When the motion to dismiss the board is made, it might be worth the while of institutional investors to bear in mind just what sort of people have been framing editorial policies. Here is one of them from October last year:
UPDATE: She has yet to exert her will on Fairfax, but already the Rinehart influence is improving things. It must be at least three weeks since the Saturday Age's Martin Flanagan has penned a patronising column hailing Indigenous footballers for the instinctive skills he believes only they can bring to the game. Today he's going on about his soon-to-be new boss, which makes a pleasant change from the The Noble Savage With The Sherrin.
If the share price drops any lower, Corbett's riding instructions are liable to involve tar, feathers, and a rail.
ReplyDeleteThese dreamers in Fairfax really think if they insult and sneer at Mrs Hancock she'll start to cry like a Green politician and run away. You don't get to be the richest woman in the world by crying and running away. Fairfax dreamers continue to dream on. I see Mike Carlton is still putting the boot into "La Stupenda". But he, at least, seems to realise his days are numbered.
ReplyDelete"Already the Rinehart influence is improving things". Erm, sorry to disabuse you of your misapprehension, perfessor, but the chief climate zombie has submitted the following propaganda for the North Korean Walkley Awards.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/pricing-carbon-has-passed-the-acid-test-20120629-217wv.html
Tongue in cheek; grain of salt; usw …
DeleteCheers
What a joke!
ReplyDeleteIF the "tens of thousands " of emailers actually BOUGHT FailFax papers, this situation would never have occurred.
But such obvious logic seems to escape the minds of the Failfax media director and Editors!! Hahaha!
My money's on Gina.
"Any national media reflects the national mind" says this opinion-sayer, while also opining that Labor may be "annihiliated" at the next election. Two interesting points, Professor, which he neglects to connect. Connecting them suggests that the national mind may no longer be captive to the Gramscian left project, a shift in the zeitgeist which this journalist so clearly finds hard to stomach.
ReplyDeleteThe whole sub-text of his writing is his belief that the national media must reflect the Labor perspective in order to mitigate the coming annihilation, but again, he fails to connect that the national media must bear much responsibility, (due to their completely biased and deficient reporting which has allowed Labor to continue to pursue really lunatic policies), for the coming Labor annihilation. If the great Labor Party of the past dies, he and his comrades should take some responsibility for having carefully smoothed the dying pillow.
From this it should be apparent that I agree the media can have a guiding role in forming opinion, but that I consider the role of the media to be limited by the good sense of the electorate in assessing and projecting forward the lived experience of the policies of the government they last elected. The electorate will hold the media to account for blatant bias.
Should Mrs. Rinehart become blatantly biased and allow no response (her gold standard for this is the behaviour of the ABC and Fairfax), she would live to regret it. I suspect she is quite wise enough to know this, and thus I have no fears concerning her foray into media ownership in Australia. The country will be the better for it and so will its standards of reportage.
Prof
ReplyDeleteTry to keep up! There would be no article on Indigenous players from Flanagan today. This week is MULTICULTURAL round. So I fully expected an article about Achmed who has played two games for St Kilda seconds. Achmed emigrated here by boat after his village was bombed by the US, an act of barbarism that Achmed doesn’t understand. His family were simple, hard-working people (Achmed used to work in his Uncle’s Carpet and Poppy Emporium) and devoutly religious. He left after that but his Uncle joined the revolutionaries in the mountains, resisting the invaders and growing poppies.
Achmed is aloof and disdainful of his teammates interest in beer and girls (Achmed is probably in the closet) and spends his spare time reading the Koran and unpacking imported goods from his Uncle’s business back home.
Achmed is apolitical (bugger!) but this is where we work in a paragraph from his mentor, Waleed Aly, with a none-too-subtle swipe at the Coalition’s immigration policy.
Of course, the article is not about Indigenous players but Martin manages to draw out of Achmed that he has an “affinity” and “special connection” with his Indigenous brudders at the club.
But, bigger fish to fry.
Obviously the barbarian at the gate in the form of Gina was more important even than multiculturalism, so Achmed will have to wait for another day.
The Irish Lion
Nice work Irish Lion, but not so fast. Flanagan has written a story about some Geelong supporter who has adopted three Dravidian chrildren from an orphanage.
DeleteFor a sports writer he includes precious little sport in his confused jottings.
DeleteThe Brethren Flanagan were high on the list of reasons I joined the growing exodus of Age readers.
The Irish Lion
Prof
ReplyDeleteI am confused about this Corbett fellow.
He is referred to in some quarters as “the Grocer”.
I was under the impression the Grocer was Ronnie Barker ("Open All Hours") and Corbett was the little chap who used to sit in the big armchair.
Hilarious at his best, but can he run a newspaper? Or is Fairfax a grand piece of comedy performance art he plans to enter in next year’s Edinburgh Festival?
Please Essplain
Bemused of Beaumaris
No. this one's probably related to a proper Space Cadet:
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Corbett,_Space_Cadet
Cheers
Related to the Nobel Savage is the Magical Negro trope, usually associated with film productions.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro
Perhaps more apt for "magical" on-field feats of athleticism?
I always thought that Roger Corbett was reputed to have run Woollies well. If this was the case, in his last days there he must have consumed too many of their wonderful fresh vegetables. It has become obvious that Fairfax is being run by someone who might be called Potato Head or Turnip Head - gone to seed!
ReplyDelete