ONE of the criticisms often directed at conservatives is that we prefer to live in the past -- and that is absolutely correct. If only the clock could be turned back, how nice it would be to re-visit the latter half of June, 2009, when Godwin Grech was holed-up in his Canberra home while an infestation of press people ruined the nature strip. They were there for weeks, recording in minute detail what neighbours thought of the Utegate mystery man, the parcels he received and any other scraps of trivia that came to hand.
Today, after just these few short years, look how standards have slipped. A Gillard staffer, Tony Hodges, begins a chain of events leading to a race riot, is fired and promptly vanishes. So, too, the white rabbit of Humpytown, Kim Sattler. POOF!...and she is gone without a trace. There seems no curiosity to find either of them, which could not be that difficult, or to press for the answers that the disgrace on Australia Day at the The Lobby demands.
There is only one difference between then and now. When Grech’s hijinx came unstuck it was a Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who appeared gullible, crooked or both. Now that it is the Labor Prime Minister who must explain herself, there is not the slightest effort on the part of the press to find either of the two people most relevant to the matter. The inconsistency would be shocking if not so predictable.
What is even more remarkable is the gullibility of the meeja over Gillard's presser yesterday afternoon at Boeing. Two journos asked about the communication between the minister's press secretary and FairWorkingFamilies Australia. After two questions met with the backfoot defensive shot: 'last year's news', it was 'Look - a unicorn!' and then off. The unicorn in this case was news of a ferry sinking in PNG, which she used quite blatantly. At the time, anyone wanting to ignore the unicorn and try to ask another question would have appeared callous. But no critical commentary on the tactic?
ReplyDeleteBut then she's a Dead Woman Waddling.
In the UK or US some less hinged element of the media would by now have questioned whether a submarine had not been despatched to provide the diversion, but then nobody would believe that a Collins Class was capable of doing the job.
DeleteMany compliant MSM journalists must be graduates or sympathisers of the Centre of Advanced Journalism!!
ReplyDeleteShe'll be off soon to waddle down that white wabbit hole that's swallowed up Hodges and Sattler. Well done, by the way, Mr. Wabbit. All your fault. But please bring that last two up for one last look.
ReplyDeleteQuestion though: is Ranga-ella really a variety of internet Bot, with a special Unicorn (TM) chip implant, Labor-designed to produce computer-generated feeds that sidetrack badly-trained and blinkered journos from any sniff of accountabiity?
I'll submit this now Bunyip, as soon as I've followed your blog's instructions and proved I'm not a robot. Maybe Jules would find this hard.
I cannot understand it either... a comparison between the Godwin Grech debacle and this one.
ReplyDeleteIn Utegate, no-one bar Kevin Rudd was 'injured' and that attempted injury to his reputation only.
This debacle resulted in enraging 200 or so people into a mob and redirecting them on to target with potential for great physical injury to all involved (you don't shout fire in a crowded theatre), as _well_ as injury to Tony Abbott's reputation.
On that alone it is orders of magnitude worse.
The media I believe wants this to go away, their appalling performance in this debacle was disgusting and I sheet a lot of the blame in their direction.
In what goes for political discourse and integrity nowadays where it is a race to the bottom, we no longer are shocked that our politicians act like children or blatantly lie to our faces, or that not only do they consider it OK but good politics.
This we DO NOT expect this from the media, they are the ones supposed to be holding the squabbling ADHD children to account and sending them off to the naughty chair.
In being complicit in creating the narrative of the day (Divisive Tony Abbott wants them disbanded...) it is they who primed the kiddies with red cordial, slapped them on the arse and sent them outside to play, regardless if they happened to have been "tipped off" beforehand or not.
That the record has not been corrected is instructive.
A massive beat-up... looking at the footage for the day it also appeared the only people Julia and Tony needed protecting from was the media scrum... and my god how did ALL of that media end up there in the first place? (Unless it is normal to send 15 camera crews to a simple awards ceremony).
Who holds the media to account?
The correct tool for filtering events is through application of an extension to Hanlon's Razor
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice",
(this version attributed to Einstein apparently... *shrug*)
There is both in here... in spades.
A proper investigative reporter (as opposed to the PR copy-pasters we have today) should have torn this apart in days, and if anyone wanted to look deeper it would be the gift that keeps on giving.
I mean, what more could you ask for in a story. Media Beat up, intrigue from the prime ministers office, the ongoing fallout (bye bye Julia, hello Kevin), strained racial relations, the incestuous relationship between political media handlers and those reporting events, all whipped up into a perfect storm.
We've dredged up enough names of the players in this fiasco and put together the timeline for this to be followed up by the lowest of the hacks we call journalists nowadays, why is no-one putting their feet to the fire.
Churnalism at its finest.
"So, too, the white rabbit of Humpytown, Kim Sattler. POOF!...and she is gone"
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of the tale of the homosexual magician; he too disappeared with a POOF!
The white rabbit of Humptytown... LOL
ReplyDeleteLet Gina run Fairfax her way her businesses MAKE money .privaise SBS and ABC ,put these so called "Journalists " go on Jobsearch,and give the People power to remove incompetent politicians ans public servants .take funding away and these clowns are STUFFED,
ReplyDelete