There it was yesterday. A plethora of Australian journos standing mic in hand in front of the Champs Élysées or the Eiffel Tower reporting on the French presidential election.
The trouble was what they were doing was not reporting. Or to be more precise, they started with a little reporting and then moved quickly on to speculation and opinion.
Welcome to Australian media’s version of the Kon Tiki tour. With elections looming in the UK and the French National Assembly in June and elections in Germany in September, it’s all aboard the bus. When you get there, don’t worry so much about factual reporting. Tell us what you reckon.
On last night’s ABC News at 7.00pm, the ABC’s European correspondent, Lisa Millar, spent the first five seconds repeating the result and then moved full steam into divination. To be honest, it wasn’t her fault. She faced questions posed from the desk in Sydney from newsreader, Juanita Phillips, all of it demanding a “What do you reckon?” response.
Ms Millar spent the bulk of her report waxing on what might happen by Christmas and beyond.
Full column here.
Jesus Christ, Mr Insider, speaking of Fake News, that mouthy chappie from South Australia, Pyne, is still rabbiting on about all the Ships that “will” be built in SA, the State where when you turn on your light switch at night you often get “dark or darker”. I would want to see the 1st Rivet driven soon, this has been going on for 18 months now!
Wtf Jack so now I have to have a drug test to collect me dole.
Ah, a Calombaris olive – it’s a salted type
as to the budget, i have to declare an interest, being a shareholder in an immigration firm, and engaging in a little light management there, and it looks like the government has taken a stick to skilled migration, though experience tells us to wait and see how it works in practice.
for example, it might be that the new impost is easier and less time and cost consuming than complying with current training requirements.
but, the PM says we are the most successful migration country in the world, and we have 80% public support for it, and that is because it is rules based and skills based, and has helped drive our long period of economic growth, and we should be cautious about too much fiddling with such a success.
When Ron Burgundy started working for Australian Media Mogul Kench Allenby he said “I just don’t know why we have to tell the people what they need to hear. Why can’t we just tell them what they want to hear?” Since then it has been open slather.
More fiction, your strong suit.
A soft landing type of Federal Budget imho, Mr Insider. Possible election closer than we think?
http://www.budget.gov.au/
Great piece by Tony Morris QC.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/where-was-spencer-zifcak-when-bill-leak-needed-backup/news-story/fa10b73e459d219e6975741770ddc3aa
ouch, i don’t fancy the Liberty bloke will be sitting down for a bit.
People continue their feeble attempts to defend the indefensible. Zifcak is a laughing stock, pretending to be in favor of liberty but arguing for “Shut up!”
Superb analysis by Tony Morris Razor.
Liberty Victoria will not respond, how could they, sitting on both sides of the moral barb wire fence must be really uncomfortable.
JOH, I commend the link to you, please read but no response required.
I’m sure you would rather I didn’t respond, but surely you didn’t seriously think I wouldn’t? 🙂
Morris’ piece was predictably partisan and quite overblown. It may serve to rally the troops but it’s not going to persuade anyone who isn’t already on the FSW bandwagon.
However, it is notable that The Oz has enlisted an activist lawyer to write a swathe of purple prose, just to attack a brief letter to the editor from Mr Zifcak. This shows that NewsCorp’s fatwah against Ms Triggs has now been widened to include anyone who dares defend or support her. Sadly, this style of bogeyman-driven journalism just takes the place of serious debate.
I find it cheap of Morris to use Bill Leak’s death to bolster his strenuous rhetoric. Morris deliberately conflates the public criticism of some of Leak’s work as racist, which was itself an exercise in free speech, with the regulation of racist speech. These are completely separate things. And what actually happened as a result of that regulation? A single 18C complaint was made which had no chance of success because of 18D, and was quickly withdrawn, just as it should have been. From what little I know of Leak, it is obvious he was made of stern enough stuff for that to be of little concern to him.
But while I’ve got you, one question: should s 28A of the Sex Discrimination Act, which defines sexual harassment as conduct — including speech — that would result in someone being “offended, humiliated or intimidated”, be repealed? If not, why not? Anyone?
It’s a great take-down, but really nobody with more than three brain-cells to rub together is defending Triggs now.
Watch out Bowie, you’re gunna have JOH breathing down your long neck for that one.
Oh by the way have you caught up with her latest Muslim persecution theory?
well, i was going to have a rant, but TV has done it for me, as well as tipping me into the Blues on Saturday, thanks mate.
great work for a collingwood bloke.
dwight, i don’t understand the need for J schools, none of the good journos went to one as far as i can tell.
more precisely, the whole thing was better when they were reporters and not journalists, when they learnt their craft as cadets, rather than being taught a whole of lot of bollocks by failed reporters.
I suppose the theory was they needed a better grounding in liberal arts–but that doesn’t seem to be working. Don’t know if cadetships will ever come back. I think the fault lies as much with editors who don’t edit.
They’re also not drinking as much as they used to; whilst sitting in pubs listening to the real prognosticators , hard bitten types who sit and think and drink and drink some more and poo poo the world. Experts in their own unhappy hours, like me!
Looks like a decent budget. Great to see the NDIS finally paid for. The drug testing of welfare recipients is fraught with danger and will be costly. I can’t see it getting through and I don’t think the government can either. Put in as something to trade I’d imagine.
Some fairly dubious revenue measures and the bank slug will be passed on to customers but a pretty ambitious budget, Razor. I think Malcolm might have found his political instincts at last.
dubious looking forward…eg: if fe2o3 is $55 by the myefo i’ll walk north with a leaky esky
So, we have a “liberal” government and my taxes go up? Idiots. Them and us.