It's meditative Sunday, so that means it must be the day for a serve of Polonial prattle. But it's also the Catholic Boys' Daily, so that means there must be yet another serve of tyke politics.
Don't blame the pond, the pond is at the mercy of whatever the reptiles regurgitate. The pond might introduce other elements, or point to things happening outside the hive mind, but at the heart of it all, it is what it is ...
Only in the Catholic Boys Daily ...
Given a chance, the pond would vote for the Australian pilots' dispute, which happened late in the Polonial timeline, in 1989, but it was a chance to hear strange accents emanating from the cockpit, and for a lucky few, the chance to go full military fantasy ...
And if you wanted a genuinely meaningful strike in terms of its national implications, then surely the 1966 Gurindji strike (the Wave Hill Walk-Off) should surely be up there ...
Going a tyke strike says a lot about the navel gazing in which the reptiles, and Polonius in particular, indulge, and the pond was immediately bored, and thought it might be a whiz to revert to a Polonius-related story in Crikey (paywall)
It inspired some cheeky comments down below ...
Nick
I really like the certainty of knowing Gerry is reading every one of these comments.
Hey, Ger, what do you think Australia will look like in…say 10 years?
Let’s circle back in 2034 and compare notes ?
ChipsNbeer
Reply to Nick
He’ll probably get lost at around 1952.
Nick
Reply to ChipsNbeer
Solid point.
But the pond digresses, because at this point there came a snap of a hero of the 1950s ...
The price the pond must pay for that comedy is another Polonial gobbet ... with the challenge being to find some kind of error in the Polonial piece ...
It would be pedantic to quote Catholic schools copy ...
Education in Australia became free, secular and compulsory with the Education Acts of the 1870s and 80s. Prior to this, the government had provided some assistance to Catholic schools ...
It's that sort of nit-picking that can send Polonius right off, and then he gets out his furry gear and begins to sound like a dog barking at the moon...
With the Polonial cut and paste out of the way, what to offer as a bonus. The pond had already surveyed the field yesterday, and simply couldn't bear doing Dame Slap doing the ACT and its legal system or Petey Boy and the Wick saga yet again...
It's a long time since Petey Boy was urging the nation to breed or was the subject of nattering "Ned's" word salad serves about his astonishing work as a treasurer (but you can find a few in Trove) ...
Sadly that's all the "Ned" the pond can offer this day.
"Ned" has gone missing again and the pond doesn't know where he were ...
That left the pond's situation so dire that the pond plunged into the heart of the beast, "Ned's natural "Inquirer" stomping ground ...
There was Killer, still obsessed with Covid and Fauci ...
There was garrulous Gemma, conflating genocide and anti-Semitism, as reptiles are wont to do ... and there was Fergo having a go at the greenies ...
As noted yesterday, there seems to be a tiredness to the reptiles ... all this navel-gazing and fluff gathering in the hive mind means that the lizard Oz has become something of a black hole, with very little light escaping ...
That's the reason the pond settled on the dog botherer, as a perfect example of where incessant repetition of tedious obsessions can get you ... nowheresville daddy-o ... still trying to feel the Tingle...
Is there any way that you could transform the beast Dutton into the comely form of Jean Marais in Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast?
Perhaps not, but the dog botherer's obsession means that fine stories of the WaPo kind go missing from the pond ...
There was Oliver Darcy in CNN ... Morale plummets inside The Washington Post as staffers express alarm over publisher’s attempts to squash story
...Lewis has denied wrongdoing in the hacking scandal. Regardless, the coverup often can be worse than the crime. And so, when The New York Times first reported the news about the pressure Lewis had applied to Buzbee, which CNN has since confirmed, all hell broke loose inside The Post.
The story sparked a wave of fear that was only exacerbated by a follow-up story published by veteran NPR media reporter David Folkenlik, who disclosed Thursday that Lewis “repeatedly — and heatedly — offered to give” him an “exclusive interview about The Post’s future,” so long as he dropped a story about the phone hacking allegations. Folkenflik said a spokesperson for Lewis confirmed to him “that an explicit offer was on the table: drop the story, get the interview.” Folkenflik, of course, did not drop the story. Lewis’ first interview ultimately went to Puck’s Dylan Byers. (Byers told CNN Thursday night that no restrictions were placed around the interview, and he would “have never agreed to anything like that.”)
Which is why one might have thought that Lewis, who surely must sense the trust of his staffers quickly slipping away, would have offered a mea culpa of sorts on Thursday night. Apologize, vow to do better, etcetera. ChatGPT could have written the note for him! But instead, bizarrely, Lewis has chosen to go a very different route.
Suffice to say, the behavior demonstrated by Lewis up until that point was alarming and raised serious questions about his judgment. As one veteran media executive told CNN Thursday, playing off The Post’s “democracy dies in darkness” tagline, “Democracy dies in pressuring editors to drop stories about publishers.” One doesn’t need to go to Columbia Journalism School to know that the head of a newsroom should not be trying to intimidate journalists from publishing unflattering stories about themselves. It is obviously inappropriate!
David Folkenflik's story for NPR 'Washington Post' CEO tried to kill a story about himself. It wasn’t the first time was one of many angles, with Jack Shafer at Politico having several goes, including The Rupert Murdoch-ization of the Washington Post...
...it doesn’t take much in the way of divination to predict that the team Lewis has assembled will Wall Street Journal-ify and Rupert Murdoch-ize the Washington Post, and that the remodeled newspaper will be guided by British attitude and experience. This transformation was quietly beginning even before Sunday night. After Lewis came on earlier this year, he hired fellow countrymen Suzi Watford as its chief strategy officer and Karl Wells as its chief growth officer. (Winnett is a Brit, too.) Murray, Watford, Winnett and Wells have all worked at the Journal or at the U.K. Telegraph, overlapping with Lewis, who has held top spots at those places. Lewis once hired Winnett at the Telegraph, making the new team a bit of a fractured family reunion. Murray came to the Journal in 1994 and rose to editor-in-chief in 2018 before being replaced in 2023.
Being Shafer, he didn't mind the WSJ so much, but he was a moth to the flame ...The Growing Debacle for Will Lewis and the Washington Post, The crisis at the newspaper suggests the publisher has no idea about how the media operates.
...Lewis must also be savvy enough to American standards to know that the cover-up is almost always worse than the crime. Assuming that the current British phone hacking case will surface new material about his role (or non-role) in it, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to get in front of the bad news and tell his side of the story?
His silence on the subject is unbecoming and also counterproductive. In a piece that I was working on as this story broke, I asked several news executives who landed at the top of publications where they knew almost nobody and knew very little about the new city they were working in what advice they might have for Will Lewis and his two new top editors, Matt Murray and Robert Winnett, who are strangers to the Washington Post.
Their top recommendation was that a new team must first establish trust with the staff that they’ve inherited. In journalism, as in other professions — the military, deep sea diving and restaurant work, for example — faith in your co-workers is essential. Newsrooms are run by consent of the governed. You don’t have to think your colleague is a good person in order to work effectively with them, but you must believe they are on the level with you.
If Lewis hopes to reorder the Washington Post into three newsrooms, and restore the stumbling paper to its former glory, he’ll need every hand on deck. He can’t afford to be drawn into anymore “he said/she said” debates about his recent events, nor can he continue to kick the phone-hacking scandal down the road. If he hopes to succeed, he must perform a reverse ferret of a sort and level with his reporters and the press. Nobody wants to work for an untrustworthy publisher.
All this is to put the dog botherer's moaning and whining into a hill of beans context.
There are bigger fish to fry in the world ... (WaPo's market cap is US$3.17b, which shades the ABC's budget of c. A$1.1 billion) ... and more interesting fish when talking of billions ...
The dog botherer needs to get out more but of course he's constrained by being an ideologue who can only see commies under the bed ...
SCOTUS continues in the news and is about to drop a number of key rulings, while the financial corruption stories continue apace, such as the NY Times' piece, Clarence Thomas, in Financial Disclosure, Acknowledges 2019 Trips Paid by Harlan Crow.
In one story, there were details and a tidy graph ...
Thomas received 103 gifts with a total value of more than $2.4 million between 2004 and 2023, the judicial reform group Fix the Court said in a report Thursday.
In contrast, Thomas’ fellow justices over the same period accepted a total of just 93 gifts worth a combined value of only about $248,000, according to the nonprofit group.
Thomas’ fellow conservative justice Samuel Alito accounted for the lion’s share of that value. Fix the Court’s analysis found that Alito accepted 16 gifts worth a combined $170,095.
But all the dog botherer can do is moan and whine about the cardigan wearers, seething with petty resentment ...
The pond still goes to the Graudian, the ABC (news only), the Beeb and a few other sources knowing that they're not going to be full of rampant craziness of the dog botherer kind ...
It's the intolerance that's remarkable, that and the craziness, but the pond is pleased that the dog botherer finally got around to mentioning the reptiles' orange Jesus ...
Join the conspiracy queue, or perhaps just the Q ...
The dog botherer's US kissing cousins ...Killer's too ... and still the dog botherer rants ... with his very own deeply insidious conspiracy theories ...
And yet there's no mention of that 80th anniversary. Is that because the reptiles and the dog botherer are out of sorts with the result of that campaign?
When someone clearly mentally disturbed shuffles up to you in the street and begins to rant about insidious ESG agendas and people in cardigans running the country, it's best to go the 'toons...
Meanwhile the genocide goes on, and if the dog botherer truly wanted a conspiracy, there's a ready one to hand ...matters that urgently need to be investigated. Perhaps the reptiles could put aside a portion of their budget to do the hard yards ...
For some bizarre reason, not a word, not a mention of one matter where the ABC mucked up, though there's a story about it here ...
Why? Is it because the bromancer has a soft spot for brumbies wrecking the landscape, akin to his climate science denialist desire to make the planet burn?
Never mind, it's been a very slow burn to get here today, and yet arriving at it is just as immensely satisfying as it was yesterday, and the reason why the pond fast tracked this rant ahead of many reptile contenders.
You don't often get this level of narcissism and self-congratulatory delusion in a few short pars, and yet here we are ...
The pond's deepest worry is that the reptiles might turn their attention to garbage collectors and turn back lanes into the sewers that used to pass as rivers in England.
The pond can tolerate shit from the reptiles, but wants someone in the employment of councils (or their contractors) to cart away the pond's shit. If they were feeling expansive, they might also cart away the dog botherer and his shit, though the pond acknowledges that they'd need to be equipped with tongs and breathing apparatus ...
And so in closing it's time for another cartoon celebrating the orange Jesus, devoted disciple of Russia and North Korea, with said countries doing their best for him in November ... as will Vlad the sociopath's allies, the GOP, Faux Noise and News Corp ...
Flags raised as instructed ...
The Botherer - >>At News Corp the people who fund the journalism do so by free choice, we survive at the whim of subscribers, advertisers and viewers.>>
ReplyDeleteI’m uncertain as to which category Rupert falls into, though he’s certainly the main person who funds News Corp “journalism”. Has the Lizard Oz made a profit in any of its much-celebrated 60 subsidised years? The viewing figures for Sky News programs - including the Dog Botherer Hour - don’t really indicate that they’re supported by a mass audience either.
As for brumbies, worth recalling that for a time they were protected by NSW LNP legislation - possibly the only time such protection was afforded to an introduced feral species. Part of the impetus for that protection was lobbying from tourist operations- one of which was, by coincidence, associated with a former LNP MP.
That line from Chris Kenny is typical of the Murdoch media's view of the world: all that counts is the money. Given that the Murdoch contributors are always quoting Western philosophers as the great thinkers, perhaps a little balance should be introduced by quoting Confucius:
Delete""The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell."
https://www.thoughtco.com/best-confucius-quotes-2833291
What a pity it is then, that it's only the inferior men (and nowadays even a few inferior women) who get all the money. Just like Roopy (and maybe even Gina).
DeleteOh yeah, our totally perceptive Gerry H: "...since the government [Howard-Costello] took control of the Senate last July ... The Howard-Costello model is built for endurance and to navigate the nasty bumps ahead." Yeah, right on, there; so successful that at the very next federal election (November 2007), the "Howard-Costello model" resulted in a total rout of the LNP in which the great John Winston Howard was dumped out of his own very 'safe' seat.
ReplyDeleteHendo always gets the important things right, doesn't he.
I was not aware that part of Limited News trying to bask in what were better days - the Flagship sailing under Lt Deamer - the reptiles have resuscitated Akker Dakker. Only discovered that in looking across the bait dangling from this weekend's 'Curious Snail'.
ReplyDeleteAs ever - tiny problem for Akker is that he was a bit young for all that he tries to identify with. When the Flagship was launched, Piers was just 13 years old, so he missed any involvement in its better days. Of course, he may have his own version of that part of his life. Around 2011, when he could still be seen on the couch at 'Insiders', during one discussion of something Rupert's mum had said, that was way too (small 'l') liberal, Piers claimed that he knew she had been misquoted - why, he had been a confident of hers 'for more than half a century'. Except, at that time, he was around 61-2 years old, likely resident in Western Australia. Being a man deeply dedicated to truth and accuracy, we waited to hear - did Rupert send special flights to Perth so the precocious Piers could commute across the Dame Elisabeth's farm to be her 'confident'. If so - was he working on a book, giving us all the benefits of such unique experience. 'Tis a mystery.
But - Akker is back. Has the visit from Lachlan and our Ms Brooks got him worried about whatever retainer he has been on these several years? Does he need to remind them of his amazing drawing power to the print media?
I wonder if Piers still makes periodic attempts to resurrect “the Heiner Affair”?
DeleteGood one, Anonymous - but life is too short, and that 'cost of living crisis' too pressing, to subscribe actual time and money to reading what Piers contributes to the dailies.
DeleteLife would always be too short for Piers (both of them ?) even if it lasted for millennia.
DeleteGerard Henderson lost me completely. What has the history of the Goulbourn strike in NSW -fixing lavatories in Catholic schools - or even school aid - got to do with the current situation about preventing discrimination against homosexuals and others by religious institutions?
ReplyDeleteSure, both involve the Catholic Church, but apart from that there is no similarity.
The only thing we get out of his article is some cross-promotion of the Murdoch media.
I recall from my own 1960s-70s Catholic schooling that the Goulburn “strike” became somewhat legendary within the Australian Catholic community, a symbol of the plucky little Church striking a blow for equality against the oppressive, uncaring secular State. Or something like that. To most folk these days it’s probably now ancient history, but for the likes of Polonius it’s still basically current affairs, and its complete irrelevance to modern issues means nothing to him.
Delete"...and turn back lanes into the sewers that used to pass as rivers in England." Sure and the Charter of the Forest and William Marshall are both long deceased. Sadly.
ReplyDeleteApparently Chris Kenny thinks that appearing at Senate estimates, with one's political opponents ready with their knives, as well as others asking whatever questions they like (as distinct from interviews where the interviewee gets to vet the questions), is somehow not making oneself available on matters of public interest.
ReplyDeleteHe clearly still burns with resentment at the lack of cooperation he received when preparing his pissant “expose” of the ABC.
DeleteChris can see the truth.
ReplyDelete'The public broadcaster is a staff-run collective. A succession of meek managing directors has ingrained this management style, and restoration of the position of staff-elected board director has formalised the arrangement.'
Well there is no danger of such an appalling situation occurring at News Corp - Rupert, Lachlan, Rebekah and Miller, to name a few, have a strong management style - and everyone at News Corp knows their duty to flog the interests - business and political (actually, in the end it is all business) - of the corporate owners and their guardians; no possibility of a pile-on at News Corp; no possibility of slipping standards or illegality (phone hacking was an honest techno error); defamation payments are just what happens to news organisations that are preyed upon by conniving grasping citizens and corrupt companies; News Corp is in constant communication with legal authorities to ensure that they are always on the side of (read beside) law and order.
So I understand the frustration of Chris. He feels almost alone as a force for News Corp in a world gone evil. I worry for Chris - I think this article is really a cry for help. Perhaps he could take a break - destress. It is probably doing wonders for other News Corp managers who have been released recently by Lachlan and Rebekah, for the sake of their health; so you see, News Corp management are softies underneath - but not wimps!
I only wish that I had worked for such a caring company in my day - some people have all the luck. AG.
The whole human race is a "staff-run collective". Though I must say that it wasn't so until we got rid of the dominance of clericals.
ReplyDeleteRupert showed his respect for his staff when he sacked them all at News of the World, because he took no responsibility; News of the World was not his responsibility!
ReplyDeleteEveryone had a most humble day that day; the day that News of the World hard drives were trucked out and offshored to the Subcontinent for physical destruction, for cost-effective winding-up reasons, while umpteen investigations were active, and not a brave soul in authority thought to secure or to preserve that compendium of nowt-evidence.
Delete