New Idea 1, Holmes 0

WHAT a pity Jonathan Holmes and Media Watch will not be with us again until well into next year.

It would warm the heart to hear an old queen congratulate the queen-to-be on her happy news, and perhaps to say something nice about New Idea.

Media Botch

SOMEWHERE in a tear-stained corner of the Media Watch HQ a researcher is feeling bruised, battered and bitterly disappointed. That person also should be burdened with guilt, but as this is the ABC we are talking about, that emotion will be a non-starter, despite the drubbing Jen Marohasy has just dispensed.

Here is how we can assume it went down, going on what newsroom types have told the Professor is Media Watch's standard operating procedure. Late on Friday, Marohasy would have received a swag of questions from one of the altar boys who kneel before Jonathan Holmes’ pulpit. These always arrive on Fridays to catch the target unaware and, more important, to permit inadequate time to compile a comprehensive response. There would have been follow-up communications as well, all stressing that the show has a deadline and repeating the need to respond ASAP. By Monday, further attempts to respond would be rejected on the grounds that the show's shooting schedule was so far advanced no changes or amplifications could be included.

Marohasy’s crime is to have argued with great energy and much evidence that the Murray’s lower lakes are being stuffed by the gates which prevent seawater flooding in when drought reduces freshwater flows. Marohasy maintains the lakes and the ecology they support are better served by allowing them to become brackish from time to time. The tone of Media Watch’s question was accusatory, the implication being that Marohasy was in the pay of “irrigators and water-rights entrepreneurs” who wish to spread more Murray water on their upstream crops.

From this we can conclude that someone at the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, or some other group had worded up a mate at Media Watch and provided their version of the settled science about how the lakes have always been freshwater etc. As the catastropharian Robyn Williams is the ABC’s science editor, an empty test tube if ever there was one, it is safe to assume that familiarity with scientific methods and matters in the Media Watch compound is best measured with a microscope. Indeed, given the youth of what one gathers to be a typical Media Watch researcher it would be a surprise if an appreciation for science extended any further than a recognition of the need to drink more water while under the influence over Ecstasy.

Well Holmes’ crew picked the wrong woman. Marohasy puts down their questions like a vet with an old dog. Gently, calmly, but ever-so-firmly she answers them all. The exchange is now on her website.

She also contacted her lawyer and had her warn Media Watch to be very, very careful.

And guess what? Holmes junior league crusaders backed right off, dropped the story and ran away. The item will not be running tonight, although there is no guarantee the blunt tools in Holmes drawers will not go back to their green mates for fresh ammunition. Fools and fanatics, particularly the publicly funded varieties, are like that: they never know quite when to stop.

As for Media Watch, being forced to can the Marohasy hatchet job must have left a hole in tonight’s show, so Holmes could need something fresh and scandalous to justify a bit more of his pouting and smugging. Time is short, so why doesn't he hunt close to home?

Why not examine your own show’s methods, Jonathan? And while you are at, what about correcting the record in regard to the deletion of Milly Dowler’s voicemails, or is regret another of those sentiments unknown to ABC types?

How many weeks has it been now?

     

An Un-Appealing Prospect

THIS IS worrying:

THE below article was the subject of a decision of the Federal Court on 28 September 2011 that it contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). To view a full copy of the Federal Court decision please access the following link: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2011/1103.html.

That just-added announcement on the Adelaide Now web site precedes an archived copy of Andrew Bolt’s celebrated column, “It’s So Hip To Be Black”.

News Limited has until Wednesday to appeal Judge Mordy’s ruling that the columnist is guilty of being less than kind to white Aborigines. Does the warning’s addition to the page indicate that News Limited is unlikely to appeal? Readers with legal backgrounds who might care to interpret the announcement’s sudden appearance are welcome to do so in comments. But at the Billabong, anxiety is mounting.

A month or so ago, a trivial error in Glenn Milne’s column about our PM’s fling with a union swindler saw it pulled. All it took was a couple of presumably threatening phone calls to News Limited chieftain John Hartigan and down the memory hole it went, its disappearance marked only by craven apologies published even on News Limited web sites that did not carry the original article. That decision reeked of cowardice, not to mention a disregard for the sanctity of a free and inquiring press which Hartigan claims to hold dear. To all intents and purposes the voting public now has no way of learning more of home renovations paid for with siphoned funds, of $17,000 worth of frocks, or of the honesty of a woman who, although 35 and a rising Labor lawyer at the time of her relationship with thre light-fingered Bruce Wilson, now invokes the excuse of having been “young and naïve”. The Fairfax press will not pose those questions, having long ago been colonised by journalists and editors who barrack for causes, not unfiltered truths. The ABC is marginally worse, as anyone who has witnessed Jonathan Holmes urging viewers to file complaints against Alan Jones and others will surely appreciate.

That leaves only News Limited. An imperfect champion at the best of times, it was at least prepared to have a go. If it fails to appeal the Bolt ruling, perhaps in the hope that a supine silence might make the coming ordeal before the press inquiry less painful, access to truth in Australia will be well and truly stuffed.

Two days remain before an appeal must be lodged. If it isn’t, then Hartigan might want to consider a supreme irony: Up until now conservatives have indulged News Limited’s domination of the Old Media marketplace, preferring to view Hartigan’s company as the sole source of alternate perspectives. But if it is now in retreat on matters of principle and open inquiry, why not support its dismantling?

We would be better off with half a dozen different and competing press proprietors. With any luck one of them might boast a decent set of balls.

Jonathan Holmes, Matchmaker

SHOULD a media watchdog really be referring publicists for activist organizations to journalists likely to be sympathetic to their cause – especially if the query concerns an upcoming “media regulation” campaign that, given the group's activities in the UK, will almost certainly be aimed at News Ltd?

Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes appears to think it is just fine.

@amyabarry Amy Barry

@BernardKeane Hi Bernard Jonathan Holmes suggested I get in touch to talk about media regulation for possible @avaaz campaign in Oz.. DM me?

More on Avaaz here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: How Avaaz works (scroll down to Hilton Hotels vs. The Rape Trade):

24 hours after 317,000 Avaazers called on the Hilton CEO to sign a code of conduct on the rape trade or face hard-hitting ads in his hometown, we got a frantic call from his vice-president. 'You're going to WHAT?', she asked. Hilton had dragged its feet for months. We gave them four days, and they signed. Now 180,000 hotel employees will be trained to spot and prevent the horror of of sex slavery of women and girls.

Why a hotel chain should be held accountable for rape is not immediately clear. Perhaps Jonathan Holmes can explain the connection next week on Media Watch.

Wendy's Wonderland -- Part V

NOT long after Media Watch went to air last night with its item about sea level’s disappointing refusal to rise as quickly as recipients of climate science grants would wish, Sultan of Smug Jonathan Holmes was exchanging tweets with detractors, admirers and friends. Background Briefing’s Wendy Carlisle was very definitely in the third category.

Now visitors to this blog may recall a series of recent posts on the topic of Carlisle’s poxed work, The Lord Monckton Roadshow. These cited, and linked to, documents she presented as supporting her contentions that

(a) Fred Singer rejected the link between tobacco and cancer,

(b) polar biologists did not attribute drowned polar bears to a storm, rather than a lack of ice, and

(c) Viscount Monckton’s number for sea-level rise is wrong, but less so than Al Gore’s.

Upon examination, it became clear those same documents actually refuted her narrative’s assertions, which were the product of (a) mischief, (b) misrepresentation and (c) mis-reading.

When avid tweeter spot_the_dog brought the posts to her attention, she dealt with the matter by the simple expedient of banishing him, and his questions, from her in box. This is an example of the arrogance others who question her reporting have also tasted. How Holmes reacted to notes from Bunyipitude readers – several have written to say they alerted the media watchdog to his ABC colleague’s travesty -- remains unknown, as no public word or tweet on the topic has passed his well-paid lips.

He has, however, been a good deal more forthcoming with Carlisle, who sent him a little tweet as the sea-level item was coming to an end.

@Wendycarlisle Wendy Carlisle

@jonaholmesMW @abcscience online ran the same stupid story on brady

…which prompted the following exchange:

jonaholmesMW Jonathan Holmes

@Wendycarlisle at least ABC gave CSIRO a right of reply

14 hours ago

in reply:

@Wendycarlisle Wendy Carlisle

@jonaholmesMW yes we shld be thankful for that. But gave Brady a cred that was undeserved. Had you seen it?

There was another tweet, too, with a jocular references to “passing the bottle” and Carlisle making a mock apology for her “impertinent filthy question”. One gets the distinct impression these two are (a) bonza cobbers, (b) ardent warmists and (c) further united by a contempt for those who are not.

Perhaps Holmes has been too busy to set shared climate convictions aside and examine his ABC colleague’s handiwork, but that seems unlikely in the light of the gusto with which he picked at The Australian’s sea-level story. Meanwhile, the duo's display of public affection and mutual regard does raise the suspicion that Holmes will always prefer to look anywhere but in Carlisle’s direction for his show’s targets. And if he has trouble finding them, Carlisle will provide a few suggestions to confirm his aim.

What was it they used to say about Caesar’s wife, that she should be above reproach?

The ABC, it never ceases to amaze. Here we have a fellow paid, and paid well, to keep an eye on slackness-and-worse in the media, yet demonstrating an affectionate eagerness to take advice from someone accused of slackness-or-worse in the media. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Brady, who scored Media Watch’s disdain for being not only a sceptic but a paleontologist to boot (be warned, Tim Flannery), cops both barrels and a salvo of sneers.

It really is an organization to make the jaw drop, their ABC, and not just for putting groupthink and bias on open display. When it comes to a brazen contempt even for the appearance of doing its duty, your tax dollars have never supported its equal.

Wendy's (Other) Wonderland -- Part IV

IT is not just nefarious climate deniers and Bunyips in the pay of Big Carbon who think that, as a journalist, Background Briefing's Wendy Carlisle makes a first-rate propagandist. The mouthpiece for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Sandi Logan, shares that opinion:

@SandiHLogan Sandi Logan

Don't know about that @wendycarlisle - it was never 4500; it's 4000 UNHCR assessed refugees over four years. Important to get/choose facts.

A sniffy Carlisle fires back:

@Wendycarlisle Wendy Carlisle

thanks for the tips on how to do journalism

...to which Logan responds:

@SandiHLogan Sandi Logan

You call it spin when you don't like what you @Wendycarlisle read; you patronise when you're wrong, & are corrected. Nice. Journalism 101?

Please, Sandi, you really must stop highlighting Carlisle's deficiencies. Poor Jonathan Holmes has enough already to ignore tonight.

UPDATE:  At Catallaxy, Judith Sloan writes of the ABC, a debate with Mark Scott (ABC supremo, ex-Fairfax chief Fred Hilmer's godson and --no nepotism there -- former Fairfax high-flier). Here is Sloan's summation of the ABC complaints process:

So here is the ABC’s complaints-handing rule-book (I know – I decided to road-test it a while back – some little clerk got back to me after nearly two months: COMPLAINT REJECTED.)

• Treat the complainant as dim-wit, using a patronizing tone;
• Refer obliquely to the matter raised but declare that all approaches to journalism are equally valid;
• Assure the complainant that the matter has been thoroughly investigated;
• Tell the complainant that management takes all complaints very seriously;
• Finally, quote the internet address of the Editorial Guidelines.

What Sloan is too nice to note: Scott is one more of those jumped-up pen pushers, albeit with delusions of grandeur and the public purse to indulge them.

Your Taxes At Work

TAKE it from a media expert:

...both ABC and Fairfax are scrupulously balanced on policy debate. And they don't call anyone a bitch

Surreal.

Hywood's Hire Calling

WHEN declining to examine the media sins he regards as the merely venal  (Drum editors “nudging” elections toward the left, for example) or, on a more active day, suggesting with a wink that warmists should seek the authorities’ help in gagging those low sorts who deny all that settled science, the ABC’s Jonathan Holmes sometimes allows Media Watch to, well, watch the media. It doesn’t happen all that often, so last night, when a chat with Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood was billed as occupying  the entire show, it seemed there was a chance the sort of journalism found daily in the Silly, Phage and Finis might get just a little bit of attention.

Well, it did, sort of. Taking the line he has been throwing to other media outlets, Hywood swore that his company’s worst days were over – there is no more classifieds revenue left to lose, which is apparently a wonderful thing – while further promising Fairfax would be stepping up its investment in the words. Holmes nodded with approval at all this, but pointedly declined to pose the question that suggests itself most readily to many former Fairfax readers and ex-advertisers: What sort of journalism, exactly? From Holmes’ disinclination to further pursue the topic and Hywood’s passed-up opportunity to expand upon it, the immediate suspicion was that neither man sees any great need to embrace a broader diversity of opinion or, more to the point, to replace editors who believe it their responsibility to filter the news rather than examine and report it.

And thus they chatted agreeably for the remainder of the show -- Hywood’s composure never ruffled, for example, by any request for an explanation about the Fairfax press’ absolute refusal to report Larissa Behrendt’s preference for equine lust over the opinion of someone with whom she disagrees. That silence has been reigning for the past two weeks, ever since the infamous tweet, so it would have been encouraging to hear Hywood say he aims to recruit people who are prepared to look at and write on such matters, even if they must hold their noses while doing so.

And then there were the CEO’s thoughts on the Australian Financial Review, where he restricted his observations to the possibility of revamping the business model for the paper’s web site. All very well and good but, again, not a hint of a whisper of a suggestion that it might be the likes of Laura Tingle, Labor apologist and Alan Ramsay’s love slave, who might be driving away readers. Nor in regard to the paper’s opinion page was there any acknowledgment that it is a very silly policy to allow John Quiggin, week after week, to sing the praises of taxes, regulation and wealth redistribution to a readership that loathes the first, despises the second and lives in fear of the third. Wouldn’t it have been lovely to hear Hywood say that the Finis' opinion section was never better than when in the care of Tom Switzer (now running the Spectator in Australia).

The most optimistic gloss to be drawn from the Holmes/Hywood shmooz-a-rama is that, just maybe, the Fairfax chieftain, who is said to be quite sharp, understands there can be no future in alienated readers and that he declined to telegraph that conclusion for fear of prompting a luvvies’ revolt.

If that is not the case, if he really does intend to invest more money in the same old selective blindness, endemic bias and the insititutional affection for all things left, then there is no chance Fairfax will forsake its position as the market’s most-shorted stock. Hywood can put all the money his board will permit into boosting editorial budgets, but if it does no more than hire more of the same his company is finished. It really is that simple.

UPDATE: More on Fairfax, Hywood and the Finis from Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy