Family Values

WHEN Christmas comes around one naturally thinks of families, more particularly what to buy them and how to put up with them. It’s a mug’s game, as every ounce of inspiration put toward the perfect gift will sure as eggs be answered with a present you did not want but over which you will feel obliged to emit squeals of delight. Socks and underpants are at least useful on formal occasions; the Collected Works of Noam Chomsky never. But one must smile all the same, because this is Christmas, hand over the keys to the cellar and feign delight as people who cannot tell if a vintage has turned to vinegar chuck down the good stuff and eat you out of house and home.

Ah, how sad it is! If only the Professor was a good leftist – like The Global Mail’s millionaire supremo Graeme Wood, for example – things would be so much more simple.

When the festive season began, the Wotif entrepreneur solved all his Yule dilemmas and Christmas catering quandaries by handing out lots and lots of discharge notices – think pink slips, not medical diagnoses -- to his staffers, those quality journalists who have made his site everything that it is and the $15 million in start-up cash so much smaller.

But family values were not forgotten. Amongst the few not pushed out the door was South American correspondent Nick Olle.

No doubt it is no more than a coincidence, but young Mr Olle is Graeme Wood’s stepson.

 

No doubt it is no more than a coincidence, but young Mr Olle is Graeme Wood’s stepson.

Out of the Picture

THAT Graeme Wood, the Global Mail’s sugar daddy, has more money than sense should by now be obvious to all, even allowing for the $1.7 million he has poured into the Greens. Somewhere north of 10 per cent of Australians believe Old Mother Milne to be sane, so it cannot be said that his political enthusiasms represent one of the rarer forms of madness. As an aspiring media proprietor, however, well he’s out there on the far borders of derangement.

Everyone – no, make that the few – who have visited his vanity press will know that, unlike the printed page or your standard web site, the Global Mail’s display moves sideways and is very annoying to read. Take for an example the work of youngster Joel Tozer, who has extruded this log of words about a chubby matron in leather trousers who enjoys sex with young men and is keen to turn a dollar on open-source porn. Why she should invest entrepreneurial effort in such a project is a mystery, given that there are many and much easier ways to line the pocket -- like calling Mr Wood, praising mung beans and asking for a spare million-or-so. He gives it away quite freely, so why should a slutty sixtysomething be denied? And if the mung beans prove an insufficient inducement, a stated preference for doing it sideways would certainly produce a cheque in the first post.

But enough of Wood’s money, for it is Tozer who is the real object of wonder. On Saturday, the intrepid cub journeyed to Sydney’s Hyde Park, where many sons of the Prophet were a’bristle with more than their usual quota of inchoate resentments. Tozer pulled out his little camera and snapped some pictures, one of which is below. Yes, that’s the one, the happy family shot of that junior jihadi and his sibling being prepared for a life of good, old fashioned, multicultural intolerance.

What a scoop, you might think. How thrilled Tozer must have been as he dialled the Global Mail office and screamed, “Hold the sideways slide, sweetheart. Do I have a picture for you!”

Except he didn’t. Tozer published the picture on Twitter and has yet to write a single word on the site of what he witnessed. There’s one of your up-and-coming quality journalists for you! Meanwhile, Tozer’s picture has gone around the world and the poor boy has been reduced to asking that more competent media organisations seek his permission to reproduce it. One gathers few have bothered.

Any other media boss would have been miffed. That picture might have been syndicated, bringing in royalties and re-print fees and boosting the Global Mail’s profile with people other than Fairfax refugees who have heard that the proprietor is a soft touch and will hire pretty much anyone with a yen for hot Green action and Old Mother Milne.

The sexygenarian in the leather trousers should look into that scenario. Now that Wood has played about with the written word, a move into non-profit movie production is quite likely the next step. What a pity Sideways has already been released.

Wotif You Tried Another Outfit?

IT IS a matter of personal preference, but when the urge to go walkabout visits the Billabong, it is usually a tent and fishing rod which are slung into the back of the Bunyipmobile. Others enjoy the comforts of fine hotels, and in this age of luxury it is online accommodation services to which most turn. Hotels are listed and rated, bargains announced, and almost everyone, with the exception of old-fashioned travel agents, has had reason to rejoice. Travellers get nice deals and companies can make good money, which has certainly been the case with Wotif.com. Indeed, founder Graeme Wood has done so well he can afford to indulge with seven-figure sums his hobby of encouraging political ratbaggery and journalistic preening. Some tycoons buy yachts or the embrace of pneumatic young women. Mr Wood draws satisfaction from the affection of Bob Brown. To each his own.

Someone who is not at all satisfied is YouTube poster Archie Luxury, who has released this clip under the title “Greenmount Beach ResortCoolangatta – Wotif.com Horror Story”. The phranger on the balcony seems to have been the final straw.

With the Rufous Bird making noises about how nice it would be to go for a tramp through Italy, Wotif’s listings and bargains will probably be checked. Every business has its bad days and mistakes can happen. But when the time comes to make a decision, Archie Luxury’s comments about the difficulty of getting a response to his request for a refund will be borne in mind. So, too, what Mr Wood might do with his profit from the Professor’s possible booking.

Others might also ponder the contradiction of booking travel with a company owned by a man who supports a party that opposes travel, especially the frivolous sort, which is what the Rufous Bird has in mind. How can Mr Wood sleep at night when the purchase of a Botega Venetta handbag is one potential customer's prime reason for jetting halfway around the world to a country where the fishing is probably not much good and it will be difficult to watch the opening rounds of the AFL season?

It is all so confusing, Hotels.com will probably get the business.  Readers planning jaunts should make their own decisions, but these things are worth keeping in mind.

The Wood On The Global Mail

THE BOYS and girls at GetUp are very upset about a video in which Viscount Monckton addresses a group of Australian mining execs. He tells them that if they want fair media coverage they will need to buy a media outlet. Now that Gina Rinehart has become the largest Fairfax shareholder, the video is Exhibit A in the activist group’s campaign to have its friends in Canberra make that nasty woman go away. If you have not seen it already, the clip is below.

Not much there, really, other than the evil GetUp purports to see, which in this case amounts to the appalling notion that free speech might be available to people other than pimply leftoid snots. Simply put, miners and climate sceptics should not be allowed to own media assets because they are, well, miners and climate sceptics. We’re all clear on that, right? Good, because now the logic gets a little twisted.

While the newspapers were full of Gina’s “raid” – and let us hope it is the start of a conquest, not a mere foray --  Monica Attard launched the Global Mail with $15 million supplied by internet entrepreneur Graeme Wood, who is by far and away the Greens’ largest and most enthusiastic donor.

So what’s the difference, you may wonder? Well, according to Attard, her benefactor is an altruist who cares only about quality journalism -- someone who would never, ever dream of leaning on the people he pays in order to advance the causes he supports. If you are one of those terminally cynical sorts, Attard has a ready answer. As she explained yesterday to the Australia’s media section, “Graeme is chairperson of The Global Mail board. He has no editorial input whatsoever.”

That is not what the Australian Election Commission might conclude, as it holds at least one document which makes Attard’s assertion appear rather hollow.

Filed on November 8, 2011, it lists Wood’s donations of $1,680,795 to the Greens from July to November 2010, when there was an election to be fought and a jolt of extra cash must have come in very handy. While such generosity is eye-popping, it is the email address Wood lists on the AEC form which is even more startling. It leaves no doubt the tycoon’s journalistic philanthropy and politics are one and the same:

In case your eyes are fading, the Greens’ mega-donor gives his contact email as graeme.wood@theglobalmail.org 

What was it Attard was saying about the boss having “no editorial input whatsoever”?  She might want to get a few of her investigative journalists to look into that.

A NOTE: There is no direct link to the document in the above post because it was a bugger to open and download. Those disinclined to take a Bunyip's word can drive themselves potty by tackling the following URLs.

http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Donor.aspx?SubmissionID=48&ClientID=29173

http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Returns/48/OSLR4.pdf

Wood's private number was blacked out at the Billabong.