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MEDIA WATCHED
John Howard gets it:
Perhaps the most convincing sign of all that some progress has been made is the significant decline in media coverage of Iraq – noticeable both in the United States and Australia. The dominant left-liberal elements in the media in both our countries apparently cannot bring themselves to acknowledge good news stories coming out of Baghdad.
You’d think Media Watch might investigate this phenomenon. Oh, that’s right; they already did.
UPDATE. Michelle Grattan and the Age profess themselves stunned by Howard’s speech, which essentially only restates his political beliefs. Headline: “No holds barred as ex-PM lashes out.”
UPDATE II. According to the ABC, Howard’s mild speech was bitter, scathing and strident. Delicate little flowers.
MSM news lost the plot years ago.
It seems more and more are finally noticing it.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 06 at 07:39 AM • permalink#4
The truth is what?
The BBC reports: “Gaza conditions ‘at 40-year low’ PLO must need help.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 06 at 07:57 AM • permalink#4 Who told you to say that Bryla?
Shouldn’t you be out fighting our allies with your clueless mates and challenging this country’s values that 10’s of 1000’s died fighting to defend.
Take the prurient war that you try and legitimise with your fangled syntax and do something worthwhile.
Stop trying to lick arse here.
“Perhaps the most convincing sign of all that some progress has been made is the significant decline in media coverage of Iraq – noticeable both in the United States and Australia. The dominant left-liberal elements in the media in both our countries apparently cannot bring themselves to acknowledge good news stories coming out of Baghdad.”
The best news is that we’ve destroyed the Baathists, and slaughtered all kinds of nasty terrorists. No amount of non-coverage can change those facts.
The truth is is that we won the war in Iraq a long time ago, and that absolutely sticks in the craws of lefty traitors, and their natural response is to ignore any good news, and play up the bad, in order to try and denigrate the quality of the win.
Let them try. Saddam Hussein, and Iraqi-backed terrorists like Abu Abbas will be dead forever, no matter how much the boys and girls in the media ignore good news out of Iraq.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 06 at 09:01 AM • permalinkOT over on Bolt they’re debating the stupidity of Tony Jones raising the spectre of Obama’s assassination.
One scribe raises a good point in that if Obama is so at risk how come Sharpton and Jesse Jackson haven’t been shot yet. They’ve been talking shit for years and both enjoy a high public profile.
Jones is an idiot. I’d love to see him in a public debate away from the security of an ABC microphone and a humming ABC audience.
#10 No JS. Just more of the same. I’m pissed that some lame dick judge waved him good bye when he should have spent at least a year behind bars to test the worth of his ‘principles’. If Bryla bounced back from that then he would have some of my respect.
But he’s allowed to continue with more of his wanker moral activity.
I left a supermarket today behind a beat up old datsun with a sticker on it saying ‘I’m a Vietnam vet and proud of it’. The guy looked like his car - all worn out. I couldn’t help think what he would make of the big puss from Cairns.
I guess some people just can’t stand good news.
#9 Dave Surls
What the MSM will do is ignore all the positive news and later, when details have begun to fade from memory, they will mention the achievements but ascribe them the people they want to praise.
Like the National Museum in Canberra which had a display about the Aboriginal referendum, and a great glowing picture of Whitlam shaking hands, and requiring Windschuttle to contact the museum and point out that St Gough had nothing to do with it - the Libs led in 1967 and it was their baby.
For ages I found it odd that Hawke introduced worthwhile economic reforms as PM, totally out of synch with all he had said and done as leader of the ACTU. He was the great reformer. The Labor party saved us!
Then I heard about the Campbell Report; commissioned by the previous government, whose treasurer was…
Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 03 06 at 02:49 PM • permalinkSlightly OT but in the interests of supplementing the poor job of the MSM:
I met a bloke this week who was previously operations manager at Woomera detention centre. From memory here’s a couple of interesting things he said.“We had a two kilometre exclusion zone, to keep out the media and the demonstrators, and not a lot of staff, so it made it very hard to respond to breaches, or reports of anything..”
“One of our jobs was to go out onto the landing strip (Woomera is a spare shuttle landing strip) with hiviz jackets and lights in the middle of the night, and be the landing lights for 737s as they delivered people from Darwin. So I’d have this 737 aiming for me basically and landing just over the top of me. They did it at night to hide everything from the media.”
“As they all got off the plane they were so friendly and so well spoken, saying ‘thank you so much for helping us’ etc. Then they’d go into the ‘73 hour’ immigration procedure and after that you’d never hear them speak English again, they wouldn’t even look at you. Because immigration is all about ‘do you have a good reason for being here?’”
“The camp was what you call ‘atcos’, temporary buildings, they weren’t bad, but they start wrecking them and using the materials as weapons, against the guards, but also against each other! I mean you had Afghanis and Iraqis and Christians and everything there and they hated each other, they were at war!”
“Some of these blokes who got released, they turn up the next day outside the gates in mercedes with all this gold jewelry and everything, I mean they were lawyers and engineers and had been investing in Australia for quite a while through their relatives before they got here..”
And I recall a colleague of mine who used to work there regularly as an Arabic interpreter saying with great emphasis and frustration
“I used to say to them ‘If you want to get out, tell them who you are!’”
Posted by ooh honey honey on 2008 03 06 at 03:36 PM • permalinkIn every media article where respected journalists are critical of blogs they always make the same accusations:
1. Blogs are biased - Yes they are, but so are journalists in the legacy media. The difference is that bloggers (both liberal and conservative) make no secret of their bais, and proclaim it openly.
2. They aren’t subject to editorial oversight - Would that be the same editorial oversight as the ABC editors in Australia who edited reports from ABC journalists stationed with Australian forces in the first three weeks of the Iraq war. And edited them to the point that they became works of fiction with no relation whatsoever to the original reporting?
3. Bloggers are shadowy and anonymous - Rubbish! who runs this blog - Tim Blair - his shadowy alias - Tim Blair - aka Tim Blair! He even gives his email address (I’ve yet to see a personal email address for individual ABC reporters openly given on ABC media. And unlike legacy media - bloggers name their sources and link to them. They also link to articles they disagree with or quote so you can read them yourself.
I’d give the average blogger more points for honesty and intergrity than any legacy journalist - even bloggers I don’t agree with (even Tim Dunlop)
Posted by Fragglerocker on 2008 03 06 at 06:32 PM • permalinkJohn Howard is a private citizen. Or have they already forgotten that he lost his seat?
Perhaps this is just a ruse to divert attention from Kevin, who’s already looking very O7.
Sydney radio this morning is full of rubbish about John Howard criticising his own country on foreign shores.
Funny that the same mob had little to say about Stephen Smith, who was not a private citizen - in fact was Foreign Minister - when he severely dissed Oz in front of a New York audience in January.
Hypocrites.
abc reported it in the news as “Kevin warmed them with his smile”. Seriously. I nearly vomited. They then described Howard’s speech as “bitter”. Of course.
For some reason they think png was disenchanted with aust and it only takes for 1 minute of kevin’s presence for relations to be smoothed.
I have news for them, grab a trowel and some fresh dung and it too can be “smoothed”. Of course this doesn’t change the fact it is dung.
2.5 years more of this crap.
To those missing JWH - Don’t blame me, I’m a West Australian.
Everyone east of Eucla is a knob.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 03 06 at 07:15 PM • permalinkAs for reporting Israel, the UN boss Barking At Moon used the ol’ formula for criticising Israel for ‘disproportionate’ defence again.
This is code for a deep wish that Israel was as weak and defenceless [and fenceless] as all the terrorists who continue to use deadly terror - 40 years after saying that they only wanted a peace treaty, ‘Palestine’ and a little land back..
The whole world has fallen for the ultimate Victimhood scam.Did anyone see the interview by Doogue with the popular philosopher/writer De Botton?
This successful guy is the son of a Jewish family ejected from their North African Arab country after 1948 just for being Jewish. Like 800,000 others.
They made money in Switzerland, and their son then went to Oxford.
More real evidence of Jewish refugees behaving well. Not a hint of resentment or ‘land rights’.“No holds barred as ex-PM lashes out.”
Whoa! Did you see that folks? Hell Boy Howard unwound the wolf-spider body choke being administered by Grizzly Grattan and . . . he’s up! Howard’s up! Ohhh! Howard’s got Grattan in the split-fingered nostril hold and…Ohhh! He’s carrying Grattan around the ring like an overcoat thrown over his shoulder! Did. You. See that! Hell Boy tossed Grattan headfirst into his own water bucket! What’s this? Grattan’s trying to pull the bucket off his head and…Ohhhh! He’s down again, as Hell Boy Howard throws the hedge-clipper leg slice! I tell ya, folks, in 25 years of covering this game, I’ve never seen a more brutal encounter…
Today’s Albury-Wodonga Border Mail has demanded John Howard cease making any public comments. He says that as a defeated prime minister he is no longer entitled to say anything, least of all defend his policies. It says Labor won the election and Howard (and presumably all other Australians) must now accept that the people have spoken. The natural extension of this line of thinking is we no longer need elections. The people have spoken. Rudd is ruler for life!!!
No link to this remarkable editorial because the Border Mail wisely didn’t post such trash on the internet. But what hope the preservation of free speech when the media is opposed to it?
John Howard criticised the Australian government outside of Australia.
Rather than being applauded this puts him on par with the Dixie Chicks.
Posted by AlexanderH on 2008 03 06 at 08:20 PM • permalinkStrewth in The Australian reports
The Age online had a link to twink site in report on ALP sex trial.
Were Michelle Grattan and the Age themselves stunned?Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 06 at 08:37 PM • permalinkJWH is now a private citizen. He can say anything he likes about the Australian government and the smarmy little waxgobbler (thanks, Habib) masquerading as PM.
No more requirement to piss in the pocket of the electorate or keep the drones on the backbench in their place.
I genuinely look forward to his ongoing commentary on the state of the nation. Should be illuminating.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2008 03 06 at 09:59 PM • permalinkSlightly O/T - anyone else watch ABC’s Compass last Sunday night. Titled “Men of Means- Geraldine meets the big end of town: High flyers in the worlds of business, sport and media”, it inexplicably included Mike Carlton amongst high achievers like John Symonds, John Ilhan and Chris Cuffe.
Carlton seemed suitably sheepish, and his demeanour alternated between reticent and fawning.
He was the only guest who appeared to be affected by alcohol, mildly slurring his words even at the start.
Most illuminating, in regards to the Fairfax ethos of self-loathing on behalf of all of us, was this exchange;
Mike Carlton
But I worry now that there is a return of religious bigotry in the dislike of Muslims in this country. And that we are seeking a rise in sectarianism and intolerance on a religious basis.
John Ilhan
I’ve never seen any form of racism towards myself or my family, none what so ever.
Mike Carlton
But you don’t look like a Muslim. You don’t have the white hat and the funny beard.
John Ilhan
But my mother does.
Geraldine Doogue
And your brother did.
John Ilhan
My brother did. So I think it’s all Muslims have a responsibility to behave like Australians. My parents came to this country to have a better life. So if you come to this country you need to align yourself with parliament and Australian values…...So it’s up to the Muslims to speak out. So when the Bali bombing occurred John, not one Muslim stood up and said, how dare they, in Australia.
Geraldine Doogue
Well they did but it was quietly done.
Mike Carlton
They did but they didn’t get a hearing in the media because
the media didn’t want to hear them say it …
John Ilhan
So when something happens in Bali, Muslims should march down the streets and say, how dare they bomb Bali and how dare Australians die.Unfortunately the transcript doesn’t completely illustrate the dismissive, patronising manner in which the former FM jock took it upon himself to instruct the clean-living, self-made 300 million$ man on what he did or did not experience.
Sorry Tim, I owe you for the bolds.According to the ABC, Howard’s mild speech was bitter, scathing and strident. Delicate little flowers.
Not thoughtful, interesting, intelligent like that wonderful, compassionate Mr. Keating.
Hang on, I’ll just hop out of the parallel universe for a sec..
Keating was the most appalling scumbag in political history yet ‘their’ ABC grovel and kneel at the Alter Keating, worshipping him like some, latter-day…
FRENCH CLOCK!
#39
the former FM jockCarlton is currently hosting 2UE’s brekky proggy with a rating of 6.8.
Alan Jones, Carlton’s sworn enemy, over on 2GB has a rating of 19.1 - the highest single program rating in Australia since the advent of FM in 1980.
Carlton rants and tries to denigrate Jones every day. Jones wouldn’t know Carlton exists.
That’s what makes Mikey unhinged actually. The man he loathes most, outrates him 3-1 and couldn’t give a SHIT ABOUT HIM.
To Jones, Carlton is a non-person. Carlton chews the carpet.
Delicious.
Geraldine Doogue is chairing a 2020 summit in Wodonga next month. Same format as Rudd’s show - lots of people who think they are important gathered together under the guidance of a left-wing celebrity. Is 2020 now a franchise?
Wodonga is not normally a left-wing haven. The voters well and truly rejected Labor’s highly-fancied sitting mayor Lisa mahood in the last Victorian election in 2006. Not that that made any difference to Bracks. He immediately appointed Mahood as a high-paid “local adviser” to bypass the elected Liberal member. Such is democracy in the PDRV (People’s Democratic Republic of Victoria).
#34 - Contrail, I’d have some respect for that view if they’d spent the last 10 years telling Fraser and Keating to keep their respective yaps shut.
But they haven’t.
So - Border Mail - in the time honoured Tim Blair fashion:
“SUCK MY NUTS.”
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 03 07 at 02:01 AM • permalink43. Bonmot
I think what hurts them more than anything else is that Jones (if he followed the victim script) shouldnt be successful at all.
He a (semi-closeted) gay man who talks to apparntly “redneck”& “homophobic” Australians who quite frankly dont give a rats fat he bats for the other team.
The only way he could be worse in the eyes of the lurvvies would be if he were suddenly to find out he were part Abbo as well.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 03 07 at 03:19 AM • permalinkI didn’t think Howard’s speech criticised Australia one iota. It criticised Rudd and the Rudd government.
It was not bitter, and it was only scathing with regards to policies that frankly, suck eggs. As for strident… I laughed out loud. I’ve never heard JoHo “strident”. I’m not sure he could be if he wanted to.
Much as I’d like to castigate ABC, BBC et al for their non-coverage of the Iraq war, I’d have to say that television news gathering is governed by the time honoured and well-worn cliche that “Bad news sells”
So if the war in Iraq is going well, the less people are interested in hearing about it, and the less likely people are to report it. This bias for sensation happens just as much at the Daily Telegraph as anywhere else in the news media.
Its not a liberal bias, so much as a weariness for stories about a particular event or series of events coupled with a need for novelty and tittilation.
Sorry, but that’s the way the world works.
#45 Frollicking
There was that book ‘Jonestown’ which was supposed to ruin Alan Jones’ career - being predicated on the incontrovertible meme that all people on the right are homophobes, and these homophobes would all turn against him when confronted with proof* of Jones’ homosexuality.
Didn’t work out as planned, huh?! How are his ratings?
*Lefty version of proof: inuendo, fake-but-accurate, consensus over lattes etc.
Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 03 07 at 07:06 AM • permalinkHow anyone could read Mr. Howard’s speech and characterize it as “bitter, scathing and strident”, I fail to understand.
I found it, antonymically speaking, “mild, respectful and restrained”.
The thinking person’s thinker.
I miss him. I miss him something terrible.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 03 07 at 08:49 PM • permalink#49 John A, that’s a valid point. Yes, of course bombings and war is more newsworthy than peace.
But there is more going on here than just reporting the major (Bad News) events when they happen. Large sections of the media have been reporting Iraq as a story of a struggle for liberation against an oppressive invader. (I hope I don’t have to tell you that that isn’t the case).
Hence many people believe that the “insurgents” are mostly local Iraqis, struggling greengrocers and dads, etc, who just want their freedom, kind of thing.
The media has also been keen to paint Iraq as an unmitigated mess (see, for instance, Tim Blair’s documentation of endless dire predictions of “civil war”). This is because if it’s a mess, then everyone can enjoy watching G.W.Bush squirm.
It’s not just that good news doesn’t sell. Good news, in the case of Iraq, spoils the narrative.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 08 at 12:25 AM • permalink
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Oh no, dear janet referred to a website owned and operated by wsj as a website owned and operated by the wsj, which happened to publish a particular blog’s viewpoint on the war reporting, which was her point, but in all this finger pointing, media watch misses the point. Strawman never knew what hit him / her / it!
JH has always “got it”, just sometimes (like the last 10 odd years), when you own the purse strings, it doesn’t pay to be seen to complain of bias. Now that constraint is removed, look out for more home truths, like his take on the climate change scare.