Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The "so completely true" Fairfax dirt on Abbott



Not to go on about Fairfax, but it’s hard not to if you are an adult. Here is a company that used to be of the left but was still relatively sane and semi-reliable in the retailing of information. Yes, they had Alan Ramsey doddering away and A Dill Horin very lightly paraphrasing the latest plea for cash, understanding, and more cash on behalf of ASSWIPE (Australian Society of Social Workers Inventing Problems Everywhere). And of course there was Margo, whose tenure at the original Web Diary probably marked the point where Fairfax abandoned any pretense that sanity was a prerequisite of employment.

Poor Margo is long gone but the madness continues, albeit with a greater grasp of the apostrophe, and it can be observed at Daily Life. Now it is not a bad idea having a website for women, who like to read about shoes and celebrities, salads and what the stars have in store for them. Daily Life has all that, and you can only imagine such material attracts its fair share of readers. But being Fairfax, leaving it at that would have been too sensible, so the company installed an editor who gussied up the standard offerings with a bevy of prolix harpies, all given free rein to go on at great length about the things modern women need to know. “Your Vagina Is Not a Car”, for instance. One of the site’s more memorable scoops, such news must have come as a gross disappointment to a certain small subset of DL visitors who imagined they would no longer need to hail cabs.

How anyone could publish such piffle would be a great mystery but for the suspicion that DL’s editrix, the ardent Sarah Oakes, is even more unhinged than the writers she hires.

Take her yesterday offering as an example, “Is Penny WongThe New Ryan Gosling?” Not unless he is a hypocrite, which may well be the case, and a lesbian to boot, a somewhat less probable attribute. Ms Oakes vapours through several paragraphs that explore and expand her theme before climaxing with the name of Tony Abbott on her lips (emphasis added):

While Penny Wong has the credentials to be a new Australian gay-feminist superhero we're not sure she'll gain the international traction of your-boyfriend-Ryan-Gosling. However she's definitely a candidate more worthy of a Hey Girl Tumblr than say, Tony Abbott, who's parody version is kind of a misfire. It's a sad fact that it would probably be a lot more funny if it wasn't so completely true.

As per a Fairfax editrix,  here is a sampling of “so completely true” stuff about Abbott, who is apparently a sex-mad lecher and, placing him entirely beyond redemption, a Catholic







Now remember, all of the above -- and scores of other, equally slanderous slurs -- are "completely true", at least as seen from the sheltered workshop for half-wit propagandists that Fairfax has willed itself to become.

Roger Corbett, Fairfax's chairman, once ran a large supermarket chain. How long long do you think one of his store managers would have stayed on the payroll if he or she had decided to stock the freezer cabinets with dog dirt and soiled toilet paper?

17 comments:

  1. It's a wonder they don't have a column by Chris Murphy. He is about as close to licking the bottom of the toilet pan as you could find. A perfect example of lunacy uncontrolled. Twitter was invented for scumbags such as he. (And Julian Burnside Queer Customer who called Tony Abbott a pedefile.Z)

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  2. Adding this slime to Mike Carlton's slobberings last Saturday makes me wonder if Fairfax Media will invite Ann Summers to write an essay on vile, sexist abuse of politicians. She was so worked up over alleged abuse of Julia Gillard. I'm sure she's fuming somewhere over all this.

    Pedro of Adelaide

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  3. Is Sarah Oakes related to Laurie Oakes? It's just that when you come across two people with the same surname working in the media in Australia, it's a reasonable prima facie assumption.

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    1. Don't think so - Laurie's daughter's name is Kylie.

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    2. Your assumption is misplaced....particularly in Their ABC where there are a considerable number of "partners" sucking on the public teat together, but all using their respective birth names to avoid startling the punters.

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  4. Good god I hate Fairfax. The decline of their share price is a perpetual joy.

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  5. So I go too see Clementine Ford's story, to see what the fuss is about- and I am immediately
    distracted by the CAR.
    A 1966 Pontiac GTO is a very desirable device -
    luckily I had Clementine's warning to help manage the tumescence.

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    Replies
    1. I immediately sent an E-mail to Peter Slipper on this subject since he apparently knows quite a bit about the subject. As indeed he does....

      The former Speaker assures me that the latest Ford model is a MUSSEL car!

      Delete
  6. The Old and Unimproved DaveAugust 20, 2013 at 7:01 PM

    The Fairfax Motto..."Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you".

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  7. Ack!
    http://www.storyology.org.au/speakers/sarah-oakes

    "Which other storytellers do you admire?

    Here: Anne Summers, Alecia Simmonds, Jacqueline Maley, Clem Bastow, Natalie Reilly, Rachel Hills, Clementine Ford, Stephanie Wood, Benjamin Jenkins, Benjamin Law"

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  8. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.August 20, 2013 at 8:09 PM

    Hey girl, clearly you've never met an honest loving man in your life.

    Small wonder you are 35, unmarried, babyless and miserable.

    Do y'know what you are doing wrong? Everything.

    No need to thank me. My pleasure.

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  9. I think Fauxfacts' two great mastheads, ShakeMyHead.com and Pravda-on-Yarra, are doing a splendid audition for their future role as a daily online version of Green Left Weekly, with 5000-10,000 unique browsers each - enough to support an editor on the Indonesian minimum wage and a work-experience gofer to fetch the coffee.

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  10. Today I was witness to a completely earnest discussion in a Facebook thread, between blindly left-leaning (but otherwise warm and fuzzy friends), about whether or not Mike Carlton's column (here http://www.theage.com.au/comment/dont-quote-me-says-tony-but-maaate-8230-20130816-2s1zy.html) was a genuine interview or not.

    I resisted pointing out that their debate begged two questions: (1) would the Liberal Party have really elected as its leader a person whose behaviour and character are so appalling that it is not possible to distinguish between reportage and satire? and (2) are the readers of particular mastheads so indoctrinated by an unrelenting hate campaign mounted by a person's opponents (ergo, your starting point should always be skepticism) that they are unable to distinguish satire from reportage? I resisted making this comment because I realised that (3) Mike Carlton's attempts at satire are crap, making all other debates moot.

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    Replies
    1. Of course it was genuine. Such ravings are the unmistakably genuine product of his genuinely unstable mind. Next, a Shakespearian sonnet …

      Cheers

      Delete
  11. That final line was a scorcher Prof, one of the best I've read all year. .
    Were someone with half a brain to bring it to Corbett's attention, it would be of great benefit to him. If he isn't shamed by that then there is something wrong with him.
    mr.simmon

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  12. Putting on a po-face, may I say that this sort of vile abuse - which is very commonly found on 'social media' sites - is damaging to the quality of our social life.

    The law does set limits. Abbott might of course sue in defamation, although this is risky for a politician. He has been defamed so often and by so many that he could probably fund the PPL scheme with the damages. I like to think he's saving them up until elected.

    Then there is criminal defamation. It is little used, but may be the most effective deterrent. If the police are pressed often enough, there might be some action.

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  13. Although the comments about TA are deplorable, they demonstrate a severe desperation on the left's part to cut the man down by any means possible.
    Unfortunately for them, their own standing in the community puts even the Abbott ankles far above their reach.

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