Yesterday's Talking Points

IT MUST have been chaos at the ABC yesterday as 7:30 prepared to go to air. They had a report ready and all set to go with the day before's talking points, the line that Tony Abbott incited the restaurant riot, when news reached them that a Gillard spinner had been caught out (and promptly thrown out).

What to do?

Well in quality-journalism ABC-style, the show began with a simple recitation of the press release announcing Tony Hodges' departure. He had contacted "a person", the talking head said, not bothering to wonder who that person might be, what he or she was told or why, per the PM's office, it was not a good thing to pass along information of the Opposition leader's itinerary. That box ticked, 7:30 went back to the original script.


The item can be found here. The Abbott smear comes at about the 2:20 mark

Marieke's Money Shot

WHEN Marieke Hardy's red-raggin' grandad, Frank Hardy, wrote a roman a clef of Melbourne life and corruption, he was sued for defamation by John Wren's widow, a devout, Mass-every-morning lady who took umbrage that his readers might conclude she had taken a lover, as did the wife of the novel's central character. Hardy won the case on the grounds that, as the widow had never had an affair nor done anything else untoward, she could not possibly be the inspiration for the Power Without Glory character.

That was some very smart lawyering right there, but such logic would quite clearly have done First Tuesday Book Club's resident doxy no good in her just-settled legal tussle with inoffensive blogger Joshua Meggitt, who will collect a reported $13,000 for having been branded a stalker. Hardy not only named the wrong man, her travails have inspired the real needler to go back on line.

Hardy need not worry too much, however. Her admirers are flooding the comments with witty quips about the tormenter's misshapen private parts, amorous interest in dogs and solitary habits. Marieke must be so chuffed to have a legion of supporters who express their admiration via imitation, the sincerest form of flattery.

Less pleased, perhaps, will be Jonathan Green of the Drum, whose site re-broadcast Marieke's wrongly directed assault on Meggitt, omitting only his name (which was common knowledge all over the web). It is too much to hope that one of the legal wizards who defended old Frank might still be working and ready for a brief, but the Drum is going to need someone of equal calibre if it is to wriggle out of this one. As Meggitt's lawyer, Stuart Gibson, notes, "'where an original publisher apologises, one would be foolish to ignore subsequent republishers of the same material''. Especially a slur that remains on the site to this day.

If this all works out as it probably will, what a happy result! Marieke gets back her $13,000 via First Tuesday tit-wiggling and suspender-flashing, while her new column for young Ben Knapsack, who is taking charge of Fairfax's Good Weekend, also will be a nice little earner. Meanwhile, those forking out 8 cents a day (or is now 25c?) can take heart that some of it may end up in Meggitt's pocket, rather underwriting the further misadventures of their ABC.

Boycott The ABC

THERE is much to be said for Sinclair Davidson, of RMIT and Catallaxy, who seems a very sensible fellow. But there is one of his irregular endeavours which he really needs to renounce: writing for The Drum. He is not alone in this, as a small contingent of free marketeers, libertarians and conservatives also places its thoughts on Jonathan Green's taxpayer-funder iteration of Crikey!, the site he formerly edited and whose politics and journalistic standards, such as they are, must have been prime recommendations when he was recruited by the ABC chapter of the New Establishment. The argument could be made that Sinclair and others are doing their bit to remedy The Drum's daily demonstation of the liberal limbo -- low as you can go while leaning way, way to the left. Unfortunately, while it is always nice to see flashes of good sense in a madhouse, the token presence of reputable sorts at The Drum is counterproductive.

Sooner or later, unless climate change drowns Canberra in the meantime, we can expect to see Prime Minister Abbott  set about the ABC with axe, cudgel and, ideally, thousands of letters informing current employees of their need to find new jobs. This will come as a terrible shock to Jonathan Holmes, who will blame Alan Jones, and to all the other members of collective, who will not enjoy being reminded that "work" is what their viewers and listeners are doing while they enjoy three-month summers breaks. The move also will be denounced in the Fairfax press, where the locusts who have eaten the heart out of fairness, in-house intelligence and truth will have been looking to the ABC for their further, low-exertion employment.

To grasp why Sinclair's well-intentioned urge to reach the widest audience is so misguided, picture the scene as the Senate Estimates Commitee gives Mark Scott the rounds of the kitchen for his indulgence of ideology and inaccuracy. That will be the moment when Fred Hilmer's nephew reaches into his briefcase and produces a sheaf of articles by Sinclair and others. Look here, he will say, we are open to opinions of all varieties and this portfolio of rabid extremism proves it. What Scott will not say is that, as Sinclair almost noted yesterday, any example of conservative thought on The Drum is published not to promote civil discussion or rational analysis but as an invitation for the site's commenting audience to let the bile pour forth.

Full disclosure: Some months ago, Green invited the Professor to contribute, but his letter went unanswered. What would be the point of allowing oneself and one's thoughts to become tokens and, within minutes of publication, an amusement for cretins who have learned how to click the "comment" tab?

In a perfect world, shunning the ABC would not stop at The Drum. How long have Coalition voters bemoaned the ABC's leftoid bias? Yet every day, at least when the current affairs shows are not taking 12-week breaks, conservatives dutifully present themselves for hectoring by Virginia Jones-Holmes and all the other composite characters extruded by the national broadcaster's groupthink. Yet we never do a damn thing to stop it, other than whine.

Wouldn't it be lovely if, the next time Tony Abbott or one of his colleagues is summoned to an ABC studio, he and they simply let the opportunity go through to the keeper. It would, at the very least, put the ABC on the back foot for a change, obliging Scott to explain why his organisation is not fouled with bias. Lost opportunities to spread the righteous word? No, not really. The larger chunk of the ABC's audience, the bit on the port side of politics, is not open to argument or persuasion, while the right-thinking minority would cheer long-awaited evidence that its side's flag-bearers are serious about doing something more constructive than grumbling amongst themselves.

Realism says that it is too much to expect a politician to spurn a microphone, even one that distorts his words. But for the rest of us, boycotting the ABC should be an easy choice -- indeed, an obligatory one.