Andrew Probyn is an excellent PR operative. The ABC did well to let him go

There has been much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the recent sacking of Andrew Probyn, the political editor at Australia’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster, the ABC.

Andrew Probyn. Courtesy Sky News/ YouTube
Andrew Probyn. Courtesy Sky News/ YouTube

If one were to believe all the praise gushing forth about this doughty individual, then he was a combination of all that is good about journalism.

But Probyn’s last contribution to the ABC shows that he is much better suited to a role in the public relations industry. That is, if one goes through his documentary Breaking the code, which, to be blunt, is one of the most sickening exhibitions of sucking up to some of Australia’s intelligence operatives. Continue reading “Andrew Probyn is an excellent PR operative. The ABC did well to let him go”

Important news from The Age. It’s the sainted editor speaking…

An indication of how far The Age, a tabloid newspaper that is published from Melbourne, has sunk can be seen from a letter to subscribers [note, not those who read it free] from the editor, Gay Alcorn on 2 April.

Perhaps to imbue said document with importance, Alcorn chose to place it behind a paywall. [The Age home page can be read without payment and a limited number of articles are also free to read, before the paywall kicks in.]

But Alcorn apparently considers her writing so important that it has to be paid for. Of such stern mettle are editors [and journalists too] made. Heaven forbid that the common man should be able to read this important missive.

[I worked for the website of The Age for nearly 17 years, from June 1999 until May 2016.]
Continue reading “Important news from The Age. It’s the sainted editor speaking…”

The world has become the domain of liars

There’s a common element to much, if not most, of the news that flits across the TV screens: lies.

People attempt to add a touch of sophistry to lying, by trying to create classes of lies, but in the end it all adds up to the same thing: saying one thing when knowing that the opposite was correct.

One well-known example: the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, came to office promising a US$15 minimum wage for the country. He also promised to provide medical services for all and forgive at least a part of the billions in student debt.

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COVID travel ban: Morrison Government opens itself up to claims of discrimination

The Morrison Government in Australia has opened itself up to discriminating between countries when it comes to allowing people to enter the country after it put in place a ban on people from India coming into Australia after the outbreak of COVID-19 in India went out of control.

When similar conditions existed in the US, no such travel ban was enacted. Mary-Louise McLaws, a professor at the University of and a World Health Organisation adviser, noted in The Guardian that an analysis of data which showed India had less cases per capita than either the US or the UK during the COVID peaks in those two countries.

She said this suggested Australia’s ban on flights from India was “an act [borne] out of fear” and Canberra must bring home its citizens “to ensure there is no misconception the ban is in any way racist”. Continue reading “COVID travel ban: Morrison Government opens itself up to claims of discrimination”

Time for ABC to bite the bullet and bring Tony Jones back to Q+A

Finally, someone from the mainstream Australian media has called it: Q+A, once one of the more popular shows on the ABC, is really not worth watching any more.

Of course, being Australian, the manner in which this sentiment was expressed was oblique, more so given that it came from a critic who writes for the Nine newspapers, Craig Mathieson.

Hamish Macdonald: his immature approach to Q+A has led to the program going downhill. Courtesy YouTube

Newspapers from this company are generally classed as being from the left — they once were, when they were owned by Fairfax Media, but centrist or right of centre would be more accurate these days — and given that the ABC is also considered to be part of the left, criticism was generally absent.

A second critical review has appeared on April 5, this time in The Australian.

Mathieson did not come right out and call the program atrocious – which is what it is right now. The way the headline on Mathieson’s article put it was that Q+A was once an agenda setter, but was no longer essential viewing. He was right about the former, but to call it essential viewing at any stage of its existence is probably an exaggeration.

Continue reading “Time for ABC to bite the bullet and bring Tony Jones back to Q+A”

One feels sorry for Emma Alberici, but that does not mask the fact that she was incompetent

Last month, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a taxpayer-funded entity, made several people redundant, due to a cut in funding by the Federal Government. Among them was Emma Alberici, a presenter who has been lionised a great deal as someone with great talents, but who is actually a mediocre hack who lacks ability.

What marked Alberici out is the fact that she had the glorious title of chief economics correspondent at the ABC, but was never seen on any TV show giving her opinion about anything to do with economics. Over the last two years, China and the US have been engaged in an almighty stoush; Australia, as a country that considers the US as its main ally and has China as its major trading partner, has naturally been of interest too.

But the ABC always put forward people like Peter Ryan, a senior business correspondent, or Ian Verrender, the business editor, when there was a need for someone to appear during a news bulletin and provide a little insight into these matters. Alberici, it seemed, was persona non grata.
Continue reading “One feels sorry for Emma Alberici, but that does not mask the fact that she was incompetent”

Managing a relationship is hard work

For many years, Australia has been trading with China, apparently in the belief that one can do business with a country for yonks without expecting the development of some sense of obligation. The attitude has been that China needs Australian resources and the relationship needs to go no further than the transfer of sand dug out of Australia and sent to China.

Those in Beijing, obviously, haven’t seen the exchange this way. There has been an expectation that there would be some obligation for the relationship to go further than just the impersonal exchange of goods for money. Australia, in true colonial fashion, has expected China to know its place and keep its distance.

This is similar to the attitude the Americans took when they pushed for China’s admission to the World Trade Organisation: all they wanted was a means of getting rid of their manufacturing so their industries could grow richer and an understanding that China would agree to go along with the American diktat to change as needed to keep the US on top of the trading world.
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In Australia-China spats, the media only gives one side of the picture

Australia has been imposing hefty duties on Chinese steel, aluminium and chemical imports for more than six years, despite a letter from the Chinese side in 2014 saying that holding talks with Canberra on this would be of no use.

Recently, China said it would impose tariffs on Australian barley and also block beef imports from four Australian abattoirs. This latter story has become a big stamping ground for patriotic Australian journalists, a crowd who accuse Chinese scribes of being one-eyed, but act exactly the same way.

But the fact that Australia has been imposing huge tariffs? Only one journalist to date, Angus Grigg of the Australian Financial Review, has written about it.

Continue reading “In Australia-China spats, the media only gives one side of the picture”

They do things differently in China – and it seems to work

Towards the latter stages of his life, Charles Darwin noted that he could not read serious texts any more; the only thing that grabbed his attention was a book on romance. One of the greatest scientific minds we have known could only enjoy a book about the mating game.

One would not liken oneself to the great man, but over the last nine months one has been similarly drawn away from serious work to become a regular viewer of a Chinese dating show that goes by the name If You Are The One.

The show is a record-breaker; it has about 60 million tuning in for every episode and has been running for seven years. The presenter, Meng Fei, is a national celebrity.
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The China wave

PROFESSOR Zhang Weiwei is not particularly well-known around the world. An author and former translator for the Chinese supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, Zhang is, however, a very important figure in China.

He has written a ground-breaking book, The China Wave – which has not, as far as I can make out, been translated into English – about China’s way of approaching development and one that is attracting great interest in his home country.

In an interview with the one news service that seems to have a knack for ferreting out the interesting and the newsworthy – Al Jazeera – Zhang made some very interesting observations.
Continue reading “The China wave”