In which outrageous suggestions are all the go ...

Speaking of making suggestions, and often quite outrageous suggestions, it was impossible while watching Media Watch last night - the show is on catch up under the header Telling tales of terror -not to think that the Daily Terror is in a competition with the reptiles at the lizard Oz to be the worst newspaper in Australia.

There were many ironies on view, not least the contrast between this front page:

 And the cheeky, bald-faced, insouciant denialism at source ...

You have to be a sublime pedant of the first water to propose there's no causality in that EXCLUSIVE and that the Terror was merely reporting two entirely unrelated events ... prisoners rioting and jail cancelling Muslim prayers ...

In the real world it's called mendacity and humbugging ...

It's easy enough to see why the reptiles continue to hate on Media Watch. It's one of the few places where you can actually find the Murdoch media called to account (and since the Fairfaxians and the ABC, influenced by the Murdochians, are on the same downward spiral, they get dishonourable mentions in despatches too).

Naturally the Bolter was right on to the job this morning (no links, screen cap):

Yes, always with the deflecting and the dissembling, always with the in-house monolithic party line, never surrender and never admit error.

But then you'd expect an hysterical, neurotic, fear monger, who has built a career out of loathing, to defend the house of Murdoch.

It's clear enough what's driving the rags to foment fear - the shrieking headlines are seen as some sort of business plan, a complement to the sort of click bait that Media Watch trolled through with its three-breasted woman report (which inter alia allowed Media Watch to show as many views of the three breasts as you might find in a Daily Mail report).

There's probably only one way the situation will change, and that's with the death of Rupert Murdoch, and a sudden realisation that the business plan shouldn't be about alienating consumers with distortions and lies, but actually attracting paying customers ...

You'd think they'd wake up at some point that it's easier to sell news than ideology, but there's Ten, still down the toilet, with its main channel just a bee's knee ahead of the ABC (10.9% to 10.8%, Crikey here, paywall affected), and yet the Bolter's figures remain wretchedly low, with 110k for the first screening and 133k for the repeat, and he still can't reach the Insiders, which scored an aggregated 277k, with 202k on the main channel and 75k on News 24.

That's precious content money wasted on ideological far right wing ratbaggery but presumably it keeps Gina happy, and it's easy to see why the Bolter and the reptiles are tormented by the ABC. People prefer to watch Barrie Cassidy to the Bolter. Amazing scenes.

Right at the moment the desperation is palpable.

Click on reptile stories at the lizard Oz and you still get this pathetic begging letter:

Naturally the pond hits the 'back' button right away, so such tasty treats such as these spin into the void:

As a result, the pond is in something of an existential crisis.

Is reading the Caterists indulging in Ming the merciless ancestor worship really worth the effort? Were the Caterists actually in country during the campaign to ban the Communist party and McCarthyism ran riot?

Yes, conservatives have always used fear and fear-mongered and Ming did it with the comfort of the newspapers of the 1950s ...

And were the Caterists on hand when the alleged natural managers of the economy managed to produce the great 1961 meltdown and Ming got back by a seat?

As for Maurice Newman, what to make of him turning student radical and taking to the streets?

Shouldn't he be writing another denunciation of climate change?

This very day the mischief makers are out on the streets, with press releases here, and links to the actual science here, and already it's part of The Conversation with Human hands are all over Australia's hottest ever year.

And the cheeky sods have even whipped up a poster (click on to enlarge):

Have the scientists begun to realise that if you can't go through the Murdochians and their Morrices, then you may as well go around them ...

Never mind, if you really want to irritate the reptiles, why not start reading the editorals?

You see, the hapless wretches like to have their voice heard, so they rarely put the fickle gold bar of fate over the editorials, nor do they hit stray readers with screeching, beseeching ads that warn readers off by blather about the need to pay for special exclusive content, such as the dribbling of the Caterists and Morrice ...

So you can read Aunty should remember it's our ABC and our cash, a classic example of the paranoia, resentment and passive aggressive rage that infests the reptiles.

The piece starts by resenting what Quentin Dempster gets paid and then resenting Quentin Dempster for daring to supply content to the ABC, and resenting Barrie Cassidy being highly paid.

Which reminds the pond, what does the Bolter get paid for fucking up Ten's Sunday? Don't bother asking the reptiles - we know where that challenge ended, with Barry vs Bolt: I'll show you my salary now you show me yours ...

Never mind, it's all about resentment and bitterness and envy, and you don't even have to flip the following to get the sense of insecurity that gnaws at the reptiles like a rat at cheese (or maybe peanut butter if you're having trouble with the rats):

In commercial media we understand all too well the anxiety created by cost-cutting, but the ABC does itself a great disservice by pretending that it is a special case. And its paranoia about the motives behind recent decisions says more about its disconnect from reality than it does about the government’s agenda. “It is apparent that the ABC has lost the politics in Canberra,” ABC host Dempster wrote about the ABC on the ABC’s site. “Admittedly, it has been up against aggressive Murdoch newspapers which have been urging the government, through editorials and inflammatory commentaries, to strike hard at the ABC.” Heaven forbid that instead of a political conspiracy there is just a government trying to live within its means. The ABC’s Peter Lloyd puts the push for restraint and efficiency more simply: “it’s just f---ing dumb.”

Can't you just hear the wheedling, grovelling self-pity in that line about knowing the anxiety of cost-cutting? Now that the truth about the lizard Oz and its lack of profitability and the retrenchments - denied and hushed hushed for years - is now out on the open.

But as for the rest?

A government trying to live within its means?

So that's what an extravagant PPL scheme is ... living within means.

And that's what haring off to war on an exercise that was self-admittedly budgeted as starting at half a billion and rising ... (and let's not worry about the cost of the JSF or alternatives, here).

Never mind, there's just time for a final bout of righteous hectoring and indignation:

It is not only churlish but deeply irresponsible for the ABC to resist implementing cost-saving measures while it awaits the declaration of a funding envelope from Canberra. Its task each and every day should be to deliver its services as efficiently as possible; not to offer productivity only as a bargaining chip in a haggle for funds. Whether it turns Peppa into a pigskin political football or threatens to send politicians to bed a half-hour earlier by axing Lateline, Aunty’s posturing is transparent. Perhaps it could shed some of its spinmeisters and middle managers and save money without a single program feeling the pinch. Contrary to the paranoia of Dempster and others, The Australian supports an efficient, pluralistic and mainstream ABC. We have never wanted to see it privatised. But it should be capable of spending its money wisely without resorting to cheap stunts and special pleading at taxpayers’ expense.

Ah yes Peppa. Well we know who turned Peppa into a weird deviant political pigskin with weird feminist tendencies. Thanks Akker Dakker:

But the real laugh, the reason for reading the editorial at all, is to read that smug last line:

We have never wanted to see it privatised. But it should be capable of spending its money wisely without resorting to cheap stunts and special pleading at taxpayers’ expense.

The Murdochians are too cunning to come out and say it, not after James Murdoch's bruising when he did his BBC bashing in his spectacular own goal speech...

So they circle, and cross their heart and swear to die before they want the ABC privatised.

Degutted, neutralised, run down, diminished, rendered toothless ... well that's another story.

The reptiles see themselves in a war with the ABC (and foolishly they also have a second front, against the Fairfaxians), and they see the ABC's free model as a major threat.

It's clear enough what with all the current begging and beseeching that the reptiles are hurting, which is why they want the ABC to just lie down and expect the ABC to take its licks and cuts without a fight.

They don't have to say they want to see the ABC privatised. They just have to give space to the friends of Murdoch, the IPA, proposing that the ABC be privatised. And they just have to encourage others who want to turn the ABC into the sort of pathetic, totally irrelevant part of the scenery that the PBS has become in the United States ...

Which brings why the Murdochians think they can get away with doing a humbug Br'er rabbit routine. What, throw the ABC in the briar patch? Us? No, never ...

They can just let the likes of Tom Switzer, do the job, presenting sundry bits of tosh in Quadrant:

On climate change, much to the chagrin of its former chairman Maurice Newman, the ABC has jettisoned all semblance of impartiality; it campaigns with a consistent stream of doom-and-gloom stories. Yet it devotes very little attention to Climate-gate scandals, any scholarship that challenges the warming orthodoxy, and the UN’s consistent failure to reach a binding global deal to reduce emissions...
How then to fix the public broadcaster’s entrenched group-think? (here)

Uh huh. Why not apply the same routine to other science?

On Newton's laws, much to the chagrin of its former chairman Maurice Newman, the ABC has jettisoned all semblance of impartiality; it campaigns with a consistent stream of doom-and-gloom stories about apples falling on heads and inertia leading to ruin. Yet it devotes very little attention to gravity-gate scandals, any scholarship that challenges the Newtonista orthodoxy, and the UN’s consistent failure to reach a binding global deal to reduce the harmful effects of gravity...
How then to fix the wilful stupidity of Tom Switzer and the Murdochians entrenched group-think?

In this context, Malcolm Turnbull is the perfect quisling, willing to do down the ABC with death by a thousand cuts, and give the reptiles the hope that, with the enemy removed, the one that points out just how fucked the Murdoch tabloids are, their business plan just might be made to work and they can be saved from the scrapheap ...

As usual, while the media wars proceed under a Turnbull anxious to please the private sector, Gina, Tony, and the Murdochians - even if he'll never get to be PM, even if that's now just a chimera and a dream - we can expect a little collateral damage, as the pond was reminded when it settled down to watch the Six O'Clock Serial rather than waste time with news services on commercial networks that manage to outdo the ABC news service for ambulance chasing ... and lordy, lordy, that's mighty hard to do ...

Up popped an ad showing mean men in action. And who could argue with that?

There's little doubt big Mal wants to kill community TV based on specious notions that he has made the internet safe for television streaming, which is a fraud and a lie:

If the original fibre-to-the-premises National Broadband Network was going ahead then moving community television to the internet would seem more practical. Even if the government's new-look NBN-lite was further down the track then you might be able to make the argument for shifting community television across – even though end user speed guarantees have been scrapped so promises of at least 25 Mbps are meaningless. 
It will be many years before every home currently in the metro broadcast footprint will have an internet connection suitable for watching community television online. It will also be many years before every home owns the equipment required to watch internet video on their television, like a traditional broadcast, rather than watching on a computer or handheld device. (and a lot more here)

(Below: eek, what nasty looking men and maintain the rage here)