(Above: oh how the chattering classes love to chatter and joke and wheel in the air like a flock of birds).The comedy stylings at News Corp get better and more entertaining by the day, and none more so than that adept humorist John Hartigan.
There he was, as bold as brass, on the 7.30 Report, and speaking of being bold as brass, might we digress to note that Brass was one Stockton man, Brass Crosby, who became Chief Magistrate in London, only to be thrown in the Tower of London for letting go a newspaper editor who had illegally published the day's business in Parliament (and so the idea of Hansard came about, and more on Brass here).
Oh the the vicious unkempt unhappy ironies you might say, if inclined to the rhetoric of Victorian Shakespuherians like Henry Irving, as we cut away from the days when freedom of the press meant something, to the days when an insolent Hartigan might saunter like Mehitabel on to our screens and dissemble and deflect - in the most ingenuous way - any notion that there's group think going on in News Corp, and that the company is involved in fair and balanced reporting, as say, it's coverage of the NBN:
LEIGH SALES: So, you stand by your coverage - say, The Australian's coverage of the NBN as being fair and balanced?
JOHN HARTIGAN: I do, yeah.
JOHN HARTIGAN: I do, yeah.
So white can become black, black become white, except for an odd little slip-up:
LEIGH SALES: You don't think you could say that the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and the ABC apply a reasonable amount of scrutiny to the Gillard Government?
JOHN HARTIGAN: They do, but they also feed, very largely, they get preferred treatment because they tend to support most of the Government initiatives. The Australian doesn't. It does on occasion, but it really is very strident in the way that it covers politics and I'd argue it's really the only newspaper in Australia that properly covers politics, national politics. (CEO defends News Ltd culture).
JOHN HARTIGAN: They do, but they also feed, very largely, they get preferred treatment because they tend to support most of the Government initiatives. The Australian doesn't. It does on occasion, but it really is very strident in the way that it covers politics and I'd argue it's really the only newspaper in Australia that properly covers politics, national politics. (CEO defends News Ltd culture).
And so the paranoia stands revealed. The Fairfax media get 'preferred treatment' because they're lickspittle lackeys of government, and so what's The Australian to do, but become strident in its coverage, which is to say 'proper' coverage.
Strident? Very strident?
Well it being a morning for words and phrases, let's just check that one out:
Loud, harsh, grating, shrill, discordant, vociferous
- his voice had become increasingly sharp, almost strident
Presenting a point of view, esp. a controversial one, in an excessively and unpleasantly forceful way
- his voice had become increasingly sharp, almost strident
Presenting a point of view, esp. a controversial one, in an excessively and unpleasantly forceful way
- public pronouncements on the issue became more strident.
Golly, we couldn't have put it better ourselves.
More from the unctuous, urbane Hartigan, sent out to smooth over the waves on the 7.30 Report, here, as he brings out a bowl of water and washes his hands of the Melbourne Storm matter and News Corps treatment of the independents and the Greens, and the Victorian police given a right proper dust up, and revives the notion that we're living in a banana republic - as if News Corp isn't replete with bananas - and yes, it's time for the daily ritual of looking at The Australian's strident, loud, harsh, grating, shrill, discordant coverage of the day's news in its opinion pages.
Leading the way, naturally, is the anonymous editorialist, who explains how A medieval world view does not help the planet in Black, white and green all over. And who holds this medieval world view? Why greenies of course, as the anon edit flings around such finely balanced words as zealots, preconceived ideas, dogmatism, blinkered world view, monochromatic world, and so on and so forth, and then of course the disclaimer:
Yes, one line in the whole tirade as a caveat to the rhetoric, before it's time to wrap it up with another bit of strident rhetoric:
Uh huh. But what happens when you're confronted by the forces of darkness, whether they be Darth Vader's or Rupert Murdoch's evil empire?
Turn towards the light Luke, turn towards the light.
Well that's as sensible an argument as The Australian's strident rhetoric. Meanwhile, you can spend time with the strident Henry Ergas and Fatal law in case for a carbon tax - oh okay, it's hard too describe the mind numbing tedium of Henry's pen as strident - or dally with Dennis "the menace" Shanahan as he burbles on in Rooftop panels penalise poor.
Only Shanahan could manage to feel grubby about being rich ... as if the rich don't get breaks in many ways, the only one that manages to offend Shanahan being anything to do with green schemes.
Come on Dennis, scribble one about how any increase in pensioner payments will ruin the economy, never mind the little old lady across the street, or how students don't pay enough for tertiary education by way of the HECS scheme ... and then blather on about distortions in the marketplace ...
Ah there's nothing like the stench of napalm and hypocrisy in the morning, which makes it all the more piquant that now everybody is baying for the blood of News Corp. Even Paul Keating's got into the game, as viewers will have seen on Lateline last night, in Abbot's arguments 'tripe', 'jingoistic': Keating.
Keating's vision thing got lost somewhere about the need for a second airport for Sydney, but on occasions he can see clearly, and most notably the way in which the Daily Telegraph, aka the Daily Terror, has in recent times gone feral, as mad as a bandicoot or cut snake, and with the hubris of the NSW Labor scalp still dripping blood as it sits on its belt.
TONY JONES: Let's talk about the politics of this with the time we've got left. Do you think Murdoch's News Limited is effectively at war with the Gillard Government?
PAUL KEATING: I think it's beyond doubt. I mean, when the Daily Telegraph yesterday is saying, "Let's have a national election," why do we need a national election? We have an operating - a clear operating majority in the House of Representatives, it's a stable majority, the business of the Government is reasonable business, that is the controversial matter is putting a price on carbon.
PAUL KEATING: I think it's beyond doubt. I mean, when the Daily Telegraph yesterday is saying, "Let's have a national election," why do we need a national election? We have an operating - a clear operating majority in the House of Representatives, it's a stable majority, the business of the Government is reasonable business, that is the controversial matter is putting a price on carbon.
The explanation? The Daily Terror has headed off down into shrill, strident tabloid rage, dressed up in crusader mode as The Australian-lite. It's doing its level best to achieve the Zen-like empty mind, empty headed, bubble headed booby capacity of the Murdoch throwaway Mx, exemplified by the way shock jock Ray Hadley has joined the mix.
If there were crocodiles in Sydney Harbour, soon enough the rag would reach the level of the Northern Territory News.
Well there's no harm in strident coverage if that's what the punters want, but equally if you stop hitting your head with a hammer it's amazing the relief you can feel, and soon enough the world might be getting a little relief from 'fair and balanced', which is to say rampantly unfair and unbalanced reporting.
Whatever the track record of his excellent climate change concerned mother, the eighty year old Rupert Murdoch won't be around forever, and in the last years of his reign he'll be marked down as damaged goods, not quite as powerful or feared as he once was, and already the jackals are circling as the denials grow fainter and more desperate (We've handled the crisis extremely well, says Rupert Murdoch - well he would say that, wouldn't he).
Richard Ackland notes the decline in Gotcha! Proper case of the fits as pollies turn on tormentor, as the victims turn on the bully boy.
Now the FBI is in on the act (here) and Murdoch himself has agreed to front the UK media select committee, which - to put it in a fair and balanced way - is like calling Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler or Genghis Khan to account for their actions (oh we do so love a little medieval or perhaps dark ages rhetoric, it so helps in presenting the facts).
But there has been one good outcome. At last the pond is closer to understanding how Fairfax came up with the idea of forced advertising on its websites, and it involves former News of the Worlder Ricky Sutton. (Ex-NotW Fairfax exec Ricky Sutton: 'I know nothing').
Damn you NOTW, damn you Sutton, damn you Fairfax, and damn the infamous forced advertising to hell. As to why Fairfax and advertisers persist with this strident strategy ...
Not to worry. Never had media watching been so much fun in a long time, as the strident crusaders feel the righteous wrath of the forces of light. Oh it's such a medieval world view, such a medieval morality play, but what fun.
Hey, that might just be a pitchable idea for 20th Century Fox, and never mind that it's a News Corp company. Take it away Banksy:
'tis an interesting and revealing time. for hartigan and co have glass jaws. mitchell being a startling example. one can exoect many more of the sorts of treatments we see in The Australian these past days. and where will stand the heroic defenders of pure journalism. mr mark scott, who only a year or two ago was public in his embrace of the editorial superiority of Mr Rupert Murdoch. or his pal, mr chris warren of the journo's union, who actually authored a piece in The Australian that asserted that Murdoch may be the future of journalism! even mr beecher, saintly though he is, has penned words to the effect that murdoch's genius knows no doubts.
ReplyDeleteone wonders which of these will come out to defend him in his hour of need?