ABC Fake News Bubble needs conspiracy theories about Murdoch and Stokes

It’s Projection — the ABC fantasize about Murdoch and Stokes because the ABC wants that power themselves

Media Bias, voting behaviour of journalists.Turnbull was the ABC’s pick for least-worst Conservative PM. They didn’t predict nor craft his demise, 45 elected representatives did. The People foiled the ABC, but instead of admitting that conservative voters matter, the ABC staff project their own desire to pick PM’s onto Murdoch and Stokes — which feeds the self serving fantasy that Australians need to pay for a national broadcaster to oppose big nasty corporates and their fake power.

While the ABC has no conservative commentators, as in zero, some other media outlets allow both sides of politics to speak — which clearly threatens the ABC bubble. Therefore it serves the ABC entirely to delegitimize the competition and to paint them as mindless corporate sock puppets.

The whole fake news conspiracy theory is bizarre beyond analysis. Rupert Murdoch supposedly picked PM’s by demanding his national masthead paper run no editorials calling for Turnbull’s demise, and silence no commentator that defended him. Meanwhile the ABC runs editorials disguised as news every night at 7pm. One time ABC management effectively called Tony Abbott “the most destructive politician of his generation.” ACMA eventually censured them. The ABC called it a “slap”. The fake journalist-cum-opinionator, Andrew Probyn, continues his job. Smart voices that support Abbott or Dutton go unheard. There is no accountability inside the ABC bubble.

Foreigners wonder how a rich country with more resources per capita, no land borders, and brilliant weather can screw things up in Oscar Winning Style. Look no further than the billion dollar gift with no strings attached for a neo-marxist collective to masquerade as the nation’s most trusted news source.

All the other news providers have to compete for audience and advertisers. They can’t afford to ignore half the nation — R.I.P. Fairfax.

 The ABC audience lives in a bubble on a deserted island

Chris Kenny, The Australian

Imagine if you had been stranded on an island for the past few years with nothing to watch, listen to or read from but Australia’s public broadcaster.

You would be under the false apprehension that our navy tortured asylum-seekers who were then raped on Nauru. You would think the people-smuggling trade was impossible to stop and that if boats were turned back there would be a conflict with Indonesia. You would think climate change was the greatest threat to the country, region and the world, and that it was already making our lives worse; on the bright side you would have faith that a carbon tax, emissions trading scheme or national energy guarantee would put an end to droughts, floods and bushfires while saving the Great Barrier Reef. You might be under the impression that our dams were dry and $12 billion of desalination plants were supplying us with water.

For a moment, you would have believed that the Donald Trump “nightmare” ended on the day he lost the election…

There is no reforming the ABC. It takes a billion dollars but costs the nation countless billions more as it hides the failure of the most stupid and expensive policies.

The media IS the problem.

 

 

9.5 out of 10 based on 97 ratings

127 comments to ABC Fake News Bubble needs conspiracy theories about Murdoch and Stokes

  • #
    Mal

    Amen! Nothing will change politically regarding climate policy whilst we have the current ABC pushing it’s one sided propropoganda.
    It has to go.

    301

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The Left often go on the offensive, accusing those they are attacking of the very things they themselves are doing.

      Its good to remember…they are like vindictive children, who cant help but dob themselves in…

      211

  • #
  • #
    Graeme No.3

    People keep calling for the ABC to be privatised, but who would buy them?
    I suggest that the Government include a section on the Income Tax Calculation asking whether the payee agrees to an extra $47.45 (13¢ a day by 365) being deducted for the ABC. For 25 million tax payers that amounts to nearly $1.2 billion.

    If you didn’t agree with the ABC then you don’t pay. That would act as an accurate appraisal of the popularity of the ABC.

    291

    • #
      PeterS

      Although it’s a welcome suggestion government funded agencies don’t work that way. They are all taxpayer funded and so all taxpayers have to pay. As soon as you make one agency receive funds based on end-user preferences then they all have to be, such as public schools, government owned motor ways not used by some, etc. I prefer the idea of just selling it off since government these days should not be involved in the MSM, unless one is a socialist/communist society much like what Soviet Russia used to be with their Pravda. Alternatively, they should enforce the rules the ABC should be following according to their charter. If they fail as they have clearly been doing for so long they should be penalised. I would suggest cutting their budget by 10% per month until they get it right.

      152

      • #

        Why not? The Australian public doesn’t need to pay for a national news website, nor a public broadcaster. In the transition away from that to a subscriber pays model, I think ten years of Tick-a-box-on-the-tax-return is a sensible choice. (I’ve been suggesting the tick-a-box option for years.).

        Other agencies that are necessary can stay funded the way they are.

        The ABC needs to be accountable to taxpayers. At the moment it is accountable to no one.

        If it is supposed to be the auditor of politicians how can the politicians also be auditors of the ABC? Doesn’t work. Pollies are afraid to criticize it for obvious reasons.

        322

      • #
        GD

        I would suggest cutting their budget by 10% per month until they get it right.

        I agree, but there is not a politician in the nation who would have the guts to do that.

        The screams from the left would be deafening. The commercial media would bizarrely agree with them, even though the tax-payer funded ABC is in competition with them.

        61

        • #
          Latus Dextro

          The screams from the left would be deafening.


          And therein lies the problem.

          Murderous failed ideology masquerading as “progressivism.”
          What a regressive farce and plague upon progress, prosperity and peace.
          There is a natural discourse and fabric to be woven around the ‘caring compassionate society’. This is far removed from the oppressive stultifying narrative of identity politics and political correctness, and the conglomeration of irrationality gathered into the Rainbow Cult such as cultural Marxism, intersectionality, Common Purpose, and the trinity of division, inequity, exclusion.

          There appear multiple threats to prosperity and civilisation. Among these, the expanding bureaucracy of unelected governance implemented through faceless administrative diktat. This numbers among the most dangerous. The UN with its various arms, the EU and the array of Leftist / socialist / communist / globalist national governments have evolved this MO. The populous are administered while intentional division of fostered. After all, there is little resistance from social chaos. People do not chose, flourish or prosper, and society appears destined to fail as all Leftist ‘redistributive’ societies have ultimately done.

          “Politicians” typically create biased commissariats of “experts” that generate the desired recommendations, which are then implemented with full arms length political deniability. Academia and government are now purposeful incestuous bedfellows, nothing less than the circular pursuit of policies created from of policy-based “evidence.”

          This regressive incestuousness is more perverted still.

          It has morphed into a ménage à trois — a triangular construct whose apices of politics, academia and media, create, regulate, and propagate the narrative.

          Within the triangle and linked to all three apices lie the administrators, the invisible unchanging, unelected, totalitarian bureaucracy. They have surrounded themselves with an impregnable, mutually supporting construct.

          The key failure of this model is as obvious as it is fatal. It is based not only on undermining and dividing the people but on ignoring the will of the people.
          It is easy to see how it will fail. It is hard to see how it will do so without difficulty.

          82

        • #
          PeterS

          The only real solution then is to just sell it off regardless of how much or how little it’s worth. Any nation that even pretends to be a democracy should not fund a MSM outlet. For starters it’s a conflict of interest.

          62

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Both the U.S. and Canada have public broadcasting funded by subscription. So the subscription model does work.

        00

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Its a real catch 22, keep up the funding of a large sheltered workshop of low functioning delusional narcissists or defund it and inflict even more snobby baristas and telemarketing survey types on society, not a decision to take lightly methinks.

      143

    • #
      yarpos

      Best immediate change they could make is to place a seperate independent auditor in charge of investigating allegations of bias, rather than an internal department. The current process is a bit of a joke, with “nothing to see here” the boiler plate response.

      100

      • #
        el gordo

        SBS has already shaved off some aspects of their organisation to free enterprise and the ABC could follow suite, but before then we need to get balance in the newsroom so that they can report their own demise.

        50

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The ABC is an essential govt propagana outlet..they will never sell it…because of that…

      50

    • #
      Rod McLean

      Where would you find 25 million taxpayers in Australia?

      50

    • #
      Ve2

      Don’t sell the ABC, give it and SBS to the unions and the Labor Party on the condition that it runs under the same conditions that it operates at the moment.
      Let them pay the $1.4 billion a year with no advertising.

      50

  • #
    Bob

    Interesting to see on ABC-TV a number of their self promotion advertisements by celebrities saying how wonderful the ABC is.

    70

    • #
      yarpos

      The one with Sam Neil is stomach churning

      70

      • #
        mc

        You have a strong stomach Yarpos, i find them all stomach churning.

        81

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        I feel sorry for gullible but well meaning people who are mislead by govt propaganda. Yes they may not be that bright, but they have thier heart in the right spot but dont realize they are being manipulated to do the govts bidding…

        I often wonder had the govt not had access to media, many botes on many topics woukd have gone the other way.

        40

        • #
          Latus Dextro

          No question. If the MSM adhered to the Canons of Journalism, the edifice of identity politics, political correctness, the Rainbow Cult, climatism, environmentalism, intermittent power and the whole stinking melange of dead-end neo-Marxism would literally and completely disintegrate within I estimate, 2 – 3 months. The terminal destination would be clear within 2 – 3 weeks.

          I often find practical, down to earth, sometime self-reliant individuals, those inclined to independent thought, word and deed, appear considerably less likely to embrace the or any narrative. On the other hand, those government dependents, the armchair boulevard latte and frappé swillers, academia, media and bureaucrats operate in unquestioning auto-acceptance mode.

          I don’t suppose it has been significantly different to previous derangement episodes in history, though the stakes would appear to be the highest … ever.

          31

  • #

    It took more than two to do the Turnbull tango. The whole media did the coup. The ABC and Sales were merely the most embarrassing.

    Malcolm was a product spewed hastily on to the market without consumer tests. The assumption was that the clever people who put him there with deception and manipulation (the way splashy “news” can be an ad for Aldi or Netflix while war and cholera are kept in the the plain print column) could keep him there by the same means. Despite public revulsion, despite the white elephants and green waste.

    Don’t let the ABC exclude conservative thought, don’t let Murdoch control conservative thought. Murdoch has characters in his stables meant to appeal to the likes of me. Tim Blair and Paul Murray do, in fact, appeal greatly. You’d like to sit in a pub or coffee shop with those blokes and laugh your head off with them. Because Murdoch is seriously smart and he knows the way into everybody’s head, including mine.

    Too bad, Rupert. I’m still not buying and still not forgiving. And Miranda…don’t bother flashing your green-bashing conservative credentials at me. I can wallop the greens and trots all on my own. Shut up forever.

    101

  • #
    Alice Thermopolis

    ABC RN DRIVE

    Attention: : Patricia Karvelas

    Dear Patricia

    I refer to your interview tonight (Monday September 17, 2018) on the above subject: “Scientists prove climate change impact on Hurricane Florence”

    And, in particular, to this claim on your site: “Researchers have found that MAN-MADE climate change has increased Hurricane Florence’s rainfall by 50 per cent.”

    “As authorities in the United States predict that the worst of Hurricane Florence is yet to come, researchers have figured out how much we can blame man-made climate change for the devastation.

    Professor Kevin Reed, a climate scientist from Stonybrook University says rainfall predictions alone have increased by 50 per cent since pre-industrial times.”

    Great questions, Patricia.

    This is a tricky subject, but for me Professor Reed’s claims were, to quote Sir Humphrey, “courageous”.

    Just as a menu is not the food, a climate model is not reality.

    Two dark secrets in the CC attribution attic:

    1.The climate detection-and-attribution community is unable to agree on a definition for “cause”:

    “Among other lacking items [in the event attribution framework], perhaps the most important one regards the absence of definition for the word cause. Several recurrent controversial arguments in the realm of event attribution may possibly be related to this lacking definition of causality: for instance, an argument often made (Trenberth, 2012) is that any single event has multiple causes, so one can never assert that CO2 emissions, nor any other factors, have actually caused the event.” (A. Hannart et al, American Meteorological Society, January 2016, p. 100)

    2. The community also has had to conjure up a “counterfactual world”, a hypothetical “control” world assumed to be impacted only by natural forcings and internal variability:

    “Most unfortunately, in the climate sciences, no such sample of Earth-like climate systems is accessible to natural observation and even less so to experimental testing … With such strong limitations on the natural observation side and with in situ experimentation inaccessible, we are left with the only remaining alternative: so-called in silico experimentation.” (Hannart et al, p. 105)

    Yet such admissions from the peer-reviewed literature are rarely, if ever, mentioned on the ABC.

    One hopes Professor Reed’s strategy here was not designed to get MSM attention immediately after an EWE.

    After all, he did say during your interview that Hurricane Florence was “an opportunity to engage the public about the [real-time] impact of climate change [dangerous anthropogenic climate change]. (4.51 min.)

    Lastly, hurricanes are presumably gender-neutral, even if regulations now require every second one to have a female name.

    See: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/04/weather-girls-burn-bra-ometers/

    As for so-called “MAN-MADE” climate change, perhaps the ABC should replace it with “person-made”.

    Unless, of course, in its lexicon of gender usage, nasty stuff like “climate change” is, by definition, “man-made”.

    Regards

    Alice

    180

    • #
      yarpos

      so, no more droughts then?

      60

    • #
      sophocles

      Alice Thermopolis drew attention to claims

      “Most unfortunately, in the climate sciences, no such sample of Earth-like climate systems is accessible to natural observation and even less so to experimental testing …

      The scientist who claimed that is an obsolete and unimaginative idiot. What are they doing in the CLOUD experiment at CERN? Nothing?
      (Check the CLOUD experiment at CERN: cloud.web.cern.ch. It’s been running for the last eight years with some very interesting discoveries. Jasper Kirkby’s papers are also very interesting … some of his videos on youtube are worth watching.)

      Henrik Svensmark has his http://www.dtu.dk/english/News/2013/09/Danish-experiment-suggests-unexpected-magic-by-cosmic-rays-in-cloud-formation SKY experiment (a box in the basement at the Danish Space Centre (Technical University in Copenhagen. That was made out of pocket change, compared with CERN’s experiment but it has been very valuable. Of course, Svensmark is officially an `heretic’ and a `denier,’ which are real accolades, considering from whence they come! 🙂

      Shaviv’s research has also been carefully ignored. He collaborated with Svensmark for a short while on the SKY 1 experiment. If you haven’t already, check his blog http://sciencebits.com“ for some interesting work.

      Yes, with some imagination, some care and some thoughtful work, it is possible to do/subject ‘a sample of earth-like climate systems to natural observation and even to experimental testing, not at full scale but certainly at smaller scales.

      60

    • #
      Alice Thermopolis

      Extract from an email I sent last week to Assistant Professor Kevin Reed at Stony Brook University NY:

      You also mentioned that “data from the C20C Detection and Attribution project (portal.nersc.gov/c20c) define the initial conditions for your counterfactual “storm that might have been” comparison.

      Is it legitimate to compare a “storm that might have been” with an actual storm, and then to use that comparison to make a claim about the real world, such as: “man-made climate change has increased Hurricane Florence’s rainfall by 50 per cent”?

      I ask this question because the C20C Project site states that: “the core of the project involves running large numbers of simulations of atmospheric climate models. These simulations differ only in their initial weather state, and so represent possible trajectories of the climate system under a given set of timing-evolving boundary conditions.”

      If the C20C Project generates only “possible trajectories” what criteria did your group use to select its “storm that might have been”?

      Regarding the C20C Project’s “attributable anthropogenic change pattern”, there are apparently “poor observational constraints on the details” of it.

      Any comments you may have on this aspect, and how it might affect your group’s research, would be welcome if you have time.”

      As yet, no reply from Assistant Professor Reed.

      The second CC “dark secret” mentioned in my post above is relevant in this context.

      Alice

      30

  • #
    MrGrimNasty

    If you think the ABC is bad…. The BBC was forced to make a ‘reasonable’ effort at impartiality during Brexit campaigning. But ever since it has done its utmost to undo it. The last week has been insane, absolute frenzied saturation bad-news Brexit. On the Radio they even announced that the EU had ‘offered us an olive branch’, we could postpone the leave date if we scheduled another referendum! It’s blindingly obvious that the most influential anti-Brexit groups, EU elite, and the BBC, are coordinating to exit from Brexit.

    160

    • #
      Lewis P Buckingham

      It would seem that neither Teresa May nor the EU had a plan for Brexit, as they considered it impossible.
      The EU is so unweildy in decision making it cannot come to a plan without a minimalist consensus position from all members.
      That will never happen with the core countries, which oppose everything and demand money.
      The EU is technically broke.

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/274179/national-debt-in-eu-countries/

      Look foreward to a sudden exit and a free trade agreement between the UK and USA.
      If Australia is on the ball it should have a free trade agreement ready for this likely eventuality.
      If it does it will show that the present powers that be, are capable of statesmanship as well as
      looking after the people.
      A good look when facing a hostile electorate.

      101

      • #
      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Free trade agreements are a central plank of impkementing global communism….its a way of establishibg interdependence and abolishing national independence….

        30

      • #
        Lewis p Buckingham

        LD, Just a thought.
        This binds the EU and Australia.
        It does not bind GB and Australia after Brexit.
        One of the many arguments for Brexit was that GB could make its own laws and sign its own agreements, once out of the EU.
        That’s what is the sticking point for Prime Minister May.
        She wants to adhere to the EU regulations on trade.
        The EU has rejected her plan anyway.
        I suspect the EU just want ‘compensation’, ie cash.

        00

    • #
      clive hoskin

      And the VOTERS be damned..

      10

    • #
      philthegeek

      The last week has been insane, absolute frenzied saturation bad-news Brexit.

      Probably because there is so little good news to report about Brexit. Still, its a good example of how the electorate can be induced to vote against its interests.

      00

  • #
    robert rosicka

    There’s a typo at the start Jo , you’ve left out the “r” and just wrote “pick” !

    90

  • #
    Ian

    “Turnbull was the ABC’s pick for least-worst Conservative PM. They didn’t predict nor craft his demise, 45 elected representatives did. ”

    That statement is just plain wrong. Turnbull called a surprise spill in which the result was Turnbull 48 votes Dutton 35. A second ballot was then called in which the contestants were Bishop, Dutton and Morrison. Turnbull did not stand as a candidate in that ballot which was won by Morrison with 45 votes to Dutton’s 40. It is said Turnbull’s stipulation he required a list containing the names of 43 MPs before he would authorise a spill, kept Dutton out.

    61

    • #
      Peter C

      Umm. That statement seems pretty correct to me.

      Your response seems to avoid the statement and talk about something else.

      41

      • #
        robert rosicka

        Turnbull did get rid of himself ,if Murdoch had that sort of power to topple a PM he would have shelved the Paris accord .

        This is nothing but fake news from the leftist ABC and if history is anything to go by they keep their dummy spits going as long as the public purse stays open , after all they are still bagging Trump and have a whole show devoted to undermining him .

        Pot kettle black .

        82

      • #
        Ian

        I am responding to this part of the statement “They didn’t predict nor craft his demise, 45 elected representatives did. ” hence my emphasis on the ballot where 45 MPs voted for Morrison. As this was the only ballot with 45 votes it has be the ballot to which the statement referred. As Turnbull was not a candidate, his demise had obviously already occurred before the ballot was taken. In essence Turnbull crafted his own demise by not contesting. I hope this has clarified why I believe the initial statement was incorrect

        52

  • #
    ROM

    With my OBE under my belt and not yet under the lid [ OBE in this case being” Over Bloody Eighty” ] I am of a generation who revered the ABC for its reporting and news gathering skills and the entertainment it provided when not much else by today’s standards was on offer in those days now long gone.

    But,and it is a big But, I became so disillusioned with the direction that the ABC was heading in its constant promoting of increasingly leftist objectives until about 5 years or so ago, I just gave up totally to listening or watching anything at all on the ABC.
    And No, I did not replace the ABC with listening to constant hysterical sounding ads from commercial radio as that was bridge too far.

    So I, a long ago avid ABC fan am no longer qualified to comment on the ABC as like so many of my generation I just gave the ABC up as little more than an increasingly biased, wealthy and highly bigoted grossly over-opinionated inner city elitist broadcasting outfit that should have been run out of town for its bias and bigotry and even lies long ago as we are seeing from very recent reports in the newspaper media.

    However there is one very good point about having the ABC.

    It gives us ordinary folk a glimpse of the highly elitist mentality and the pure outright utter ignorance in many ABC commentator cases about anything beyond the limits of the ever decreasing in size ABC bubble with its steadily hardening cocoon of increasing irrationality and the mounting disconnect from the real world outside of its studios and its own tiny commentatory rainbow and red hued bubble.

    We, the public are getting a look at the blatant and increasing open bigotry by the ABC and the socialistic left which the ABC now fully represents in its entirety, against anybody who dares to be non politically correct along with the overweening elitism of the grossly overpaid, under performing , frequently ignorant, highly opinionated , never admitting fault or being wrong, extremely hypocritical, empathy lacking, Sydney based and orientated, inner city, mostly elitists who are now in positions that control or endeavour to control and impose their own increasingly socialistic and politically correct as per ABC, standards of PC ideologically based policies [ so long as it doesn’t affect their own increasingly wealthy and dissolute elitist life style ] on the other millions of citizens who are not and never will be in the extremely well paid, grossly overpaid in the case of some of the ABC’s commentators considering their lack of basic knowledge on the subjects they claim to be expert on, all this along with the highly privileged and very well paid position that represents the bulk of the ABC’s employees .

    During WW2, the ABC was a trusted source of news on the war’s progress even though it was used by the war authorities to promote propoganda.

    Interestingly in the light of Jo’s headlining of the ABC in this post, some time ago whilst doing my usual meditation whilst doing my evening stroll, I thought again about the role of the ABC if Australia was plunged into another unwanted war.
    And my conclusion was that in no way would I trust the ABC in any way whatsoever to support in its entirety, the Australian cuase in any such destructive war.

    The ABC of today or sections of it and their personnel would likely to be potentially quite traitorous is the conclusion I came to as if they believed their own ideological beliefs were being trampled by the ABC following a line of support for Australia’s cause in such a war.
    Those who can recall the vietnam conflict of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s will know where I am coming from with sections of the highly leftist media, the ABC of today being amongst the most biased and bigoted of the leftist promotoing lot in the media.

    Of such is my viewpoint today on the relationship of the ABC and most of its increasing hard left representing elitist bubble dwelling personnel and the interests of Australia and Australians as a nation today.

    172

    • #
      Peter C

      However there is one very good point about having the ABC.
      It gives us ordinary folk a glimpse of the highly elitist mentality and the pure outright utter ignorance in many ABC commentator cases……

      I take the point, but I do not think we taxpayers need to spend $1 billion per year for that. I expect that you agree.

      I have asked this question before to some of my friends. I will ask it here.

      Why do we need a public funded broadcaster in Australia?

      130

      • #
        ROM

        Peter C @ #10.1

        A question I also have often thought about!

        The Australian Broadcasting Commission was set up up in November 1923 to use the brand new highly advanced technology of the radio waves to give not only the city folk but also the rural people in the small often remote australian towns and regions a reliable and trustworthy access to news and entertainment.

        Today with the plethora of choice across radio, TV, print media and now the Internet with its range of information collecting and disseminating organisations, it is long past time that the ABC [ it now calls itself a “Corporation” an indication that it thinks it is a commercial type business and no longer a government sponsored and controlled “Commission” such as when it was formed in 1923. ] was either privatised such as by offering the whole box of leftist skunk droppings to the creators of such for a dollar and let them get on their own way earning their own wages as does everybody else in our society.
        Or just put it up for tender and let anybody have a go at acquiring the salubrious ABC Sydney headquarters for what ever they might like to bid up to, including the ABC employees collectively also being entitiled to bid for the whole ABC shebang which they should do if they believe their own propaganda which they constantly espouse , that they are as good as they claim to be.

        Just get the tax payer off the hook for that billion and quarter dollars per year.
        A billion and quarter dollars of Australian’s hard earned that for news and entertainment which a decreasing number of citizens , despite a rising population, are now bothering to turn on.

        90

      • #
        Latus Dextro

        Why do we need a public funded broadcaster in Australia?

        There isn’t a government in existence who would contemplate being disconnected from its ability to manufacture or directly influence the narrative given the current MO of legislative creation, regulation, propagation and justification (the constellation of government, media and academia rotating around the controlling bureaucracy).
        “We” do not need it; we probably never did. “They” need it, which rather reveals their self-perception.
        Separation of religion and state occurred once. The lessons of history appear forgotten. We have regressed in this regard by creating a new state sanctioned religion (climatism/environmentalism) manifested in the toxic fusion of eco-Marxism.

        It has been stated before here, the bodies bureaucratic, MSM, political, and academe require clear intelligent separation.

        10

    • #
      beowulf

      My set-top box went berserk early this year and wiped all ABC stations (5 or 6) from my channel selection. I couldn’t be bothered re-scanning the missing stations since they were only ABC, so I left it. I haven’t missed the ABC for one second and my blood pressure has dropped as a consequence. I now spend my nights getting real news watching Peta Credland and Bolt & Co since Sky News went free to air. Best thing evah.

      Should I ask for a refund on my share of unwatched ABC programming?

      110

      • #
        Another Ian

        Seems a good place to ask for suggestions – steam radio though

        We are about 150 km from an ABC AM station of about 10000 watts power so no daytime reception problems – if you want “Their ABC”.

        Alternative is two 2000 watt commercial stations also at about 150 km with daytime reception a problem.

        Any suggestions as to a radio that will get these in daytime or do I have to jury rig a car radio?

        Common alternative is that well known station “OFF” though

        20

        • #
          Graeme#4

          Have you thought about purchasing a “Ham” radio receiver that also covers the AM bands? These receivers generally have another amplifier stage that should improve reception.

          00

    • #
      sophocles

      ROM @ #10 announced:

      With my OBE under my belt and not yet under the lid [ OBE in this case being” Over Bloody Eighty” ]

      … everybody now …:
      Happy birthday to you (whenever it was) 🙂
      etc …
      etc …
      etc …:-)
      Cheers 1, cheers 2 and cheers 3.
      Congratulations.

      Yesh … I’ll drink to that … 🙂

      90

      • #
        ROM

        Thanks sophocles.

        I’m early July, 1938 vintage.

        As I read the list that Jo has at the top of this post and think of a lot more worries that the modern helicopter parents have for their kids, items such as global warming , drugs, violence, sea levels rising to wash through Sydney, Greenland’s icecap sliding into the ocean, Greenland in most of these helicoptering parents being about the size of Flinders Island in Bass Strait, that terrible economy boosting individual called Trump being elected in the USA, banks and insurance companies stealing, rorting and fr—dently pinching all their superannuation!
        Their kids are facing a world full of troubles which their parents don’t know how they will ever survive such terrible future events.
        .

        Well at eighty years old and end of life’s shadows begin to get much, much longer, one does begin to do a lot of reflecting on one’s past life and the people and events that forged that life.

        I look back at my parents and what they faced and the future they might have truly had reason to fear for their first born when they brought that first born [ out of six ] into this world in mid 1938.

        Hitler and nazism was running rampant in Europe with Neville Chamberlain, Prime minister of Britain which still controlled the greatest Empire the world had ever seen and an Empire on which the sun never set, trying to restore peace and get a guarantee from Hitler that Germany would not make any further territorial claims after annexing Austria.

        I was still not yet one year old when Hitler invaded and annexed parts of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
        Sept 1939 and Hitler invaded Poland and divided Poland with the communist Soviet Union .

        By May 1940 the Nazi’s finally drove the British army out of the european mainland as the British army retreated and its soldiers were mostly and miraculously saved at Dunkirk.

        In June 191 the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and the march of the Communist Unionists down Melbourne’s streets protesting Australia’s involvement and support for Britian against the Germans was very abruptly cancelled when as the march began as the teletypes broke the news that Germany had begun invading the Soviet Union.

        All of this was bad enough for a small boy’s future as seen by his parents but it was still on the other side of the world , far from Australia’s shores.

        Then 7 Dec 1941 and the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbour destroying the american battle ship line up and a day later the Americans declared war on Japan and then Hitler foolishly declared war on the USA as well.
        The war was now global, it was world wide.
        .
        The japanese invaded and took control of the Phillipines and destroyed two of britians modern cruisers by air in the eastern Indian Ocean.
        And then took the British Fortess of Singapore in only days in Feb 1942.
        .
        Feb 19th 1942 and the Japanese bombed Darwin using more aircraft and a greater tonnage of bombs than was used at Pearl Harbour.

        And the war as now in Australia and its territories and was being fought by what seemed to be a race of Japanese superman armies that nothing could stop with Australia seemingly at the Japanese’s mercy.

        Meanwhile the german invasion of the USSR also seemed to be unstoppable with the germans soon at the gates of Moscow itself.

        In New Guinea, Australian militia soldiers with only 6 weeks training were fighting the advancing Japanese and retreating down the Kokoda Track towards Port Moresby, australia’s gateway to Papua and New Guinea.

        On the Solomon Island of Guadcanal the Americans were barely holding in the fight with over 20,000 elite Japanese troops who were intent on throwing a noose around Australia’s supply lines now open only to the USA in the East.

        This was the world in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s that my parents were trying to bring their small son up in.
        It was not an imaginery world .
        It was a real world and one the parents thinking of the future the children they had brought into this world mght have to face could only despair and fear to the end of their souls.

        And that is why when I see all those nebulous fears of the helicoptering parents of today about the “dangers” of the world that their kids will have to face just makes me curl my lips at their ignorance and lack of perspective of what parents and kids long before them have had to face when they also thought of the future of their children.

        50

        • #
          PeterPetrum

          ROM, i was born in Glasgow in 1940 at the start of the war and I am sure my parents went through the same fears yours did. There was no certainty at that stage that the Germans would be defeated. We moved to Swansea in Wales (my Dad worked for the British Aluminium Co – making metal for the Spitfires and Huricanes) and I do remember bombs falling. You are correct, the concerns our parents had for their offspring would put those of today’s parents into the shade. However, I feel sure that my wonderful grandchildren may have to deal with a world that will still be fighting the “one worlders” but, perhaps, they might be of them themselves. I will not be here to see that.

          10

        • #
          Annie

          Hello ROM, I too was born the eldest of six and in July. My parents had all those fears for the future and my father was one of a group that didn’t get away at Dunkirk but he succeeded later at another port after helping out fleeing French families. The rest of his group were killed at Wormhout; he had been sent on to some other duty. After landing in England somewhere on the south coast he was put on a train and fell asleep, waking to find himself in Newcastle.
          War is horrible but sometimes inevitable.

          00

        • #
          Latus Dextro

          ROM, thank you for your fascinating insight.
          My grandfather was a GP in the Blitz. He worked on river boats that ferried wounded on the River Thames to the London hospitals accessible from the river, one of the few remaining viable conduits and safe from conflagration. The family home, set beside a cricket field lost its windows and roof to a V2 that landed in the centre of the cricket pitch. Food was adequate though simple, treasured and scarce. Rationing was the norm. My young father (b.1928) spent hours churning milk to butter. It haunts him to this day. Uncertainty was the norm and it wasn’t modelled by UN IPCC general climate models. VE Day came then VJ Day, but not before father was conscripted into a northern Irish regiment (where they put their uncertain Irishmen) and learned to bayonet scarecrow straw bales driven by frenzied screaming sergeants. VJ came and they were rapidly demobbed.

          While the 1950’s and 1960’s embraced greater certainty and recovery, they were continually punctuated by further wars, Malaya, Korea, Vietnam, and later years with a clutch of African wars on the continent, the Cold War, Afghanistan (prt 1. Russia; part 2. US et al.), Falklands, interminable Middle East, hijackings, Red Army Faction – Baader-Meinhof Gang, Palestinian conflict and Syrian / Iranian sponsored terrorism to name a few. It goes on and lamentably on.

          So, the uncertainty remains omni-present and significant. Meanwhile, comfort and material sophistication, medical technology and communication have increasingly embraced the World and helped to remove some of the more immediate uncertainties.

          However, the ideological battle that began in 1848 when Marx and Engles delivered the Communist Manifesto remains and so therefore does much of the future uncertainty. It is time that this political and social cancer is expunged from the discourse of political and social possibility as thoroughly and aggressively as Nazism has been.

          For it has been beyond murderously successful. As Jo states, we are in the throes of witnessing while A perfectly good civilization is going to waste…

          10

  • #
    pat

    this is an interesting tale:

    last nite, ABC put out this piece of junk, which has since been updated, plus it now has a mobile phone video clip included. it speaks of an “EVENT”, but says nothing about what it was, yet it became their #2 item on their news bulletins overnight.

    21 Sept: ABC: Malcolm Turnbull describes Tony Abbott as a ‘right-wing character, to say the least’
    By political reporter Matthew Doran
    VIDEO: 25 SECS
    Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has shared a character assessment of his predecessor Tony Abbott, in his first publicly recorded comments since quitting politics…
    Mr Turnbull told an event in Manhattan that he was the first prime minister to have been in favour of same-sex marriage…

    Mr Turnbull spruiked what he described as the successful postal plebiscite as a way to navigate the political obstacles in the same-sex marriage debate, and criticised opponents of the process who said it was at risk of having a low participation rate.
    “I find it difficult to maintain interest in that political episode because it was so absurd, I can’t imagine how boring it will be for everyone here,” Mr Turnbull said.

    “The bottom line was the remarkable themes, great credit to Australia and Australians, 80 per cent of people voted in a postal ballot that they had no obligations to vote in — they could just as easily throw it into the bin — and about 400,000 or 500,000 young people enrolled to vote.
    “And you have people saying ‘oh young people don’t know what letters are, they won’t know how to post them’.
    “Lucy and I thought about this, and we said ‘they are all young people, they have great eyesight and letter boxes are painted red. They are on street corners’.”…

    Some concerned the Liberals will suffer significant backlash at the Wentworth by-election for ousting a popular local member from the prime ministership…
    Liberal party elders have launched scathing criticisms of Mr Abbott for his role in undermining his successor, and called on him to quit politics.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-21/malcolm-turnbull-describes-tony-abbott-as-right-wing/10292306

    Turnbull speaking at an “EVENT” – tried to check out what it was last nite, even visiting murpharoo’s twitter feed, but nothing to be found. however, happened to see a mention on Sky News Australia, where they showed the silly video clip in the ABC piece above. to me, it looked like Turnbull in his own living room, with a couple of mates who laughed at his Abbott joke!

    more to come.

    70

  • #
    pat

    comment in moderation.

    00

  • #
    Phillthegeek

    While the ABC has no conservative commentators, as in zero,

    Wrong thing to whinge about. ABC get them in from the IPA and the Lib/Nats to infest otherwise sensible programs with untruths and spin.

    “Conservatives” get their talking points out via the ABC no problem

    316

    • #
      el gordo

      As I mentioned previously, WIN/Sky is having an impact in the bush which will open up a yawning chasm between the truth and untroof as presented by the Aunty.

      The sin of omission on climate change has cost the taxpayers dearly and the ABC must be dismantled because its an informed society, not just an opinionated one, which is the mark of a healthy democracy.

      110

      • #
        Phillthegeek

        Only if you actually take the wierdo’s who do the political commentary on Sky seriously. FFS, they have provided Abbotts programmer Credlin a refuge and platform post politics?? Pretty obvious that move was to take the piss out of and troll Australia’s “Conservatives”. 🙂 Bit like here. Plenty of satire.

        Not only are “conservatives” missing the mean joke being played out on them, they fail to realise that about the only people who take Sky seriously are the rusted on’s who are going to vote Liberal anyway regardless. Those AREN’t the voters they need to appeal too, but if thats where “conservatives” are going to put in their effort ahead of the next election…good on em. An expression of their seemingly inherent ability to self defeat??

        Anyway, here’s some actually useful stuff from a proper news site wot!! 🙂

        19

        • #

          Phil, thanks for sticking around to give us Reasoning-by-Character-Assassination. People here need to know how collectivists “think” and you are an excellent example.

          Nice try at whacking Sky as well. We all know what you are afraid of — imagine if Sky was free to air and non-rusted-voters could see the news that the MSM hides?

          Oh wait… http://more.skynews.com.au/sky-news-on-win/

          130

          • #
            Annie

            I hope that isn’t changed by Sky being acquired by Comcast (today’s UK Telegraph business news). I’m looking forward to seeing Sky news on Win; that started as we came away so haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.

            30

            • #

              It should worry us more that six huge corporations own just about all anglophone media and much of the non-anglophone. They get to own information, culture, communications, entertainment, music and, basically, the heads of any regularly tuned in. While media are bigger than ever, they are narrower than ever.

              It would be nice if Australia’s giant ABC and the giant BBC were some kind of bulwark against such centralisation, but they are merely extensions of it. CNN and the Washington Post are mouthpieces of the permanent state (the CIA is overall leftist) because the US has a thing for private ownership, but they are no different from the ABC and BBC (except for the fact that the Beeb used to make okay documentaries and series in the remote past).

              You only have to look at the voluntary death of Fairfax at the mighty and grasping hands of Aunty to understand Murdoch’s clever survival plan. The plan is something like this: be different and to-the-right, serve a populist base, keep the luvvies fed too but don’t serve the same slop as the other five and BBC/ABC serve up. This has meant that conservative opinion has had a modest platform and outlet, though within pretty narrow limits, and Murdoch has owned a huge market the other have wanted to “educate” rather than exploit. However Rupert is extremely smart and those who succeed him will be much less so. Murdochs don’t grow on trees, corporate conformists do.

              https://www.webpagefx.com/data/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media/

              Above is an article which lays out how heavy the heavyweights are. But if you scroll to the end you will see a graphic which shows you where Comcast stands in relation to all the others. It could easily eat Disney, Fox, Sony or Time-Warner for brekky. Also, like its unfireable CEO, Comcast is not nice, not nice at all. No company is more loathed by staff and public, sheer enormity is its great advantage.

              I’d say we have a problem. Good luck with your funny little opinion and funny little truth against the six-headed leviathan, with that ugly swollen head in the middle called Comcast.

              30

          • #
            Phillthegeek

            give us Reasoning-by-Character-Assassination

            Not “character assassination” though if that fits with the persecuted world view so prevalent among the “conservatives” feel free.

            And really, no one with somewhat leftish views has any reason to be afraid of Skynooze. Good entertainment.

            14

            • #
              el gordo

              Phil putting WIN/Sky free to air in the regions was a master stroke by Murdoch, the Coalition can win this election. On the other hand if Morrison doesn’t seek tenders for new coal fired power stations then they are ruined.

              20

        • #
          Latus Dextro

          Sad. I’m guessing that placing “conservatives” in inverted commas you may be implying something else, perhaps alt-right, or is it more that the Left are in fact the regressive conservatives while the right are the literal progressives?

          20

          • #
            Phillthegeek

            Its the miss naming of “conservatives”. The label has been adopted by the right win radicals that are a little to the left of r the alt-right delusioninsts.

            “Left are in fact the regressive conservatives while the right are the literal progressives?”

            LOL! more satire. This site is great for that. 🙂

            03

        • #
          Ian

          As I agree with much of your comment I had a look at the link you provided. I can’t determine whether or not you’re having a lend of everyone here. From the limited extent to which one is permitted to read, it seems to be purely a vehicle for disseminating sensational speculation without a shred of evidence to back up any of the extravagant allegations and assertions sprinkled heavily through the hyperbole. It seems to be just a light hearted joke publication except course for the $10 subscription required to enable the reader indulge to the full in its schoolboyish humour.

          21

  • #
    yarpos

    I used to marvel at the SammyJ comedy skits(labelled as comedy anyway) Routinely LNP bashing and pushing the usual PC agendas, not even an attempt at the facade of balance.

    81

  • #
    tom0mason

    The ABC network (like all MSM) have yet to grasp that some people understand that just because a story is often reported or carries a popular notion, that alone doesn’t make it true. Unfortunately many people do not understand, for these numerous unfortunates popularity is truth.
    Popularity does not equal truth, it just means it’s popular. No smoke without fire? So often there is no fire, no smoke, nothing! Just the hot air and a steamy mirage of popularized beliefs, a virtual reality, CGIed simulacrum of truth.
    If the MSM had any credibility they would be peeling back the veneer of popular myths to expose the true reality. They don’t because there are NO curious enquirers, NO reporters in the MSM, only reciters of popularized myths.

    100

  • #
    pat

    followup to comment #11:

    first, it helps if you know who Harold Evans is. “legendary” says McIlroy. others might say notorious.

    but it is ***this bit I want to emphasise:

    Wikipedia: Sir Harold Matthew Evans (born 28 June 1928) is a British-American journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981.
    ***On 13 June 2011, Evans was appointed editor-at-large of the Reuters news agency…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Evans

    then note ***Michelle Nicholls’ job description below and keep in mind Reuters is FakeNewsMSM central.
    Nicholls tweeted re the Turnbull “EVENT” with an interesting PIC, showing what a NON-EVENT it was.
    btw it was AFR’s Joe Aston who began the Turnbull/Murdoch story, as you will also read below:

    21 Sept: AFR: Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Stokes and the downfall of Malcolm Turnbull
    by Tom McIlroy
    Malcolm Turnbull has spent much of his career in the company of “hot-metal men”.
    The former prime minister has been around journalists and newspaper bosses since legendary Sunday Times editor ***Harold Evans heard him speak at a Cambridge Union debate in the late 1970s, offering the Australian law student a job the next day.

    Decamped to New York after the August 24 Liberal Party leadership ballot, Mr Turnbull caught up with his former boss in Manhattan on Friday, recalling Mr Evans told him to stop studying law because it was “boring”…

    TWEET: 21 Sept: Michelle Nichols, ***Reuters United Nations bureau chief (far from home in Australia)
    PIC OF MALCOLM (& CO) AT THE EVENT
    Former #Australia PM @TurnbullMalcolm speaking with @Reuters @sirharryevans in New York City. They met in 1975 and Sir Harry told Turnbull to stop studying law because it was boring, but then added that it could be worse – you could end up becoming a politician…

    Despite this week’s reunion, Mr Turnbull could be forgiven for having another media boss on his mind.
    The Australia Financial Review’s Rear Window (Joe Aston) column revealed key details of Mr Turnbull’s downfall on Tuesday, confirming News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch had helped bring on the coup when he told Seven West proprietor Kerry Stokes a change was needed at The Lodge…
    “Malcolm has got to go,” Mr Murdoch told his billionaire peer, ***in an exchange later picked up by all of Australia’s major news outlets, including the ABC…
    https://www.afr.com/news/rupert-murdoch-kerry-stokes-and-the-downfall-of-malcolm-turnbull-20180921-h15ox2

    more to come.

    40

    • #
      pat

      meant to write: “keep in mind Reuters is CAGW FakeNewsMSM central.

      a few excerpts from Harold Evans Twitter page, which are extremely telling:

      Twitter: Harold Evans, SirHarryEvans
      PAGE HEADED: Do I Make Myself Clear?
      Why writing well matters

      re-Tweets Michelle Nichols, Reuters United Nations bureau chief (far from home in Australia):
      Former #Australia PM @TurnbullMalcolm speaking with @Reuters @sirharryevans in New York City. They met in 1975 and Sir Harry told Turnbull to stop studying law because it was boring, but then added that it could be worse – you could end up becoming a politician…..
      PIC of “event” Friday

      TWEET: Harold Evans: 12h ago
      Brexit is a disaster. Leavers were deceived.

      14 Sept: Harold Evans: Trump rallies should shout “where’s the owner?700,000 got none, The blowhard promised massive infrastructure boost.Empty words in the big con of his base

      3 Aug: Harold Evans: Dirtier exhausts. Polluted water. Cancerous chemicals. Why does Trump work so hard at reducing life expectancy especially own Americans esp his own “base” ? His he just dumb or malign

      Harold Evans re-tweets: Chris Matthews, MSNBC 23 May
      It’s clear, with his out-of-left field talk of a fictional spy ring and his attacks on a former FBI director, that Trump is proving his readiness to destroy any faith in government integrity in order to save his own.

      23 May: TWEET: Harold Evans
      The reckless EPA has a nerve – not only poisoning us but limits Press coverage while they go about their filthy work

      19 Apr: TWEET: Harold Evans
      Fox News and Hannity spewing proven lies lies about Muller and Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. Would that the vomit stick to them but the smell will be enough to alert us
      https://twitter.com/sirharryevans

      really writes well, doesn’t he? great stuff from a Reuters editor-at-large…not.

      50

      • #
        pat

        Twitter: Michelle Nichols
        THE TWEET ALREADY POSTED WITH THE PIC OF THE NON-EVENT.

        (FOLLOWUP BY NICHOLS)

        TWEET: Michelle Nichols: On trade, @TurnbullMalcolm says ‘The United States needs to set out a very clear statement of what it wants to achieve and the basis for it.’
        ‘I don’t think anyone wins from trade wars.’
        He says #Britain is looking seriously at joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership…

        reply from: No one knows what’s going on – 21 Sept
        Turdballs, Australia’s most despised Prime Minister ever.
        Qantas can cancel his return flight as New York can keep him, and his manic whimperings.

        reply: Harold Evans, Newspaper editor, historian and author and ping pong nut.
        ***Malcolm cogent on risks of Trumpian trade war and gmassive climate change

        reply: Paul Aviator
        I know she’s a long way from home but someone needs to tell Michelle #auspol is not in the least interested in @TurnbullMalcolm ***Her only audience is #MSM and #TheirABC
        https://twitter.com/michellenichols/status/1042917144856592384

        20

        • #
          pat

          Bruce McWilliam is a very close neighbour of Turnbull’s:

          9 Mar 2018: Domain.com.au: Bruce McWilliam snaps up another piece of Point Piper waterfront
          by Lucy Macken
          McWilliam has a solid history with Point Piper investments…
          He then bought a Wentworth Street house for $13.65 million and after renovating it sold it two years later for $16.5 million and took up residence in the Edwardian waterfront mansion a few doors away from his bestie, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he bought in 2014 for $29.5 million.
          https://www.domain.com.au/news/bruce-mcwilliam-snaps-up-another-piece-of-point-piper-waterfront-20180309-h0x3a3/

          nothing will change at ABC while Michelle (CAGW-infested Google) Guthrie is the boss. :

          Sept 2016: The Monthly: Margaret Simons: Is Michelle Guthrie tuned in to the ABC?
          Close friends and former ***mentors, including Seven Network commercial director Bruce McWilliam, declined to be interviewed for this profile…
          There are conspiracy theories around Guthrie’s appointment. Observers, including some of those who went for the top job and didn’t get it, note her history as a Murdoch executive and the fact that her ***mentor, Bruce McWilliam, is a close friend of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. “She is Turnbull’s pick,” one observer told me. “The most political appointment ever made to that job.”…

          “We got the right person by the wrong process,” says one. It is not true that she was Turnbull’s pick, but they acknowledge that Guthrie would likely be acceptable to the prime minister. She comes from the same corporate culture in which he earned his fortune…

          Her husband is Australian chef Darren Farr, who remains based in ***Singapore to run a restaurant. They have two daughters, one studying at New York University’s ***Shanghai campus and another at boarding school in Sydney. The women of the family are fluent in Mandarin…
          https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/september/1472652000/margaret-simons/michelle-guthrie-tuned-abc

          this must come in handy!

          29 Jul: Daily Mail: ABC boss on near-$1 million salary can enjoy taxpayer funded first-class flights overseas AND a hotel allowance of almost $500 a night
          ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie has been revealed as one of 28 high-paid government officials entitled to free first-class flights at the expense of taxpayers.
          An analysis of Remuneration Tribunal pay deals exposes government executives listed as ‘tier-one’ can expense their domestic or international first-class flights.
          They are also entitled to a hotel allowance of up to $430 a night in Australian capital cities or overseas…
          Ms Guthrie had been paid $890,987 in the 2016-2017 financial year.
          ‘I am the highest paid person at the ABC under a salary set by the Remuneration Tribunal,’ Ms Guthrie said in November…

          This comes only months after it was revealed taxpayers forked out $122million for public servants to fly business class across Australia and abroad in just a three month period.
          If that trend continued for the rest of the financial year, taxpayers could have paid as much as half-a-billion dollars in flights for government officials.
          It was a projection that has been annually rising since 2012-2013, in which $377.2million was spent.
          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6003341/ABC-Boss-Michelle-Guthrie-revealed-taxpayer-funded-class-flights-despite-massive-salary.html

          AUDIO: 24 Aug: ABC: Turnbull mate Bruce McWilliam says PM’s demise a sad day
          By Peter Ryan on PM
          http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/turnbull-mate-bruce-mcwilliam-says-pms-demise-a-sad-day/10162438

          10

  • #
  • #
    pat

    comment on moderation:

    final comment on this topic, which again suggests Turnbull might have had a hand in Guthrie’s appointment:

    8 Jul 2017: SMH: Bruce McWilliam: the man media moguls trust to make messy problems go away
    By Tim Elliott
    McWilliam’s best friend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, lives a couple of doors down the road; the two go kayaking together in front of their houses. For McWilliam, who grew up in working-class Dapto near Wollongong, Point Piper is “the greatest suburb on Earth”…

    ***When, in 2015, the government was looking to appoint Michelle Guthrie as ABC managing director, one of the first people Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called was McWilliam, an old friend and one-time mentor to Guthrie, with whom he’d worked at Allens and BSkyB…

    McWilliam’s friendship with the prime minister has indeed on occasion proved problematic. In 2014, officers from the Australian Federal Police raided Seven’s offices searching for evidence of a suspected seven-figure deal with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby. It emerged that McWilliam had rung then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who had in turn phoned Attorney-General George Brandis and Justice Minister Michael Keenan, leading to suggestions that Turnbull had interfered in an AFP investigation on behalf of his friend. Turnbull denied this.
    When News Corp journalist Jennifer Sexton rang to discuss the matter with McWilliam, he hung up on her…
    https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/bruce-mcwilliam-the-man-media-moguls-trust-to-make-messy-problems-go-away-20170623-gwx6u7.html

    40

  • #
    pat

    21 Sept: Breitbart: Future of Political Discourse at Stake: Farage Calls for Social Media ‘Bill of Rights’ to End Bias
    by Victoria Friedman
    Nigel Farage has called for a Bill of Rights for social media users after tech giants were exposed for their bias against conservatives.
    Mr Farage told the audience in attendance at The New Culture Forum, which was also watched live by some-60,000 on Facebook, on Thursday night in London that the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, Brexit in the UK, and the rise of the populist Italian government “could not have happened without the use of social media”.

    However, it was after the election of President Trump in November 2016 that the owners of the social media platforms that had facilitated the “global revolt” had become a “threat” to the “democratic process”, by practices such as the shadowbanning and censoring of conservatives…

    “The day after Trump got elected, the biggest internet search engine, the most powerful, important tech company in the world… effectively declared war on the whole populist revolt that was happening across the West,” the MEP said.

    Discussing the monopoly of tech firms run by Silicon Valley liberal elites, Mr Farage said: We have fewer than a handful of companies that now control the entire future of our democratic debate across the entire Western world and I think that now has very worrying implications.”…
    https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/21/future-political-discourse-stake-farage-call-social-media-bill-rights-end-bias/

    first 16 minutes: Laura Ingraham with Lee Smith, Real Clear Investigations, Corey Lewandowski and Kendall Coffey, former Federal Prosecutor on the NYT/Rosenstein “story”:

    Youtube: The Ingraham Angle 09/21/2018 | Fox New Live | Sep 21, 2018
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ_RJCwJBJo

    21 Sept: Lifezette: Rosenstein Bombshell Exposes ‘A Lot of Wrongdoers’ at the FBI and DOJ
    ‘They’re turning on each other like rats,’ a Real Clear Investigations reporter told ‘The Ingraham Angle’ on Fox News on Friday night
    By Kathryn Blackhurst
    If reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (pictured above right) suggested wiretapping President Donald Trump are accurate, then they exposed “a lot of wrongdoers” who operate at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Real Clear Investigations’ Lee Smith warned Friday night on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

    “I think the interesting thing and revelatory thing about these two stories is it exposes a lot of people, a lot of wrongdoers at the FBI and DOJ. They’re turning on each other like rats,” Smith said…ETC
    https://www.lifezette.com/2018/09/rosenstein-bombshell-exposes-a-lot-of-wrongdoers-at-the-fbi-and-doj/

    10

  • #
    sophocles

    The ABC’s time may be coming, and that of the BBC, the NYC, the Grauniad, and all the other pseudo-science-pedalling journals. The ESA (European Space Agency) may be about to destroy the IPCC pseudoscience in a couple or three years time. They have announced (see http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Three_Earth_Explorer_ideas_selected) three new earth-observing satellites.

    Daedalus would carry a suite of instruments to provide measurements in a largely unexplored area between the Earth’s upper atmosphere and space. Here, intriguing and complex processes govern the deposition, transformation and transport of some of the Sun and solar wind’s energy. The aim is to quantify amounts of energy deposited in the upper atmosphere by measuring, for example, effects caused by the electrodynamic processes in this region. The concept is based on a mother satellite, which carries a suite of instruments along with four small satellites carrying a subset of instruments that are released into the atmosphere.

    It won’t be just about the pretty lights up there in the air at each of the poles, the displays we call aurorae. There’s a lot, lot more to the solar atmosphere connection. If this `idea’ isn’t stopped/blocked/cancelled or otherwise annulled in time, the mere 0.1% Solar contribution acknowledged by the IPCC for Global Climate will be amplified, magnified, enlarged, and grown into it’s major contributions … explosively. We might then see some real science.

    Yeah, I know I’m using all the `weasel words’ but I won’t be holding my breath until it’s up there and the measurements start rolling in. Then life will really become interesting

    I’ll be watching that space … 🙂

    40

    • #
      sophocles

      Errata:
      NYC should be NYT.
      … and California can go back to sleep … unless Gerry Brown’s proposed satellites find similar bad news. Oh, the justice 🙂

      40

  • #
    yarpos

    I think the govt probably does the wrong thing thing talking about the ABCs problems / biases. It just gives them oxygen and inflates their impact. They have demographic and ratings issues aplenty.

    It would be better to only talk about them in terms of CNN like disdain and occasionally call out the most ridiculous examples of bias and lack of truthiness or competence.

    10

  • #
    John

    “Conservative journalists on the ABC none – that is zero.” Yeah that is right Jo but isn’t it odd how many friends of the ABC proclaim that the ABC is only counteracting the right wing propaganda of Sky News? Most FOTABC I would venture have never even watched Sky News and that ignores the fact that the ABC’s charter is to present objective news and not to compete with any commercial channel with their political favour.

    As you mentioned Sky News recognise that to survive they must appeal to a large cross section of the community and unlike the ABC, they balance presenters like Bolt, Murray and Credlin with a large stable of left orientated and middle of the road presenters and contributors such as: Kieren Gilbert, Ashleigh Gillon, Laura Jayes, Richard Marles, Janine Perrett, Nicholas Reece, Graham Richardson, David Speers, Tom Connell, Paul Kelly, Troy Bramston, Darrin Barnett, Gay Alcorn, Kimberley Kitching, Stephen Conroy, Bruce Hawker as well as many, many one off guests from the Left.

    What people want to see is vigorous healthy debate and I for one recognise the fact that even a conservative government cannot get it right all of the time. But in thoroughbred breeding terms what will see the demise of the ABC will be its incestuous inbreeding of ideas as opposed to the vigorous out crossing we see from Sky which in the end will produce the superior hybrid. Or, in the national broadcaster’s case, perhaps simply a brave enough politician to cut off the absolute outrageous flow of taxpayers money to fund it.

    51

  • #
    JD

    >While the ABC has no conservative commentators, as in zero,

    Nikki Savva, Gerald Henderson, Tom Switzer and Amanda Vanstone – there are at least four.

    00

  • #
    Phillthegeek

    so…Newspoll due out again tonight. Any takers here for predictions? 🙂 Would be interesting to see the predictions from this site as against some of the other polling aggregation sites i look in at.

    I’ll open with prediction of 53 / 47 TPP to the ALP.

    00

    • #
      Phillthegeek

      Well you will all be pleased to know i got my prediction wRONg.

      Actually 54 /46 to the ALP. 🙂

      10

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Newspolls worked for Trump and the Brexit vote, didn’t they? Hmmm, perhaps not….

        10

        • #
          Phillthegeek

          Not an apples and apples comparison. The kind of poll aggregations we use here are much more reliable, mainly to do with the system that are data about. Newspoll is polling relative to a preferential , compulsory voting system , not voluntary 1st past the post.

          TPP polling has been a pretty good indicator in OZ. Looking like apart from the spike in ALP TPP a few weeks ago, 🙂 Things will settle down in the 52-53% range where its been stuck for months. Libs are in much the same position as the Gillard / Rudd Govt was. Polling set in concrete and people have made up their minds.

          10

  • #
    Phillthegeek

    Here’s one for the delectation of the chamber you will all appreciate and coincidentally is absolutely on topic. 🙂

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/abcs-undergraduatestyle-bias-goes-off-the-charter/news-story/25a80a67f29cde080ed7dcfa461023ba

    Pay-walled, but just do the outline jump in an incognito window. Tried to post a working link to it before but doesnt work on this site.

    00

  • #
    Ian

    Interesting that Chris Kenny is now defending News Corp., You will recall he is the journalist that defended News Corp against allegations Murdoch wanted Turnbull replaced, noting that no editorial ever suggested that. Of course he carefully ignored the plethora of journalists at the Australian who were writing vituperative piece after derisive and derogatory piece about the vile, Turnbull.

    He claims it is not the left leaning views of the ABC that has lead to the sacking of Michelle Guthrie but her failure to embrace the digital ABC so enthusiastically espoused by Justin Milne the ABC chairman. One can hypothesise that removing an obstacle to the digital expansion of the ABC is not something News Corp would appreciate.

    Kenny sure is a trusty servant of News Corp.

    01

    • #
      el gordo

      Reading between the lines there is little doubt that News Corp egged on the radicals within the Party to bring on a coup. There were no editorials, but the intent of the journalists was perfectly clear and legitimate.

      So what we have with the Murdocracy is a fresh voice able to tackle the cultural Marxist ABC, SBS, Fairfax and Guardian.

      Guthrie was originally appointed because she had the runs on the board to transition the organisation onto new platforms, which she has accomplished. Unfortunately its all aimed at the millennials and a lot of the old people can see the blatant propaganda and are not happy.

      A new manager would need to get balance back into the newsroom before the election, otherwise aunty will be ridiculed by Sky.

      One other point worth noting, Lachlan Murdoch is heir apparent and is more right wing than his father. Both are climate change sceptics.

      10

  • #
    yarpos

    Both ABC and Sky have tiny ratings (maybe Sky will chnage with the added exposure now)

    Seems a big deal to those on the inside meanwhile the real world rumbles by and like it or not most of the populace isnt watching and doesnt care. To most people its going on in a detached self important bubble.

    Its interesting the ABC is so ratings focussed and chasing demographics apparently. You would think their job as a publically funded media org would be to produce good balanced analysis and reporting, letting the viewership come to quality regardless of demographic. Yes I know, pigs might fly also.

    00