Chris Mitchell, The Australian, and yet another bout of self-criticism, self-hatred, fear and loathing ...

Men and women and wankers of Australia, and dipstick readers of The Australian, instead of this:

... i's time for this, as a more fitting supplement to The Australian:

And don't forget the chickz.

Which is by way of introduction to yet an insight into the way something very weird is going on at The Australian.

It's the most peculiar mix of paranoia and schizophrenia you ever did see in a rag which started life as a broadsheet, and now, as revealed in The price we pay when journalists lose the plot, has its heart and soul set on becoming a tabloid.

Talk about losing the plot, talk about existential alienation. Oh sorry, we shouldn't talk that way and use big words, what we meant to say is it feels kinda funny.

The weekend editorial's a classic whinge and a righteous piece of self-justification, and after explaining how press gallery journalists lean to the Left - you know, the way the press in the Murdoch press's share of the press gallery, which happens to control some 70% of the market, leans to the Left - here in essence is the argument:

There is a deeper malaise, as Chris Kenny writes in our pages today, born of the tendency for journalists to come increasingly from a tertiary-educated elite with a "disdain for the vulgarity, ignorance and prejudices of working families and their suburbs".

Well I don't mean to show disdain in a vulgar, ignorant and prejudiced way, but whoever scribbled that is surely a wanker of the first order, or the first water (but hang on, we shouldn't use technical terms from the gems trade). Didn't Kenny once work for Lord Downer and the Duke, Malcolm Turnbull, as a way of showing his dain for working families?

What's startling and revealing, except now it's become a constant bleat in The Australian's editorials, is the ritual abuse and disembowelling of tertiary-educated elites, most frequently by people who have more than a passing acquaintance with tertiary-educated elites.

The rag is supposed to appeal to the AB demographic, which is also littered with tertiary-educated elites, and which is why it parades so many AB demographic targeted scribblers, and prides itself on its advanced stories and features and business coverage, and so it constitutes a most peculiar form of self-loathing and reader abuse.

What need, for example, for the 'latest research' - presumably from tertiary educated leets - when putting together a magazine supplement designed to provide nice coloured splash ads for advertisers appealing to the AB demographic?

Latest leet research? Surely it should be enough to shout loudly "shark, shark, look out, it's a shark story, blood, gore, buy this newspaper now", like the good old NT News celebrating a crocodile story.

But we're racing ahead a little.

When you think about it, why should a rag celebrate the vulgarity, ignorance and prejudices of working families and their suburbs?

In much the same way, it's a fair question to ask why a rag should celebrate or show dain (well as before I'm being vulgar and prejudicial and can't think of the opposite to disdain) for the rich, and their special forms of vulgarity, ignorance and prejudices? Ever seen a rich person show restraint when upscaled excessive conspicuously consumed vulgarity is an option?

What makes vulgarity, ignorance and prejudice so special, whether you're broke or cashed up to the gills?

Why pitch a rag into this kind of crass, silly, class warfare, especially as the vulgar, ignorant and prejudicial Murdoch tabloids, from The Courier Mail through the Daily Terror to the HUN already take care of this turf?

Well of course it's to present The Australian as some kind of vigilante alternative.

This mind-set dominates the ABC and Fairfax press, generating a false narrative of politics. There are excellent journalists at these outlets, but as we detail in Inquirer today, many in the gallery missed the biggest political story for years.

Uh huh. Sorry, that would mean buying The Weekend Australian to catch up on the thoughts of Chris Kenny, in How the press gallery lost its way, and truth to tell, I was plumb out of fish and chips requiring broadsheet wrapping on the weekend.

It will be easy for them to dismiss Kenny's report, despite his 20 years as a fearless reporter, because he spent much of the past decade working at senior levels for the Coalition.

And therefore might be biassed? What, never, or at least hardly ever. I'm told he's even offered the odd piece to the ABC's The Drum ...

Never mind, let's boot scoot past Kenny, and get to the juicy paranoia:

But it would be a mistake for the gallery to avoid the real point: 2010 has not been its finest year. Our critics will claim we are waging an ideological war against the Left and using our pages for a commercial battle with rivals. They are wrong.

Uh huh. Decrying the ABC and Fairfax, which also appeal to the AB demographic, isn't part of a commercial battle, and The Australian isn't in an ideological war against the Left ...

By golly, and who'd have thought the moon being made of blue cheese would actually be such tasty blue cheese ... but if the critics are wrong, that doesn't stop The Australian's editorial from being up itself.

Perhaps it's the Pecksniffian cant, or perhaps the Uriah Heep 'ever so humble' hand wringing and lip smacking routine that produces the most pleasure, as The Australian announces it's fond of all forms of Labor:

We have supported good federal Labor governments in the past; we endorsed Mr Rudd in 2007; we want Julia Gillard to be a good Prime Minister. We have backed the election of state Labor governments over many years and run regular columns from former Labor premiers and state ministers, including Peter Beattie, Morris Iemma and Michael Costa. We take no pleasure in watching Australia's oldest political party agonise over its identity.

We take no pleasure? You took no pleasure plastering a failed NSW right wing politician with nothing better to do than scribble splenetic outbursts all over the front cover of the Australian Literary Review?

Spit that plastic pacifier out of your mouth before you choke on the nonsense ...

Anyway, why shouldn't a political party agonise over its identity? Is it so wrong, or should political parties indulge in the smug certitudes and complacencies of a north shore toff and conservative Catholic like Tony Abbott?

Well seeing as how we're allowed to indulge in ignorant prejudices and idle abuse ...

Shouldn't you at least wipe away the spittle and the foam, and stop that hideous hyena cackling before you scribbled that line? Please, some modesty, and take some actual pleasure in the self-pleasuring ...

On and on the editorialist goes, in a kind of attempt at Maoist self-criticism and self-reflection:

The Weekend Australian, too, must always seek to improve its coverage.

Oh disingenuous dissembling scribbler, out, out cursed spot. Perhaps it's time to head off to a gulag for self-reflection and penitence, or perhaps spend time out with the peasants in the field. Would self-criticism classes at dawn and dusk do the trick?

While we have led the debate in many areas, we recognise there is more we could have done. Yet the promise made to readers in our first edition, on July 15, 1964, that we would be tied to no party, provides a solid framework for our reporting.

Uh huh, as if the rag of today is like the rag of yesteryears, especially given its recent decline and fall, thanks to the piloting of Chris Mitchell.

And what would that framework be, seeing as it manages these days to encompass climate change denialism and routine NBN bashing with a piece of four be two?

Does it include actual objective reporting, and the prevention of personal prejudices and bile from spilling from the opinion pages into the news coverage, or even worse, said bile being used to determine what should be covered, and the angle from which it might be covered (as exposed by the tertiary elites when they went on a tweeting flurry about the difficulties of writing about climate science in The Australian? Surely this whole bit of self-justifying malarkey couldn't have something to do with the seemingly never ending, always enduring bitterness about that?)

We have well-developed ideas about what Australia needs and it is against that vision that we assess policies and tactics. This contrasts with most of the gallery, which is obsessed with whether Labor or the Coalition has won the daily battle of tactics rather than asking whether the government has an overall strategy. This is like settling for the "hit and giggle" of Twenty20 over Test cricket. It is made worse by the unequal contest between often-inexperienced reporters and a slick government PR machine.

Uh huh, so The Australian, in its infinite wisdom, fancies itself has having well-developed ideas about what Australia and Australians need, a kind of kitchen cabinet of correct policies and correct thinking, and so is in a position, as this kind of shadow cabinet of journalists and commentariat columnists, to judge the government and its overall strategy. That's right, instead of being wide ranging and free wheeling and responsive, it has its own little bible and its self-assured checklist towards the truth and the light.

Oh, and it's free of inexperienced reporters who therefore never do the bidding of its editor in chief as they seek to keep a job in these precarious times for journalists ...

Well for sheer megalomaniac cheek, it's a wondrous and splendid vision. The only question remains is why the editor, the hacks and the splenetic scribblers don't get around to the actual business of standing for parliament and thus saving the country.

On second thoughts, not to worry, because then you'd only end up with the kind of meaningless twaddle and idle waffle to be found in this par:

The gallery's values are a poor indication of where the centre ground lies. Its dominant mind-set drives an agenda, notably on climate change and asylum-seekers, that is different from the views of middle Australia. The fault line in Australia is not between workers and bosses or consumers and big corporations but between the morally driven politics of the progressive community and pragmatic policy, anchored on sound economics, that drives prosperity.

Don't ya just love it. Having proclaimed that there's a fault line between tertiary educated elites and the working class, suddenly the rag is proclaiming there's no fault line between workers and bosses, or consumers and big corporations, and it's all the fault of the progressives when it comes to climate science and asylum-seekers ... and once again the Chris Mitchell hoppy toad about climate change pops out onto the kitchen floor for all to see.

Along with the knee jerk term 'progressive', to use a baleful, prejudice-laden word imported from Fox News and the United States as a kind of stupid shorthand, as if there's something wrong with progress ... as opposed to regress, retrograde, retrogress ...

Oh sign me up for the retrogressive retrograde Regressive Party ...

You know, when ever I meet a reader of The Australian these days, I stare them in the eye, and put it to them that they're actually supporting/reading a wretched rag that fancies itself tabloid, while desperately wanting to appeal to the so-called AB demographic.

None of them can explain why they buy it - they realise it's hopeless, and resort to excuses like force of habit, or the cheap deals going around, or how they picked it up in the Qantas lounge as a free throw away, but the excuses ring as hollow and as meaningless and as meretricious as a line like pragmatic policy, anchored on sound economics, that drives prosperity.

If that's fierce scrutiny of the dubious value of political rhetoric, if that's judgement of a government made complacent by journalists out of touch with voters, please send me to the same class for more of Mindless Vacuous Rhetoric 101.

These are challenging years for media, not just because of industry fragmentation but because it has lost the trust of consumers, who do not share the view from the gallery. This issue must be addressed by the profession. But the government must have the courage to challenge the political correctness of the gallery and tell it as it sees it to middle Australia. Labor will find the backlash is less intense than it fears.

Oh please, pass me the bucket, I feel sick. If it isn't nonsense about tertiary educated elites, it's mindless cat and name calling about political correctness.

Still, there's surely an upside. No doubt The Australian is right at this moment preparing an announcement that it has decided to give up the 500k on offer from the university eight who fund the monthly Australian Literary Review. It's soooh tired of catering to selfish university elites, soooh over them ...

Surely there's no need for literary rubbish in the lizard Oz, when a supplement dedicated to the vulgarity, ignorance and prejudices of working families and their suburbs is needed much more.

How about that supplement dedicated to Hot4s, as we proposed right at the start of this piece? Here's a promise. My nephew would suddenly start buying The Australian.

Oh and how pleasing to see that The Australian has now decided to stop running ads targeting the wealthy AB demographic, and instead will now start running more and more ads appealing to the vulgarity, ignorance and prejudices of working families ... or is that only in the strange, surreal fourth dimension that its current editor in chief Chris Mitchell inhabits ...

I guess the problem I have with the Oz is part of my working class history. My father was a dedicated beer in the pub, buy the Daily Mirror - now long gone - man, flick through the headlines, read the sports pages, and say no more about it. He always thought The Australian, and its boasts about being a nation-building broadsheet meant that it was full of wankers, with a desire to expose their wanking on a daily basis ...

Who'd have thought the old man was right?

Well he's shuffled off long ago, but now we have Chris Mitchell to thank for this very strange mix of paranoia, schizophrenia and tabloidism, hiding behind fanciful rhetoric about holding the government to account.

Who will hold Chris Mitchell to account, at least without getting a threat of a defamation action?

Well charmingly enough, some brave soul has put together a website dedicated to the thoughts, deeds and works of Chris Mitchell.

Here's Sick profile of a typical ego-driven News Limited editor, and here's Who are the "bastards"? - members of the Australian media who lack ethics, which puts Today Tonight at number one in its dishonesty table, followed by Chris Mitchell and News Limited. The web addresses vary between "get the bastards" and "gwb".

The sites seem to take things a little too seriously, and indulge in a kind of variant tabloidism, but never mind, I'm sure Chris Mitchell will be exceptionally pleased at the way they celebrate the vulgarity, ignorance and prejudices of readers indignant about The Australian and News Ltd, even if it the indignation in the end be traced back to the nonsense about the Heiner documents (except, hang on, Piers "Akker Dakker" Akerman is always hot to trot about the Heiner scandal, in the finest traditions of tabloid bone chewing - try Heiner Affair inaction appalling for starters, and then google for more if you have a cast iron belly ...)

Yep, what a fine aspiration, what a devine inspiration, what a profound tradition is calling to The Australian, thanks to Chris Mitchell ...

How about we start with this fine example of working class prejudice?

Now there's a masthead.

And surely it's time to bring back the spirit, the ghost of Frank Browne, who used to write for the Daily Mirror, and send him off to the press gallery for The Australian.

Frank Browne, you ask? Well there's a nice piece here under the header Frank Browne and the Neo-Nazis, which also covers the infamous time when Browne was jailed for three months for contempt of parliament.

Come on Chris Mitchell ... score yourself three months in the clink, and then we'll know you're serious about standing up to the political class and the tertiary elite.

What a splendid contrarian example you'll make up against those poncy self-satisfied tertiary elitists, and their smug complacent ways ... as opposed to the smug complacent self-satisfied self-justifying scribbles always to hand in the editorial pages of The Australian.

(Below: oh and please, editors, don't forget the eye kandy. No, no, no, not the girlz in the high heelz, or preferably a bikini, the carz, what are ya, a mob of lily livered wankers?)

Yes, yes, that's how it's done. Nothing like a little flesh.

Come on guys send the Australian Literary Review off to a run with the Daily Terror and the HUN, and don't forget the flesh, just make it arty kinky flesh. Oh look we're cooking with gas and Murdoch-inspired looniness and a brand new carpe diem Australian Literarium Reviewum ...