Monday, October 22, 2012

No Laughing Matter



AS VISITORS to this little blog will know, unseemly language isn’t appreciated, so this post may strike some as an exercise in hypocrisy. Why decry obscenity’s public ubiquity only to broadcast more of it, you may ask? Well, given that Australia’s quality journalists have lately become the most ardent disciples of Thomas Bowdler in declining to repeat that joke from the CFMEU dinner about Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin, the gag that failed to outrage various members of the Gillard cabinet until their media advisers noted that such a reaction would be a good idea, it seems a civic obligation to pass it on.

We all believe in fairness and equity, after all, and memory serves up no other recent example of self-censorship embraced with such silent gusto. Indeed, the enthusiasm to tattle overheard examples of Tony Abbott’s salty tongue makes this eruption of reticence curious indeed. For those with poor memories, here are a couple of reminders: 


The ever-reliable Michelle Grattan used the above incident to speculate at length on the Opposition leader’s fitness of character, while little protégé Phillip Coorey performed a double twist with pike in order to splash a further exploration of that same subject, even as he conceded that accusing “Abbott of deliberately making light of a trooper's death is absurd.”

Then there was this, another eavesdropped incident resurrected of late to build the case for Abbott’s innate sexism: 


All this makes media silence about that CFMEU joke a mystery – or rather, it would be if not for the gallery’s determination to kill a dying industry all the more quickly was not self-evident. With Fairfax stock at 36 cents (as of Friday) and News Ltd crippling its push to digital  it is one field of endeavour in which quality journalists and their corporate masters cannot be faulted. The other, of course, is the stenographers' selective candour.
Tony Abbott's chief of staff Peta Credlin does a good Head job. Come Clean. Abbott calls her the Vacuum Cleaner she cleans up his messes.

The excuse for not publishing that joke is that it is slanderous and would see media organisations and reporters sued for defamation.

Yeah, right.

18 comments:

  1. A paid comedian delivered THAT! More misuse of union funds.

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  2. The most offensive thing about that joke is its utter failure to be actually funny.

    It displays about the same level of wit as a particularly troglodyte twelve-year-old haw-haw-hawing, 'ya mama's so fat!'

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  3. Lets see Alan Jones run with this.

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  4. Maybe editors thought that, the world being incurably sexist as it is, this slur falls more heavily on female Credlin and not much on male Abbott and editors figured that she is not a politician nor in the public eye and didn't really deserve to be in this kind of gratuitous and salacious line-of-fire. When it comes to the crunch the world is sexist and probably always will be. Perhaps this caused a rare moment of media restraint in this world of little restraint.

    Pedro of Adelaide

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  5. I would like to know who the two female comedians were that caused a walkout at the National Family Law Conference at Hobart because they were so disgusting.

    No names were mentioned. What is the cause of this reticence by the msm.

    Try to work it out...disgusting, crude, Melbourne....the chances are it was Deveny and Hardy.
    Does anyone know?
    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/blue-sketch-inadmissible-as-senior-judges-walk-out-20121020-27yiu.html#ixzz29rk3pJFx

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  6. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.October 22, 2012 at 1:49 PM

    Well Prof, not only is it nasty, it is also completely lame. The joke you have when you're not having a joke, merely a slur.

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  7. That's a joke?
    Perhaps that's what they found offensive, it just was not funny.

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  8. Good to see the Professor has resources the msm apparently lacks. I Posted the following on the Destroy the Joint facebook page. It lasted all of two minutes and, naturally, I have been barred from commenting on their page:

    "Wow, love your description:

    "This page is for people who are sick of the sexism dished out to women in public roles in Australia, whether they be our Prime Minister or any other woman". So what are we going to do about Swan and the other
    Labor MPs like Roxon who thought the joke at the CFMEU event was funny? You know, this joke:

    "Tony Abbott's chief of staff Peta Credlin does a good Head job. Come Clean. Abbott calls her the Vacuum Cleaner she cleans up his messes."

    So any outrageous outrage forth coming anytime soon? Or is that only reserved for conservatives?
    http://bunyipitude.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/no-laughing-matter.html"

    The thing is, Destroy the Joint" is supposed to be non-partisan. LOL

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  9. AB on his blog today "For the Liberals a lesson: whenever you can, drag the debate out of the Internet/media/Canberra bubble and into the streets. And talk about your topics, not Labor’s."

    Exactly.

    'Journalists Are the Stars'
    http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2012/10/christopher-lasch-on-presidental-debates/

    'We Live in a Media State'
    http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/023429.html

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  10. THANK YOU Prof Bunyip for "scratching that itch of mine" (if I may be as vulgar). Without being more voyeuristic than your average reader of 50 shades of grey, I really wanted to know HOW bad that "bad joke" was. And it is really even worse than expected because the level of humor is soooo Albanese.

    As to the systematic cover-ups by this Greens/Labor/Unions/ABC/SBS/Press Gallery&assorted media bunch, they are putting the former Stasi in the shade.

    Also, like Bel Marduk above I would like to get a synopsis of these offensive "sketches" and the name of the "Aaaahrtists" too. Lets lift the skirts on all that misogynistic stench.

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  11. I'm deeply offended by it being described as a "joke".

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  12. You'd have to get shickered at a great rate of knots for that to seem funny. You'd have to be as drunk as unionists at a conference.

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  13. Anyone else feel their skin crawl as the immature, and yes, repulsive Ms Roxon tried to mouth her nastiness?

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  14. The left fully support misogyny provided it is used in attacking women who don't vote for them.

    Where is the confected outrage of Destroy the Joint against the maggot Billison who said the joke?

    Will Jenna Price and her minions force him to undergo re-education at her cutprice UTS rate?

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  15. Not sure how anyone could possibly be offended by what Abbott said to Roxon.
    Note he said "THAT'S bullshit" ..... which is a criticism of what Roxon SAID, not an ad hominem (feminem?) attack.
    The handbag brigade can't make up their tiny pea-sized minds.
    They want to be treated as equals mostly, but when they say something stupid, they want to be treated as "ladies" .
    In any case, Roxon will be back doing suburban conveyancing when Tony is PM.

    The Irish Lion

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  16. Bill Clinton is about to taste Monica's revenge, as reported here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205490/Monica-Lewinsky-writing-tell-memoir-including-secret-love-letters-Clinton.html

    It will be more than Bill Shorten who taste the revenge of Peta Credlin in the coming months.

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  17. Prof I thought you might like this. It's a young bloke trying to get women to sign a petition to end women's suffrage.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uPcthZL2RE

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  18. Now I really don't think the JOKE? is even vaguely comic, and it appears that the genre of the "comedian" and his offered funny, blends in extremely with the audience, most of whom seemed to relish it. Are we not a lucky lot to be led by this bunch of clowns?

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