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.
I like fake news better it makes me happy the real news sad and crap.
This morning the entrails show that Chloe Shorten removed a string of pearls or whatever during Bill’s budget reply. The portent of this is being analysed to the shithouse. And that tells you just about all you need to know about the state of our journalism.
Couldn’t bother reading past the headline. Saw it, said “WTF?” and moved on.
TV – it was apparently a cheap piece of bling suitable for working class folk and the clasp was broken.
The more important question is – who broke the clasp and how?
Good news, Mr Insider, a 30yo unemployed Western Sydney man last night scooped the entire $50 Million Powerball and it was the first time he had ever bought a ticket!
http://tinyurl.com/mapz7ol
I attended a discussion with the artist Richard Bell a while ago and he stated that the govt will trial certain measures out on indigenous communities first, before implementing them on the community at large. I thought the comment interesting but a bit out there. However, having read that they intend to drug test welfare recipients I think he was onto something. What a petty and puritanical society/culture we have become. If anyone is best suited to drug use it is the unemployed or the others on welfare. From experience I can assure that employment put a damper on my mild indulgence. If anyone should be drug tested it is our politicians, ambulance/police/fire brigade drivers, hairdressers, generals, doctors, dentists and teachers.
If we consider it reasonable to provide welfare to those who need it then I think it reasonable to allow them to spend it how they see fit. This is tax payers money, but so is that which pays our mediocrities in govt. some of those clowns are so drug addled they don’t even know how many houses they own.
And on fake news, Melania rang and said phooey, spare a thought for fake orgasms.
Trivalve – sorry to hear about your loss, chief. but as Oscar Wilde said, to lose one aunty is ….!
go well.
Go well, TV.
Jack, Milton, thanks for that. Both cases of ‘it’s a relief’. But yes, careless to be sure. With the usual funeral bonus, saw some people I hadn’t seen for years and met some family I’d never clapped eyes on before. You see a chance you take it.
Splendid post Milton.
Whop it up ’em, make ’em take it.
Thanks comrade! Almost feel like I have to check what I wrote!!
You do have moments of lucidity Milton. Have we just had a full moon?
Yes we did and it was a beauty and just as bright as moi!
While I’m at it, best of luck to you Jack with the next stage of your fight against the other Jack, the Dancer. A while ago I forgot you were sick as I assumed the bovine tb was doing the trick. Ask the doctor to make sure it’s Brahman TB next dose, tough as nails and good longevity the old Bos Indicus. I would say all of the followers of your blog are wishing you well Jack, you are not allowed to bail at this juncture. Carpe diem cotidie and all the best.
Cheers, Mack
G Wizz, just read your story on the previous topic regarding your dicky ticker. My Dad was in the same boat as he had a congenital valve defect and no doctor picked it up until he was 60. Here’s what I wrote.
Go the pig mate. My Dad had the first mechanical valve installed in Australia and was on warfarin for the rest of his life. Between that and fluid filling his lungs the tablet regime everyday just grew and grew. Go the pig would be my advice at your age.
Dad ended up with a pacemaker with a built in defibrillator installation and in the end his heart just wore out. The deathbed scene was awful because the hospital people didn’t know how to turn the damn thing off. The sight of my Dad being zapped by the defibrillator in ever decreasing intervals for an hour or so will haunt me to the end. All it took was a big magnet to neutralize the thing. Guy I worked with in the 90’s had a pig valve installed, seemed to do the trick and no rat poison everyday.
Thank you Mack. I just read your reply on the other thread and replied. Thanks for the info. All input appreciated. It feels a bit odd having such a serious malady but absolutely no symptoms. It sounds like your dad had no symptoms either. The doc just lucked onto this or it would have been life as usual until …
GWizz, i chose the pork valve myself, not keen on warfarin forever.
Like you delayed until the end of the season, and a sort of farewell tour of aus, and a riotous 60th birthday dinner.
had it done the day Prince of Penzance won the Cup at a 100-1, perhaps that was a bad choice of dates because some of the 50-1 complications got up.
anyway, i survived, spent a long time flirting with nurses, and an even longer time off the drink. had a pacemaker put in a year later, and all going fairly well.
better than being dead, which was made clear to me was the alternative.
Thanks jack. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to that has had the procedure. I’ve pretty much settled on the pig valve. I’d forget to take the Warfrin or something and wake up dead. Off the drink? I hope that passes quickly. Great to hear all is going well – your post was a real bright spot in my day. I try not to worry but success with that varies. I’ve been so disgustingly healthy all my life this has come as a bit of a shock. Thanks for the post. It really did cheer me up.
Colvin, a champion in every way.
Remember Labour’s 1983 manifesto that was labeled “the longest suicide note in history”? It’s back: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/11/at-a-glance-key-points-leaked-labour-manifesto/
One of the weird things is that many of the provisions seem fairly popular – but few will dare admit an intention to vote for him.
Sheer incompetence and his foreign ‘policy’ are some of his biggest drawbacks, just to name a couple.
QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce announcing…………..a Pie?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liCpouEnDYY
I’m glad Overhue was charged. That’s a very humiliating thing to do to a gay man. I hope he comes up against a tough beak.
Attacked for his stand on same sex marriage. Plenty of other CEO’s he could have targeted but he decided on the openly gay man. It used to be called poofter bashing and lead to the murder of a number of men. I see this as no different but my bet is the courts will…….unfortunately.
It needs to be taken in context. There was no significant injury but it was humiliating and a concerted effort to do so from all reports. I do hope the accused finds himself standing before a magistrate who is a bit of a hanging judge to be honest.
To anybody.
Good one TV. I doubt he’d have done the same to anyone who was likely to have punched his lights out.
i have no problem with a bit of protesting, but i don’t think the right to protest extends to physically interfering with others, or spitting on them, or breaking their shop windows, or shutting down their meetings, or stopping others from going about their business.
it will be interesting to see how he goes, the young middle class anarchists in Melbourne seem to get flogged with a wet lettuce when they go before the beak.
something to do with this new fashion for therapeutic justice or some such.
bad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9naBXjcAPNQ
Dwight,
There is a very good English word for reading entrails: the adjective is ” haruspicial” from the Etruscan – of course!
Any Gibbon could tell you that 🙂
France dodged a bullet but – despite the relatively low turnout – le Pen doubled the votes her father received in 2002. It s a worry. Macron was the lesser of 2 evils but I very much doubt his recipe will work (rather kick the can down the road and fiddle with the edges). The vote for the Assembly scheduled for second weekend in June will be interesting as there is virtually no prospect of his obtaining a En Marche government.
Budget proved Malcolm cannot count (this is year one – not year 3); assumptions of growth are rose-tinted; precedent in taxing and interfering in private industry with special tax unrelated to regulation of the industry is terrifying. Took lots of people a long time to work out that they either work for banks, have shares in banks, super in banks or are customers – and those results are not going to be pretty when it hits the fan!
What ever happened to ” dries ” : economic conservatives (who are not necessarily social conservatives) in the Liberal party?
Don’t pretend this was pragmatic as it is about as much a Labor budget as any….(only the Greens and English Labor under Corbyn could do much worse in the Anglo world). Recurring expenditure with guaranteed increases for public servants maintained without cutting to the bone…..
On the TV news: I have ranted all too often about journalists interviewing each other, about the insertion of adjectives and adverbs unnecessarily as comment – and the decline of both ABC and SBS (despite the vast increases in budget). Disinter James Dibble and Mary Kostakides….. it would be a point of difference from the commercial claptrap and they might even fulfil their charter!
GRUMBLE and GROWL
cheers
That would make one a haruspex. Thanks!
Oh, and no dries left in the liberal party. Only a couple token ones in Canberra.
I’ve always found it odd that economic dries are described as conservative, given that their program is quite radical. It is also unpopular, which probably explains their dwindling number in Parliament.
most people are enjoying the fruits of economic reform, as practised in Aus from 1983 until 2008, but no-one seems to want to make the sacrifices for more sound policy.
So is it fruits or sacrifices?
IMO most people have lower incomes relative to cost of living, and poorer economic security, than they did in the 1980s. The property class, on the other hand, is doing very nicely, for now.
Hey Voltaire, don’t think Mary would relish interment so she could be disinterred. I believe reports of her death relate to her ‘boning’ by SBS so not only greatly exaggerated, a la Mark Twain, but are certainly alternative facts or fake news perhaps. Agree with the sentiment though, particularly with the sad loss of Mark Colvin.
Cheers, Nick
Mary Kostakidis is still alive as far as I’m aware.