In which the pond must roam in search of whataboutism and entertainment ...

 

The pond was startled to read John Buckley in Crikey, Publishers enjoy a trust bump as more Australians take up digital subscriptions ...

Among other oddities came these conflicting notions: “Australians are willing to pay to access high-quality and trustworthy online news ...", followed by "The most subscribed news service, according to the report, was The Australian..."

There was a coda, "...they are concerned about algorithms and editors choosing news to match their interests and fear they are missing out on information and a diversity in viewpoints,” Park said, but the existential absurdity remained, the pond had briefly gone down a very large rabbit hole with Alice, and the pond felt even keenly the need to go ask Alice when the pond looked at the top of the digital edition ...

That's "high-quality and trustworthy online news"? 

On what forbidden bizarro world alternative planet?

Petulant Peta ranting about the Voice, and the increasingly grotesque Dame Slap doing a grotesque projection and ranting about the grotesque, while the rest of the reptiles rant on and on about the Lehrmann matter?

So many red cards in such a short time. The pond refuses to indulge the reptiles, because their idea of news is a crocodile death roll.

The pond, for balance, might note that the keen Keane has returned to Crikey and offered up Political games and the exemplary punishment of Brittany Higgins... (paywall)

And earlier Michael Bradley had offered I would not walk a mile in Brittany Higgins’ shoes, with this as the tag: What can we learn from the Brittany Higgins media debacle? That empathy should be our north star in navigating such stories.

Empathy? So that's what they're calling the crocodile death roll these days ... and it didn't get any better below the fold ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, not simpleton Sharri still going on about Covid, and the toad from the north getting involved and demanding Rinso, and Will complaining about not being let into China ...

If he wanted to talk of great walls, let him work out the meaning of the infallible Pope this day ...

But there's no news of local poachers in the lizard Oz, so the pond first thought of giving it away and taking that long-yearned for winter break, then decided that at least there was news of international poachers, courtesy the Lynch mob from Melbourne ...

What's remarkable in all this are the attempts at the reptiles to extricate themselves.

Cue the chairman's Wall street 'leet rag ...

But what would the country do for entertainment? What about the cartoonists?

The pond now has Luckovich's page bookmarked... and now back to the Melbourne lynch mob, and the first signs of the lurking "whataboutism" virus ...

Not entirely, though the desire of the WSJ to extricate itself from its self-created mess is both painful and funny to watch ... as they pander to the beast ...

Put it another way ...

Even turtles can smile, as the pond returns to the Lynch mob ...

The pond suspects the Lynch mob is talking about owning the libs ... and yet ...

It is of course all a facade and a nonsense. The WSJ reptiles are finding it terribly hard to let go, and each pleading, fawning note in that editorial proves it ... and, as noted by Charlie Sykes, the WSJ also published a bit of legal dreck, Trump's Boxes and Clinton's Sock Drawer ...

And for those who can't get behind the paywall, there was this refutation in Twitter ...

It went on and on but it was from a Scalia man ...

Meanwhile, in an attempt to own the pond, at this point the local reptiles inserted a triggering snap of a war criminal, but the pond instinctively cut it down to size ...

If the pond wanted to be reminded of dinosaurs, there are other ways ...

Ah, pond just knew that Hillary and blow job Bill would enter the story at some point ...

Actually some didn't look the other way ... some can see that "whataboutism" can lead to dire emergencies ...

In much the same way some might remember the epic failure of the Bay of Pigs, or the way that Kennedy upped the game in Vietnam by increasing ground forces from roughly six hundred to over sixteen thousand trainers ... and in that context his ability to fornicate with an alleged mob boss mistress is just Daily Beast fodder ...

But we're doing "whataboutism" so it's time for a final gobbet ...

It's probably as good as it can get, though it carries with it a serious period time warp syllogism. Way back when, nobody reported on what went on inside the White House. You had to be in the know, and appreciate nudge nudge wink winks to understand what Marilyn crooning Happy Birthday might mean.

The media simply didn't go there, and didn't go there for years, while busy maintaining a mythical Camelot.

As for the crap about Hillary's emails, there's a sign that "whataboutism" can only take you so far - the mango Mussolini's Justice Department had four solid years in which to nail her - and you might be better off reading the aforementioned Charlie Sykes on The Arrest of Donald J. Trump, if only so you can eventually arrive at this ...

And so to end with the immortal Rowe and the persecution and martyrdom of the Christ ...