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MEDIAWATCH.BLOGSPOT.COM
Tim Dunlop makes some excellent points:
I defy anyone to explain the difference between what Media Watch does and what the average political blogger does. Their site even looks like a blog when you lay one of their transcripts out on a page.
Instead of trying to draw fine lines between “journalism” and “blogging”, revering the former while denigrating the latter, they would be better served making a distinction between quality work and shoddy work no matter whether the person involved is technically a journalist or not. Clearly their low opinion of blogging as a whole is affecting the way they respond to errors, and it seems they will go in harder against a blogger than they will against a journalist, perahps (ooh, look! a typo!) especially an ABC journalist.
The paradox of this is that, if journalism is truly that superior to blogging, then you would think that an organisation like Media Watch would hold the journalist to a higher standard. The opposite seems to be the case, at least in this week’s program.
The taxpayer is their PayPal button.
In the long run it’s a favor to bloggers. It will keep them lean and mean and in fighting trim, whereas the “journalists” will get fatter and lazier from never being truly challenged. It’s a common observation over here in the U.S. that the Democrats have “no ideas” because their long rarely challenged stint in power sapped their ability to innovate and make an argument. They didn’t have to. When things finally reached a tipping point they tipped decisively. By then, the Democrats were forced into playing catch-up, a fate likely to also befall journalism.
Mediawatch was a good idea but like all good ideas needs to be reinvented. For some time it has reflected either the bias of the presenter or trivialities. The 15 minute format does not allow deep investigation and the bias does not allow it to challenge those with whom it already agrees ie most of the left wing MSM.
In light of the distinction drawn by Media Watch between journalism and blogging, it is interesting to recall the Overland lecture delivered by David Marr in 2004. David was then the presenter of the ABC Media Watch program and on leave of absence from his job as a journalist with the SMH.
“The conclusions I draw are inevitably personal and coloured by my own politics. But that’s the only way any of us can make sense of the country and the times in which we live.”
This was in reference to the lecture itself, which consists of the typical anti-Howard blatherings, however another quote referred universally to his lifetime spent in journalism and writing:
“I work to shape opinion.”
Yes, we know. It is quite transparent in everything that you and write and say. This is precisely why many are turning to alternative sources of information. It also explains why someone would feel to the need to concentrate on delivering a site dedicated to the “Good News” rather than the alternative being fed up each day in newsprint by self-appointed opinion-shapers.
http://webdiary.smh.com.au/archives/000293.html
Overland Lecture 2004That’s very perceptive of Tim Dunlop.
Interestingly I used to love Media Watch way back in the Littlemore days. And looking back what I loved was similar to what I enjoy about reading blogs - carefully phrased sarcasm and all!
Ironic, too, seeing as Littlemore is on the Left (although to give him credit I think he has a genuine rapier wit), the scepticism he directed towards the media, for me laid the seeds of the revelation that MSM had been feeding me left wing propaganda all my life…
In reply to #3, problem is in the meantime we get shit the Newsweek incident. Words and ideas are the most powerful things of all, and right now they’re distributed by fools and liars.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 16 at 10:37 PM • permalinkI submitted a comment on the Media Watch website. Since they “moderate” comments (we know what that means), I thought I’d reproduce it here…
For the second week in a row, Media Watch has attacked Arthur Chrenkoff, and impugned his reputation. For the second week in a row, Media Watch has done this without actually disputing anything Chrenkoff has written, or pointing to any errors therein.
In the same week that Chrenkoff’s credibility is attacked by Media Watch, a full-page report on his work, with approving comment, has appeared in the New York Times. In the same week, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal exposed the research of Media Watch on this issue as sloppy and amateurish.
All viewers of Media Watch deserve to be informed of this. The descent of Media Watch into unsubstantiated value judgement - based largely on the political views of the target - says more about Media Watch’s credibility than it does about Chrenkoff.
More likely WomBatHed, most watch it to:
a) get a laugh at Liz and McEvoy’s expense; or
b) get off feeling outraged at the obvious lefty bias.I know I am guilty of both:)
There are not enough liberal arts degree owners in the country with the intellectual skills to even understand the issues covered by media watch, let alone make a difference to the show’s ratings.
Arthur Chrenkoff is brutally pilloried because of poor performance under interrogation and his blog dismissed as politically motivated.
Eastley’s comment was a ‘factual error’.
Chrenkoff makes no bones about his stance but the ABC plays intelligence-insulting word games and then has the cheek to lecture us about the ‘balance’ that should distinguish journalism from blogging.
I find THAT ‘hard to buy’.
Amanda Vanstone found the right word.
Queen Victoria was quite forgiving of your kind ‘WomBatHed’. She decreed that homosexuals could do what they wanted as long as they ‘didnt scare the horses’. Sweet!!1!! You’re Gold!1!1!
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 05 17 at 06:20 AM • permalink”..they would be better served making a distinction between quality work and shoddy work..”
Speaking of Shoddy Journalism - tonight’s 7.30 Report had a story about a Kuwaiti who lucked into Australian citizenship, but then went back there and has been busted for alleged terrorist activity.
Imagine my surprise when his allegations of torture were made. Even more surprise to hear him assert (via 7.30 report) that at one stage during the interrogation his blindfold had slipped and that he saw two westerners in the room (this is in Kuwait). And, wait for it, he recognised their accents as Australian!
It looks like the 7.30 Report’s main interest in this case is to claim that not enough intervention is being made by the Australian Government on behalf of this citizen. The whole thing sounds like a complete crock, but there was no reservation in the way it was presented.Over at Mornings With Kerrie-Anne on Nine this morning we had her and a few guests discussing the Auburn Girl’s High School matter, where one student has decided that in order to correctly observe her religion she will wear a full length coat and a headscarf (Mantoo) rather than the scarf and modest top (in school colours) agreed between the school and local Islamic groups.
Kerrie-Anne correctly pointed out that this was an assertion of a cultural point of view rather than a religious one. While the Koran prescribes modesty in dress, it is not so specific as to distinguish between one headscarf (approved) and another headscarf (not approved).
In a recent program on SBS a cartoon from a UK paper was shown - it depicted Ariel Sharon eating a baby palestinian(?). This blood libel cartoon was given an award in Britain. The head of the cartooning organisation was asked by the interviewer why there were not cartoons done with similar vehemence against Palestinian figures.
His answer was honest. It’s the fatwa factor - Jews don’t issue fatwas, he said.
The common ground between these events and the recent shoddy reporting of the Korans in the Krapper in Newsweek, is the ease with which intimidation is now used by Islamic peoples against “infidels”. We expect them to cut up rough, to be so easily offended, to use confrontation instead of proper argument and conciliation.
This blog has been harassed by lefties who urge reasonable discussion while disagreeing with everything we say. If only they’d use their reasonableness for good. OK, no more Mr Nice Guy.
I am hereby objecting to the use of the word Infidel, as it is an unsupported, insulting and false assertion that we do not believe in the one god. All christians should reject this word with vehemence, and be completely affronted by it.Well, I wouldn’t say the Guardian is conservative, however compared to The Age, the Guardian is not as consistent at pushing the lefty-band-wagon.
The Guardian can have some very unbias moments of clarity, and write articles about issues that a lefty just shouldn’t be able to grasp. Then in other articles it descends down into the loopy left garden.
An Age writer probably feels the Guardian lets down their team too much.
1. Liz was no doubt spurred on to attack someone by the first “reviews” in the media pages of the Australian.Simper,Day and co exhorted her to be more hardline and cutting edge.Bad choice of victim Liz.
Some people fight back when gratuitously attacked.
2.7.30 O’Brien wheedled,spat,whined,crawled,lectured,hectored and threw wobblies in a 20 minute tale of woe tonight.The most apalling aspect was his shocked “masked men burst in on(the suspect)”. Did the unfeeling presenter not notice as I did, that all adult women in the footage were completely covered but for a narrow eye slit, in heavy black burkhas,even the guy’s mother.
In effect they were involuntarily “masked” women.
What a joke to hear the presenter righteously demanding to know if the diplomat had pointed out to the Kuwaities -Australian troops put their lives on the LINE for Kuwait. As if he and his cohorts ever did anything but abuse our troops in the gulf war,demand that they be withdrawn, wish they had never been sent,accuse them of arse licking to the U.S. etc.
If it’s good enough for us to abandon Hicks then it’s good enough for us to abandon others.Selling out your own country is probably the lowest you can go.
It was wonderful to hear that women in Kuwait are to get the vote.
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A blogger corrects errors, a journo doesn’t. which is why Margo classifies herself as a ‘journalist’.