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MEDIA WATCH
Fifteen minutes of our taxes being spent! Let’s watch ...
* First item: subbing error in the Geelong Independent. Not a funny one.
* Second item: the West Australian used a stock photo.
* Third item: AM! Audio of the Eastley “joke”. And then absolution for Eastley, and comment that Vanstone must have “thanked her lucky stars” for the chance to change topic. Explanation demanded from Wilesmith, who is sticking to his “error of fact” line.
* Fourth item: “Now, a correction of our own.” Boot stuck in to “politically motivated blogger” Arthur Chrenkoff: “He now admits that he lied.” Claim repeated that his site was “given a journalistic credibility it didn’t deserve.” Smug smile from Jackson as she introduces Rupert Murdoch clip in which Murdoch makes blogger/journalist distinction. NO MENTION of NYT piece. Nice dodge, Media Watch.
* Something on the Louvre; Adelaide Advertiser got something wrong.
* NT News. My old Melbourne workmate Tim Pigot! He’s written a press release that appeared in the paper. Not a controversial issue, Jackson admits; why mention it, then?
* Jackson: “Hey, we’re reasonable people.” I doubt the adverb. Hell, I doubt the noun.
* Show lasted only 13 minutes.
UPDATE. Media Watch exec producer Peter McEvoy last week:
Media Watch did not launch an attack on Arthur Chrenkoff … I think his “Good News” project is admirable. Arthur clearly does a lot of hard work to compile his blog.
Media Watch this week:
We stand by our story: Janet Albrechtsen’s column gave Arthur’s blog a journalistic credibility it doesn’t deserve ...
So last week’s piece was an attack. And Media Watch lectures Chrenkoff about honesty ...
UPDATE II. Chrenkoff is everywhere! Now he’s turned up in the Toledo Blade. Looks like the Blade, the WSJ, and the NYT don’t much care for Media Watch’s opinion. Perhaps it doesn’t carry enough journalistic credibility.
UPDATE III. Contrast Media Watch’s treatment of Chrenkoff with its gentle handling of serial offender Phillip Adams. It’s sickening.
They’ll never mention the Glass House. She didn’t look confortable though- the smug, half-smart sneer looked a little strained, like perhaps the ABC canteen mung-bean, lentil and shredded $100 note salad may have not been stored at the regulated 4 degrees celcius, and Liz was desperately waiting for the autocue to roll out so she could gallop off set and do some spray-painting. A lame effort, even by the current series of Media Watch‘s poor standard.
Why would they mention Chrenkoff’s NYT piece? Media watch (MW) have an inability to use logic and accurately report multiple sides of the story. The best they could do is invoke a great authority - Rupert Murdoch.
Tonight’s MW really showed how they could turn the reporting process into a mockery. The reporters on MW are just a bunch of thespian hyenas looking to further their own careers through theatrical spun reporting. The difference between Bloggers and MSM like MW is that blogs don’t have the stage and theatrical presence to turn facts into a sideshow. The whole process reeked of theatrical deception. This was evident tonight with the pile of newspapers sitting on the desk, as if they really had read them, and Liz Jacksons patent ‘branding’ of her head wobble.
Keep up the good work bloggers, in lieu of the MSM no longer having any journalistic integrity, someone has to research the facts.
Posted by MichaelParkes on 2005 05 16 at 08:15 AM • permalinkThey are beneath contempt. Rupert Murdoch had a lot more to say that that extract they trolled for to support their case. The following particularly the “God-like attitude “ certainly applies to these arrogant s*s. And the issue is Chrenkoff whose life and privacy they have grossly invaded.
Rupert Murdoch has told US newspaper editors that they will have to ditch their “God-like” attitude to their readers and create an open and more democratic relationship with bloggers and other web users if they want to survive and prosper in the digital age.
Murdoch Times on Line
And no mention of Taranto and his rebuttal of their insistence, still, of a description of the breadth and complexity of the WSJ publications on line and off as a sister site. They are ignorant, smug and deserve to be hounded.This attack on Chrenkoff is growing more and more serious. It cannot be that they can insinuate and blacken an individuals’ good name, as an escape from their own misrepresentation without any means of redress for that individual or the Australian public. That is what is the ABC do about policing Old Media Watch. Clearly to complain is an exercise in futility.
They called Arthur Cherenkoff a liar? Hm. Does Australia have UK or US style libel laws?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 16 at 09:42 AM • permalinkI watched Media Watch tonight in its entirety, for the first time in months or years, which may show that sliming Arthur Chrenkoff the first time really was the publicity stunt that they hoped it would be.
It was pretty dull though. The only non-boring moment was when Liz Jackson put the boot into Arthur again, which wasn’t so much interesting as distasteful.
She’s awful, that woman! She makes my skin crawl with her mirthless smile, petty spiteful remarks and snide humourless wit. I pity Peter McEvoy (who from Tim’s account been trying to inject some civility into this business).
Poor Arthur. I’ve been reading his blog for maybe a year now, and have always found him to be the most civil and mild mannered of any blogger I read (which is saying something, since most conservative bloggers are reasonably thoughtful and moderate in their prose, contrary to rumours).
And what trivial grounds on which to base such a vindictive public attack. So Arthur didn’t come clean with them about being paid for his writing. Except to one’s wife or husband (or in some cases the Tax Office) isn’t that an instance where a gentleman is entitled to withhold the truth? Hundreds of pages of writing to draw and the best she could do was a point she had no business even mentioning?!
And as for that remark about him being ‘politically motivated’. Well, that just sums it up doesn’t it? Arthurs real crime is that he’s conservative and clearly in Liz Jackson’s twisted world that really is a crime, and the role of the ABC is to denounce him for it.
Disgraceful. She’s an embarrassment to us all.
Imagine you’re sitting in a room while a flatulent dog lazily spoils the sweetness of the air - and you say, “I don’t much like this, can’t you do something else?”
So the dog throws up a huge stinking pool of vomit and proceeds to eat it again.
And you just exclaim “Oooooooh - that’s horrible!!”
Only in this case you can’t give the bitch the hefty kick she so deserves because she’s sitting in an ABC studio many miles away.
The ABC really is full cretins isn’t it, when most of your staff are former members of the ALP don’t run around calling Liberal Party bias on anything you don’t like, only draws attention to yourself.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 16 at 11:40 AM • permalinkI had occassion to be pursued by an ABC journalist recently. I took the view to shut-up and let them do the hatchet job they had in mind anyway, they did.
I feel for Arthur, to be caught on the hop by an intrusive question initially, then to be asked if it is O.K. to publish his admission made in good faith. Suddenly, he’s a discredited liar. I think this says more about Media Watch’s entrapment techniques than Artur’s character.Anyone notice the anomaly in the show?
For the Chrenkoff story MW stood by their story - the only problem was that Arthur was lying, hence not their fault. That is they said they relied on the information obtained from their interview with Chrenkoff. Result? MW still correct and totally blameless.
The Adelaide Advertiser story: journalist relies on information obtained from the subject of the story. Subject apparently lied hence journalist guilty of crap work, not decent reporting, teddibly, teddibly unprofessional old chap.
Pretty straightforward really.
Just like one of the chatterers explaining elsewhere that Tony Eastley’s effort was simply putting in a cartoon sketch that we would not think twice about if it had been produced by Leak, etc.. A professional journalist in the middle of a serious interview with a cabinet minister? I guess thats what they mean by ‘throwing the switch to Vaudeville’.Hard to pick through that puddle of vomit, but it would have to be Liz’s flat assertion that Chrenkoff is “politically motivated”, and therefore, by implication, unreliable as a blogger, much less a (steps back from keyboard to genuflect) journalist. If that’s the case, I look forward to next week’s denunciation of John Pilger.
Heck, if political motivation prima facie discredits people, we can look forward to Media Watch’s denunciation of Media Watch. Nah, of course not.
As kipwatson alluded to above, in the mind of people like Liz Jackson it’s only possible to be “politically” motivated if you’re a conservative. Leftism isn’t politics, it’s merely the default position everyone should subscribe to. All hail our Big Brothers at Media Watch.
Harold is right about the skewed logic. MW ask Chrenkoff if he is (a) paid by WSJ, (b) edited by WSJ. He says no to both. They use these answers to attack him: he is not a real journalist, because he is not paid or edited, and this compounds Albrechtsen’s crime in lending him a ‘prestige and credibility’ that he doesn’t deserve. Then Chrenkoff ‘fesses that he is paid and edited. Therefore is he not now a ‘real’ journalist, and should not MW retract their earlier claim?
kipwatson’s interpretation of the relative power of Liz Jackson and Peter McEvoy is contrary to mine. I’ve always been under the impression that the host of Media Watch is more or less a figurehead, a vehicle through which the producers and researchers present their investigations, albeit with slightly more editorial influence than the average newsreader. People like McEvoy are the power behind the throne, or at least that’s my impression.
Tim, I think we’d all benefit from a clarification here. Are you in a position to shed some light on the power structure at Media Watch?
Posted by blandwagon on 2005 05 16 at 09:47 PM • permalinkI think Media Watch’s actions here are a wonderful confirmation of everything that’s been said about their utter lack of professionalism. To drag down a generous third party in their desperate attempt to slime Albrechtsen shows just how corrupted their moral compass has become.
But then , they’re Leftists. Failure of moral compass is a prerequisite. They justify their encouragement of small evils by pretending they are avoiding larger evils but are ethically and intellectually unable to tell the difference. Putrid little people.
Tony Eastley has nobody to blame but Amanda Vanstone. She designed this whole immigration issue purely to get at Eastley, to inflame his passions, to incite him into making the error. I say Media Watch was spot-on for focusing on Vanstone’s response. After all, who expects a veteran journalist to stick to the facts?
Here’s a quote from the transcript of Chris Matthews introducing a guest on his MSNBC show “Hardball” last night:
“And John Fund is a columnist at ‘The Wall Street Journal’s the online publication OpinionJournal.com.”
Someone needs to clue him in that OpinionJournal.com is a related website. It’s not the same as the Wall Street Journal. There is a measurable credibility gap between the two. It’s not the same, I tell you. It’s not the SAME. It’s NOT THE SAME. IT’S NOT THE SAME…
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they toughed it out.