Paul Colgan says this is no longer about an email or a ute.

Glen Milne claims that ethics have been thrown overboard in government attacks. Possum at Crikey says that you’d have to be a lead poisoned crackhead to believe this. Denis Shanahan believes that the fate of Rudd, Swan and Turnbull is out of their hands.

Over at Fairfax, Peter Hartcher thinks the controversy will leave a question mark over the Prime Minister, and Phillip Coorey reminds us that there’s no such thing as a free ute, someone will have to pay for it.

In the Telegraph, red herring email stenographer Steve Lewis gives us his version of events and Malcolm Farr wonders just who will fall off the back of the Ute.

Do I have an opinion? Sure. Does it matter? Nope.

As is usual, when it comes to press gallery and political types, truth is the first casualty. It’s going to be a long and interesting day.

Update [dk.au]: Email found. It’s fake.

Update [by Kim]: The focus turns to Malcolm Turnbull’s ethics and judgment.

Sand in your shorts?

Published
by
Phil
2 weeks, 6 days ago
in Blogging and Media
. 93 Comments

Ok, I’ll bite.

Christian Kerr.

There are the group blogs that cover politics, economics and provide platforms for protagonists in the culture wars; Club Troppo, probably the best and most balanced of them all, Catallaxy for the libertarian right and Larvatus Prodeo, not just for the latte left but rather a stronghold of the fair-trade, rainforest alliance-certified, decaff and soy brigade. Then there are all the one-man bands.

So, here’s the thing Christian, the web is a big place, enough for a number of points of view, everyone develops their own audience, culture (I know you’d like to reach for your revolver at this point) and style.

At LP we like nothing better than a nice fair trade latte while we chase those who disagree over a cliff, at the Oz you’ve never see a global warming denialist idea you haven’t liked.

Ain’t diversity grand? Or is it that you’d prefer it to be like the bad old days when you had the megaphone all to yourself?

Update [by Mark]: The anti-analysts analysed.

Changing times for opinion

Published
by
Phil
3 weeks, 1 day ago
in Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Culture and Media
. 12 Comments

A further sign that we may be seeing the de-coupling of opinion from the news and journalism pages.

The website will replace the opinion section on news sites including theage.com.au and will feature the best of Fairfax’s opinion writing, commentary and analysis, coupled with guest commentaries from politicians, academics and other public figures, the publisher said in a statement.

Fairfax Digital chief Jack Matthews said the advertising-funded site, which had been months in the planning, would include interactive features such as blogging tools, forums and polls to engage readers in debates.

Certainly with the launch of News Ltd’s The Punch this appears to be where the big media companies are heading – two clearly delineated streams of content.

Excusing their recent and seemingly endless fascination with the Ramsay/Grimshaw ratings scam, I already see The Punch as News’ real opinion landing page with the writers of their other online ‘papers’ buried deep in a hillbilly-like backwater of Laura Norder beatups, UFO sightings and breathless celebutard vacuity – not a bad thing really, given the crazy clock-tower like rhetoric that so many of them are prone to.

Continue reading ‘Changing times for opinion’

The shorter Hendo: Anonymous facts edition

Published
by
Phil
4 weeks, 1 day ago
in Blogging, Ethics, Media and The Web
. 49 Comments

Gerard Henderson’s email exchange with Amanda Meade over Kerry O’Brien’s age is one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.

All documented in his quixotic Media Watch Dog blog; Hendo goes for the throat and bites himself on the ankle.

(You’ll have to scroll down to read the whole thing ’cause direct links to specific items haven’t been invented yet in Media Watch Dog World)

The thread exposes an all at once paranoia about the ABC and its leading man and sensitivity toward new, collaborative and open media.

According to Hendo, Kerry O’Brien’s age is some sort of a ’state secret’ – a term guaranteed to bring to mind a cold-war-like like paranoia about dead communist leaders propped up like its Weekend at Bernie’s.

Continue reading ‘The shorter Hendo: Anonymous facts edition’

Re(a)warded

Published
by
Phil
1 month ago
in Climate change, Energy, Environment and Media
. 44 Comments

Because you’ve earned it.

THE editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, has won the JN Pierce Award for Media Excellence for leading the newspaper’s coverage of climate change policy. The award is presented each year by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.

Congratulations to the hardworking team at the Oz.

Punched out

Published
by
Phil
1 month ago
in Blogging and Media
. 58 Comments

The Punch, News Ltd’s attempt to get jiggy with blogging and Huffington Post style news aggregation has been launched into the wilds of the internets.

Apparently…

“There are some great websites … (but) there’s no general opinion sites aimed at a large mainstream audience. We also have no political bent, … no ideological skew,” he says. “The audience will be anyone with a passion for debate about news and current affairs. It’s not going to be some worthy forum of capital I ‘Ideas’, where everything is couched in lofty academic language. Equally, it isn’t going to be a ranting, lowest-common-denominator site, either.

And just like all the other for realz blog sites…

Posts will be 600-800 words and no one will be paid. With no marketing budget, the site will rely on word-of-mouth.

But of course.

P. J. O’Rourke she ain’t

Published
by
Phil
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Culture, Language, Levity, Life, Media and Sydney
. 237 Comments

Apparently all it takes to get our noted conservative keyboardists at certain media outlets gooey enough to celebrate you as a role model for plain speaking is a pretty face, accented English and the word wog. Fame and conservatism just ain’t what it used to be. Or maybe this is all it ever was.

Update: Mumbrella posts something interesting here and here. Is Clare a PR stunt?

Update two: Chk Chk Boom! is bogus!

I quit Twitter today

Published
by
Phil
4 months, 1 week ago
in Blogging, Media and The Web
. 41 Comments

Are we insane

Yes, you get out when the punters start buying in, in droves.

When the scam artists and product pimps join the party in massive numbers.

When self appointed social media evangelists get shrill with their ‘I told you so’s’ – endlessly quibbling over lists about who’s in and who’s out.

When the celebutards join the fray and the grasping desperate famewhores who follow them won’t stop vying for their fickle shallow attentions.

And yes, it’s absolutely time to get out when the MSM, on it’s last legs, looking for credibility and eyeballs, now attempts to save itself by not going a day without mentioning their new found shiny thing.

No, you can’t follow me, I’m not there anymore.

Oh, I had lightly buttered toast and jam with a coffee for breakfast. You?

Image via realdanlyons.

Q&A (not just for senate estimates any more)

Published
by
Phil
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Culture, Film, TV, Video etc and Media
. 14 Comments

The ABC’s Q&A returns to our screens tonight.

Tonights episode looks like a pretty tame affair, with a full panel of Australians of the year – Peter Cosgrove, Tim Flannery, Fiona Wood, Jonty Bush and Tania Major.

Season one was highly entertaining, with episodes featuring Abbott, Costello and Turnbull providing interesting television.

And who could forget the fine reptilian performance of Tom Switzer in last years final episode. Completely unlikeable, I hope they have him on again.

I’m also looking forward to the “balance” provided by the token right wing fruitcakes on the panel and the audience.

I for one can’t get enough of Bolt, Blair and Hendo on the ABC.

More ideological and denialist claptrap on our screens is always better, right?

Hopefully this season the Liberal Party will have taken the time to organise a busing program of skinheads and young liberals from wherever they get ‘em instead of complaining about ABC bias in Senate estimates like they did last year.

The Nadal/Federer post we had to have

Published
by
Phil
5 months ago
in Sport
. 37 Comments

Will Swanton makes some comparisons between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Rafael Nadal can win his sixth grand slam title tonight. At the same age, Roger Federer had one.

So for all the proclamations of Federer’s greatness as he attempts to match Pete Sampras’s benchmark for the most major triumphs, Nadal’s charge through the history books suggests that Federer and/or Sampras could end up as only temporary custodians of the record, making way to a Spanish bull more willing to lose blood than a final.

Nadal has five majors to his credit at the age of 22. Federer didn’t win his first until the same age. Sampras had three at the same stage. So tonight, when we sit back during the Australian Open decider and marvel at the all-time great, to which end of the court do we look?

If you want to make the age to age comparison than you also have to include the fact that Rafa was playing as a pro at the age of 15, while Federer was very much a late bloomer, hitting the pro ranks at a later age (17).

So the race for tennis immortality is much more complex than what Swanton lays out here. It’s not about the cherry picked numbers.

Continue reading ‘The Nadal/Federer post we had to have’

Hmmmm, I wonder if….?

Published
by
Phil
7 months 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
8 months, 2 weeks 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
8 months, 3 weeks ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Foreign Elections and Politics
. 20 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
8 months, 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
9 months, 1 week 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.