Confronted by our Henry and Killer, the pond must find its own Friday entertainment with a Bump in the night ...

 

Another day, another tear, another cry: shattered and disappointed yet again by the lizard Oz. 

Having been trained to expect a daily nuking of the country to save the planet, the pond was greeted with an energy story at the top of the digital edition ...

... and yet there wasn't a single mention of nuclear or SMRs in said energy story. 

That's not the crusading lizard Oz of old. Did somebody slip up? Why wasn't Col asked to mention SMRs as the only solution to the pricing battle?

How could the pond do a decent segue to the immortal Rowe?

What a great idea for a pacifier ...

Meanwhile, the pond slipped right past Tansy and garrulous Gemma and the Kerr matter, because this was Friday and the pond knew who'd be lurking beneath the fold ...

Not Albo, not even the merrittricious Merritt railing at ICACS in approved reptile manner could catch the pond's eye or distract from the job at hand. 

It was Henry, hole in bucket man day, and for once he'd put the Gaza genocide aside, leaving cackling Claire the job of avoiding mentioning the brutalisation of a couple of million people ...

As a result, our Henry was incredibly disappointing ...

Now the pond has already run the swishing Switzer, such a lickspittle lackey, fellow travelling, useful idiot appeaser that he seemed to be doing his best to make Chamberlain seem like an aggressive chap.

Sure there was the sport of seeing one reptile take down another, with the swishing Switzer given the full Ergas foot to pedal to the metal ...

... but the pond had a strong sense of déjà vu, been there, done that ... and the illustrations didn't help.

The only note that the pond could make to comfort the swishing Switzer was the way that our Henry had ignored the valiant efforts of his kissing cousins at Faux Noise to get the tangerine tyrant elected and make things right for Vlad the impaler ... sell Ukraine down the river and maybe get a big hotel concession in Moscow ...

Everybody was getting on board with the flashy hare ...

Ok, it was a childish visual gag, but it's the reason the pond still watches Colbert ...

Meanwhile, our Henry was still sticking it to the swishing Switzer ...

It was unnerving to see our Henry recycle the pond ... was the pond dreaming it was a butterfly, or even worse, a Henry?

About all Henry had failed to mention was the way his kissing cousins at Faux Noise were doing the best for the mango Mussolini ... and so were all his chums ...

Why after the election,  or perhaps never muh lud, and so to the final gobbet of perhaps the most disappointing hole in the bucket man offering ever to disgrace the pond's pages ...

It was way too late to mention the Gaza genocide, and apparently it's simply impolite to mention the GOP and the orange Jesus ... and in relation to Vlad the impaler, his own incredibly impressive impression of Neville ...

After that epic disappointment, the pond decided to give Killer a run ... he's always a reliable contributor to the killing fields ...

Please Killer, be fair. Perhaps the AI had been fed the story of Pope Joan ...

On the other hand, would a woman want to be a member of that club?

Moving on, Killer's paranoia in the name of white nationalism is noted, and the pond is sure there will be more about the suffering of white folk, but as we're speaking about insidious platforms, the pond feels compelled to note that over at Crikey, the keen Keane had set off a firestorm, with some 100 comments (at time of counting), which is huge for a Crikey story. 

It was the art of arguing the preposterous in the cause of controversy and click baiting, as can be seen from the header, a variant - as Killer has mentioned Hitler - of just following orders and being the most excellent worker for a baleful institution, and never mind the ethics of said institution: 

In (partial) defence of Janet Albrechtsen, (paywall), with the lede Don't criticise Janet Albrechtsen for her role in the Sofronoff inquiry — target powerful people and institutions that allow and enable the tumour that is News Corp.

The pond dropped in on the last bit ...

...Sofronoff, if he seriously thought part of his job was relations with the media — and that’s the first time I’ve heard the head of a major inquiry claim that — had the responsibility of appropriately managing those relations to the benefit of his inquiry, not giving privileged access and, potentially, a drafting role, to one member of the media.

The problem is not with Albrechtsen, engaged in doing her job, so much as her employer. News Corp was — and is — engaged in a campaign of merciless character assassination of Brittany Higgins. It is devoted to the task of exemplary punishment of her for the damage she inflicted on the Liberal party — along with Liberal MPs and senators who continue to pursue her.

Will News Corp, or the Coalition, ever be satisfied that they have inflicted enough damage on Higgins? Or on anyone involved in the prosecution of Lehrmann (for, we must remember, a sexual assault he has always denied)? It seems not, despite the extensive evidence of the gruesome toll the News Corp campaign, and relentless litigation, has taken on Higgins.

Indeed, quite possibly there are some engaged in the campaign against Higgins who would be content to see it take as heavy a toll as possible, to ensure every staffer, every woman, every prosecutor, every journalist gets the message not to embarrass the conservative side of politics.

The Albrechtsen-Sofronoff relationship is a kind of micro version of the larger problem with News Corp. It is a malignant participant in the public affairs of the country. But it remains a cancer in our body politic because people in power allow it, and enable it. No one compelled Sofronoff to develop such a close relationship with his News Corp interlocutor. No one compels Labor politicians — Bill Shorten the honourable exception — to tug the forelock to the Murdochs, as is happening right now on the news media bargaining code. No one compels News Corp’s media competitors to treat its lies and propaganda seriously, as though it was an actual media outlet.

It is not a media outlet, but a foreign-owned political player engaged in selling hate and division. If it is a pustulent tumour, it is also a foreign body lodged here and allowed to remain. Powerful people and institutions allow the damage that this foreign company inflicts. And the rest of us wear that damage like a rash.

Who could argue with the notion that News Corp was a pustulent tumour, or even a pustulant one? And it was as fruitful a topic as Killer trying to distract by blaming google and AI ...

In a quick survey of those 100 comments, it seemed that the punters took the view that the keen Keane,  in trying to absolve Dame Slap,  had gone too far. 

Maybe following orders in service of a tumour, or doing better than that, and carrying on in the manner of the folk featured in The Zone of Interest, being efficient and effective in a monomaniacal obsessive compulsive crusade, wasn't entirely worthy ...

Ian David

Getting access to Sofranoff may have been great journalism by JA, but nothing after that was journalism. It was lobbying, advocacy, messing with the administration of justice. If JA got wind of some left-leaning journalist coaching an inquiry head, she would crucify both the journalist and the inquiry process. News Corp ‘journalists’ are not just blameless employees, they are crucial enablers of the agenda. JA doesn’t get a free pass from me, sorry.

Drew

And like one’s first experiences of their writing or journalism over decade ago, was their propensity for (now common among RW MSM & influencers) Orwellian doublethink and doublespeak e.g. underplaying racism towards non whites versus claiming white people are the real victims of racism…

Andrew Bonnell

Albrechtsen just doing her job? Can anyone recall any other journalist running sustained campaigns against the credibility of women complaining of rape in not one but two cases? (One tragically posthumous.)

Been Around

Bernard. In your defence of Albrechtsen, are you distinguishing ‘journalist’ and ‘reporter’. Even if so, I suggest she is neither. She is political activist and polemicist. If not, when has it been OK for journalist to make the story and not disclose that involvement?

cnewt27

As I recall Ms Albrechtsen’s background was in the law. Somehow she scored a spot peddling ideological stuff in a column. I do not see writing the kind of partisan propaganda she produces as “journalism”. Most front pages of News Ltd papers eg the C-Mail in Qld are not by any stretch “journalism”.

Andrew Elder

“You can rebuke the use to which she put that access but still marvel that she obtained it” – why thank you Bernard, I will. You identify the problem (NewsCorp inserting itself into politics and policy) but refuse to criticise those who embody this malignancy and make it worse? Access journalism isn’t about Wal & Janet having lunch, it’s all about the uses to which she put that access.

The course of justice, not just for one (important) case but for a whole jurisdiction lies in tatters: not even Sir Keith Murdoch in his pomp, not Rupert in his Phaeton phase in Adelaide, did anything close to that. And Bernard Keane wants to exculpate the irresponsible person who could have described the journey without driving the vehicle off the road, all in the degraded name of Australian journalism?

Access journalism is its own reward, we need more and better.

And so on and on - what a pleasure to discover so many happy to savage Dame Slap - and the pond did enjoy the notion of an Adelaide Phaeton phase. These days the pond only imagines it lived in Adelaide, but is certain Dame Slap dwells on Planet Janet, above the faraway tree ...

It was a relief to discover that while the keen Keane might have lost his Dame Slap marbles, there were plenty of Crikey readers ready to help him find them ...

Meanwhile, Killer was still ranting on, apparently unaware that it wasn't just google, he was also working for a pustulant tumour ...

JD Vance? That quisling lickspittle?

Again the pond was triggered and this time bumped into Bump at WaPo ... (paywall)

Turns out that he was the sort of tangerine tyrant, Vlad the impaler enabler that our Henry had completely forgotten to mention ...

The pond had barely got over that triggering when the reptiles offered the pond another trigger to pull ...

It was the preening narcissist himself ...

The pond does its best to avoid mentioning Uncle Elon in company, though it does allow itself the pleasure of muttering under its breath at charging stations "another fascist car ... and no, I didn't buy a führerwagon or a Ford".

Luckily a Beamer or a Merc never seems to come up.

But if we must mention Uncle Elon, surely it should include his latest conspiracy theory ...

Meanwhile, Killer was still rabbiting on ...

Is that the defence? In the wrong, or even well-meaning but misguided, hands News Corp platforms present opportunities for more aggressive brainwashing opportunities....

You know, like quoting JD Vance without noting what a ratbag he is ...

Now there's an irony. Social media was also the topic in the bumping Bump ...

Killer himself was a reliable source of misinformation about Covid - relax, the pond won't mention the Freudian fear of masks - and so he has such an astonishing ability to trigger the pond - in a fiendishly Orwellian way - that the pond almost feels some sympathy for google.

Almost ... that would be like feeling sympathy for the swishing Switzer when being mugged by our Henry...

And so to the final gobbet, with nary a mention of the Orwellian ways of News Corp and Faux Noise ... has the pond and Killer mentioned Orwellian enough to get George revolving in his grave?

Even then the lines kept coming and how the pond yearned to see Killer scribble furiously It's imperative the ideological underpinnings of News Corp are at least made transparent to users. Fans of a laissez-faire society may find the ranks of their adherents shrivel if they turn a blind eye to the extraordinary power privately owned News Corp Faux Noise platforms present ...

Or is he just follow orders, as the keen Keane proposes? Is he as oblivious as the folk in The Zone of Interest?

Enough already, time to close with the infallible Pope proposing a riddle wrapped in an enigma ...