JEN MAROHASY reports that Media Watch's sleuths are still working the phones, still trying to mount their expose of a woman who dares to hold incorrect opinions about estuarine tidal flows. Here is how she describes her ongoing ordeal at the hands of the ABC:
Last week the ABC phoned around to get snips of fact about me that it could intertwine with lies with a plan for a national broadcast Monday night on its Media Watch program. I tried to head-that-off with full and frank answers to the many questions they asked me. Indeed I provided them with a lot of information that was none of their business.
But not content with all of that, this week ABC journalists and researchers continue with the same activity; they continue to phone about. And from the feedback I have received from those the ABC has phoned: they continue to peddle misinformation about me, and misinformation about the natural history of the Murray River.
These activities are undertaken at tax payer expense, but there is no way I can find out who specifically they are phoning, or what specifically they are telling people.
While Jen wonders when it will end, Jo Nova knows where it needs to end:
What is it when a government agency “questions” all your friends and acquaintances, digging for dirt and spreading untruths, because you criticize government policy? When state-funded psychologists like Lewandowsky call you crazy for disagreeing with the government’s policy to control the climate? What sort of state do we live in now?
There is no half-way measure worth taking. It’s time to ask for our money back. Let the ABC raise their own from voluntary consenting citizens, or give us a vote that counts so we can object when our tax dollars are used against us.
And the funny thing about all this? The people ginning up Jonathan Holmes' juvenile delinquents -- that would be the Australian Conservation Foundation, for starters -- detest Marohasy because she wants to see the Murray's mouth restored to the way it was when Matthew Flinders came upon sailed right past and missed it.*
Just to repeat, nature-loving greens are fighting to protect a dam. It is not about saving the environment and never has been. It is about money and power and, most of all, control of life's every aspect, from water flows to speech.
* Thanks to reader Philby, who points out in comments that the navigator didn't notice the river's mouth, an oversight that supports Marohasy's insistence that the river was sometimes open to the sea and sometimes wasn't.
"Conflicts of interest, bank backflips, deceit, misrepresentation, manipulation, plagiarism, abuse of power, technical lies and straight out fraud: Media Watch has built an unrivalled record of exposing media shenanigans since it first went to air in 1989."
ReplyDeleteExcept of course when none of the above apply and we just want to smear you because you disagree with the governments agenda, in which case we'll keep digging until we find something ... anything ... come on guys ... there must be some dirt!
Now all we need to say is "Fabian", and the intellectual journey will have arrived.
ReplyDeleteInteresting when the Age and the ABC quote Jamie Pittock as a "water expert" when almost his entire career has been as an environmental activist with the WWF.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bid-to-cut-risk-of-floods-20120305-1uehn.html
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/qld-floods-jamie-pittock/3013374
http://ussc.edu.au/people/jamie-pittock
The ABC has green bias? Get the T-shirt!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cafepress.com.au/+green-bias-abc+t-shirts
Jo Nova nails it. The nasties are in town.
ReplyDeleteThe Murray mouth is the same now as in Flinder's time. Or it would be if modifications up the entire river had not drastically altered the "natural" flow to a trickle. If you want the mouth natural again you will need to remove all the dams and weirs upstream. The 'barrages' which seem to upset people upstream are between the estuarine Coorong and the Lakes. Nothing to do with the mouth. There is a monumental ignorance about the lower Murray in the eastern states. They know little, and care less.
ReplyDeletePedro of Adelaide
Nothing to do with the mouth Pedro?
DeleteThe barrages stop the natural interaction between the river and the sea that was not apparent to Flinders (who did not mark a river mouth on his map) but was to Sturt (who recorded an unsuccessful attempt to access the ocean and had to row back upstream). Sturt also noted that the water at the bottom of the lake was salty. And the last time the Murray "slowed to a trickle" was in 1945 near the end of the fearful WW2 drought when, according to the BoM it stopped flowing at Echuca. Thanks to those upstream dams it has flowed ever since.
However the Professor's post is not about South Australia's water rights but about the ABC's right to demand answers of Dr Marohasy that it does not demand of others.
In the eastern states we recognise that as monumental ignorance.
quite right, Aard. The Murray debate is a topic about which, for want of never having looked into it, agnosticism is the only option. Mind you, what Marohasy says makes sense, and it conforms with the arrogant meddling green romantics have inflicted on Victoia, much to the detriment of the High Country in particular.
DeleteRegardless of the Murray debate, it it is the ABC's willingness to take up the cause of groups its employees support that is shocking here.
How many manhours, er personhours have gone into the attempt on Marohasy's character and credibility?
How manyy manhours have gone into tracking down riot boy Tony Hodges and his prior contacts with gallery members?
I know which of those topics is of more apparent relevance to Media Watch's stated brief. And we all know which of those will never, ever be fodder for Holmes' smugging.
When state-funded psychologists like Lewandowsky call you crazy for disagreeing with the government’s policy to control the climate? What sort of state do we live in now?
ReplyDeleteWhy, the same state where the new-conservatives call conservatives homophobes of course.
Quite right; it is now nonsense to talk about Andrew Bolt as a conservative. To the best of my knowledge Australia doesn't have any conservatives in main stream media.
DeleteWhilst we continue to arbitrarily fund this lying pack of warmest leftists, we'll continue to put up with the bile they broadcast! Simple as that! Stop funding the bastards, and they'll wither and die!
ReplyDeleteProfessor, Matthew Flinders never 'came across' the Murray mouth. He missed it by several miles.
ReplyDeleteIf this 'planned' programme does make it to air,I want Media Watch host, Jonathon Holmes, to explain why Jennifer Morohasy is such a target. I understand she is a Scientist not some hack journalist working for an arm of the media. The show is Media Watch not Science Watch, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteJMH
Good Point. But we know only too well that the ABC is not following a principled course. Consider this quote by the esteemed Mr Boyer, back when the ABC was part of the essential fibre of our nation - I saw the quote in the hate media - sorry, The Australian, today: "It is our hope that national broadcasting may stand solid and serene in the middle of our national life, running no campaign, seeking to persuade no opinion, but presenting the issues freely and fearlessly for the calm judgment of our people."
DeleteBut here we are, in 2012, with the ABC acting as a player, prosecuting its agendum on a daily basis and deserving the scorn we heap upon it just as often. And the latest series of Boyer lectures (2011) were presented as a series of thought bubbles by a former Fairfax journalist.
I find this very puzzling. There are two questions which stand out:
ReplyDelete1) Why are the Media Watch hounds going after Jennifer Morohasy? To the best of my knowledge, she isn't a proprietor of a newspaper, nor is she a journalist.
2) Why is the WWF opposed to removing the barriers blocking the Murray River from the sea? I thought these guys were opposed to dams and wanted to let "the rivers run free".
To Pedro of Adelaide, suggest you follow the link http://www.murrayriver.com.au/river-towns/barrages/ which has as the first sub-heading "keeping the seawater out".
ReplyDeleteWhat is also handy about the link is there is a lovely diagram showing where each barrage is located and how it might keep "the seawater out". While I think the whole issue is not as simplistic as just pulling out/opening the barrages, maybe if you drove further south than ANZAC highway (even if only on Google Earth) your contribution might be more informed.
Try this website www.LakesNeedWater.org that has been around for three years chronicling what happened to the Lakes during the last drought when the barrages were shut against the ocean. A local SA group that would like to see the estuary restored.
ReplyDeleteRestoring the estuary would take remedial work, dredging, alternative water infrastructure, etc. Nobody has ever said it was simple. But it would droughtproof the Lakes.
There are plenty of historical references to the Lakes as estuaries before all the dairy farmers decided they should be freshwater lakes back in the 1930's.
And there are several Google maps showing the location of the barrages.