The level of debate and discussion over media matters here in Australia is several steps up from that back home. It is also very robust, with ABC’s MediaWatch taking the lead, closely followed by Crikey. The Australian has a weekly Media section but it’s often forgettable.
Mediawatch over here is fronted by David Marr, who was described by Crikey recently as “forensically accurate”. He did make one minor error, though, in this week’s show which he duly corrected. That involved his war of words with Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt. Despite that Marr has easily had the best of the row.
Bolt attacked author Alison Broinowski as a grant fed artist and intimated her loyalty to Australia was suspect. It was a fairly typical rightist attack, lacking a lot of substance and relying much on hyperbole. While Broinowski did receive some minor grants in the 1980s, that was hardly enough to earn the epithet “grant fed”. She would have starved to death long ago if relying on this government largesse.
Crikey chimed in on the debate to reveal Bolt himself has fed deep of the government trough. He has apparently received more dosh from the ABC for appearances on its Insiders show than any other pundit. And this while he attacks the ABC for lefty bias! Very rich.
Now nobody would describe Crikey as “forensically accurate” – even just plain “accurate” is a stretch. But the site is great fun and produced on a shoestring. It’s an odd mix of shareholder activism, media commentary and scurrilous gossip. Wanna fly a kite, this is the place to do it.
I really should subscribe…
Crikey chimed in on the Bolt-Marr debate on several occasions, including a very amusing recycling of an old Bolt column to help establish his credibility. Check this out:
So keen to find evil-doers
By Andrew Bolt
THE strange thing about the "debate" over our treatment of asylum seekers is that so many "good" people are so keen to think we're monsters.
Earlier this week, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said Iraqi boatpeople had thrown their children overboard when HMAS Adelaide tried to turn their boat back to Indonesia.
He said our sailors had to jump into the sea to rescue some 14 children and adults.
Only a fool could think Ruddock would make this up, given the incident was witnessed by dozens of sailors and officers.
Yet by this morning the Greens and the Australian Democrats were muttering doubts about the truth of story. Refugee advocate Marion Le told Jon Faine on ABC radio 774 she'd had "doubts from the beginning" and called for a "full inquiry into what exactly did go on and whether or not these claims were true".
Then Faine demanded Ruddock provide "independent corroboration" for his claim, stating: "We can't any longer simply say, well, someone told me that might be what happened."
Elsewhere in this paper you can see the photographs of the incident which I got from the Defence Department simply by asking for them. Proof positive."
Thank you Andrew. Message received: we should never question our political masters, at least not our Liberal ones.
What I find interesting about these debates is that I’m sitting there watching MediaWatch, feeling pretty sophisticated and so forth, but the Girlie loves to watch it too. Marr really knows how to dish out a serve.
This week he slayed a couple of Channel 7 morning presenters who totally lost it when a guest used an expletive. Over several days they revisited the debacle, digging themselves an ever deeper hole. Marr displayed the dictionary definition of the offending word, “fuckwit”, and then suggested some illustrations to go with it: pictures of 7’s morning presenters.
Oh how the Girlie laughed.
In my experience, journalists and media types are far more sensitive to appearances in the media than most of their victims – it’s something they share with PRs who also hate to become the subject of a story. Back in NZ Warwick Roger, former editor of Metro, had a bit of a rep for issuing writs and threatening fellow journos when he felt slighted.
This always seemed bad form to me, but maybe that’s because I don’t have a reputation to uphold – except for drinking too much.