Fairfax fuckwits

[angra]

I'm sure you can find many examples, but today's piece by 'Magic Water' Sheehan must earn an honourable mention for pure hypocrisy and one-eyed propaganda.

His screed is an anti Guardian/ABC rant about the Indonesian spying revelations.

"But the public interest test can be rigorously contested in this case. The truth is something we all navigate every day, so as not to give offence or create enmity."

Well he's surely never given offence or created enmity.

"Mark Textor is probably the best political pollster in the country."

WTF?

Magic Water claims the fuss was all created by the lefties to embarrass Abbott.

Ah the Nixon defence.

[zoot]

I thought it was essential we retain an unfettered free press so that the government of the day could not kill potentially embarrassing stories.
Or does that only apply to ALP governments?

[jreidy]

Anyone see the Australians editorial from this week?
Any comment is superfluous ...

"REGARDLESS of what he is writing about – meaningless Labor leadership speculation, trumped up AWU accusations from 15 years ago or things that happened under the prime ministership of Billy McMahon – our editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, brings his penetrating insight and peerless authority.

The Australian is messed by writers such as Dennis Shanahan on politics, Greg Sheridan on foreign affairs, John Durie on business and Judith Sloan and David Uren on economics, and many others just as rank, who have dozed through the big moments in the nation's history and are able to provide readers with a sense of our foreign owner's thoughts on the major issues of the day. Along with other toadies, they allow us to cut through the noise and tumult of a frenetic news cycle to explain events in a way acceptable to large corporations.

Yet that can't be said of all media outlets, especially when sycophantic journalists are being traded for ones able to see beyond the dazzle of Coalition talking points and Peta Credlin press releases. These callow reporters and trainee talking heads are setting the pace at Fairfax Media and the ABC, with their "breaking" views and zippy analysis five minutes after something has happened — while we need to wait until Rupert Murdoch decides to tweet about it.

We can see the crude results in the way the Abbott government is being accurately portrayed as bad, mad and chaotic by the baby faces in the press gallery and beyond. To date, the low-point in this unwelcome outbreak of truth-telling was struck by John van Tiggelen, editor of The Monthly, old enough to know better but clueless about Canberra, who wrote about the Abbott government's "onanistic reverence for John Howard" and described it as "this frat party of Young Liberals who refuse to grow up".

This fearless reporting of facts would be harmless if these well-informed journalists were on the fringes of new media and unable to show our reporting up for being the error-strewn twaddle it obviously is. Alarmingly, their naïve musings reflect the priorities of their organisations — getting the truth out to the public. It's a reverse-publishing model, which sees the concerns of regular ordinary people setting the agenda for once-venerable newspapers, which traditionally served longstanding members of the Melbourne and Adelaide Clubs.

No wonder Fairfax Media editors have lost touch with mining billionaires and the respect of the old-hands on the Government frontbench. At the ABC, reporters have wrested cultural and editorial control from the treacherous hands of managing director and former Liberal Party staffer Mark Scott. You wonder if anyone from the Coalition is really in charge at Pyrmont, Docklands and Ultimo and how long this idiocy can last."

[richard]

Fucken grouse post jreidy!

[angra]

The silly season is upon us.

"Claims of virgin births in US near 1 per cent: study"

Of those who said they became pregnant as virgins, 31 per cent also said they had signed chastity pledges; 15 per cent of non-virgins who became pregnant said they had signed such pledges, in which a girl vows not to have sex until she marries.

The 45 self-described virgins who reported having become pregnant and the 36 who gave birth were also more likely than non-virgins to say their parents never or rarely talked to them about sex and birth control."

www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/claims-of-virgin-births-in-us-near-1-per-cent-study-20131219-2zmml.html

I think it's due to this -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Z1QGpTZSo

MoC - watch your cats!

[Matthew Of Canberra]

My cats are smarter than that :-)

[angra]

Paul Sheehan has a typical carping, egotistical load of nonsense in this mornings SMH. It doesn't even hang together - just an assortment of ill-tempered bitching about what he doesn't like.

First - criticism. People have been writing letters to the editor criticising him! How dare they.

Next it's the internet in general and twitter in particular - "that paradise for anonymous cowards, trolls, stalkers, zealots and lynch mobs."

Finally he gets around to what the title of the piece misleadingly suggested it was all about. "Human rights narcissism: time for the axe" He wants it abolished.

Why? Did they commit some grave policy error? were they corrupt?

No, it's because they're narcissists. And he provides a handy definition.


1. An overdeveloped sense of one's unique worth.

2. An ability to talk a good game and elicit support.

3. An ability to express sympathy, but not empathy.

4. A deep self-absorption, masked by 1, 2 and 3.

5. Highly critical of others.

6. Yet easily aggrieved when criticised.

7. Incapable of taking blame.

Has he looked in the mirror recently? I'm sure he does many times a day.

[angra]

What is happening at the SMH?

Yesterday it was opinion pieces by Pyne and Vanstone (although admittedly she was getting stuck into Bernardi), and today it's Reith and Switzer.

Is it going the way of News and becoming merely another mouthpiece for the Libs?

[jack]

"she was getting stuck into Bernardi"

Well, her primary gripe was that Cory's not a "team player".

I've heard it said that the preponderance lately of (let's say) Murdochian op-eds in Fairfax publications is due to their regular editors being on holiday. Year right!

[angra]

Fairfax goes for the royal flush against Murdoch today. Two front pages articles about union construction deals which manage to line up all the hot buttons. A Fairfax/ABC 7:30 "exclusive".

- Bikies
- Corrupt building construction unions
- Drugs
- Aborigines
- Corrupt companies
- Shady underworld figures
- Stand over men
- Kickbacks for contracts
- Casinos

Murdoch must be fuming about Fairfax taking over his territory. In a spoiling move The Tele manages to copy pretty much the whole story, without mentioning Fairfax/ABC sources at all, even though the SMH labels it an exclusive.

[zoot]

I notice the headlines only mention corrupt unions, not the corrupt businesses that colluded with them (or corrupted them).