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”

ABC reduced to running American propaganda on Four Corners

The level to which Australia’s government-funded media corporation, the ABC, has sunk is illustrated by the fact that in a slot reserved for its main investigative stories, it ran an American propaganda documentary from the American publicly-funded outlet PBS on 3 July.

Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin.

Titled “Putin and the Presidents”, the documentary made no effort to disguise itself, conveniently leaving out masses of context in its bid to paint the Russian president as the villain supreme.

It covers Putin’s interactions with American presidents from Bill Clinton onwards, painting the American leaders as trying to get along with the Russian president, while he did everything to spoil relationships.

One can understand the American obsession with Putin; at the moment, he is the administration’s bete noire, standing between Washington and NATO membership for Ukraine. Continue reading “ABC reduced to running American propaganda on Four Corners”

Lehrmann’s Channel 7 interview does not show him in a good light

Ever since former Liberal Party adviser Brittany Higgins alleged, in an interview with the news.com.au website on 15 February 2021, that she had been raped in Parliament House by a colleague in early 2019, the story has rarely been out of the news. The colleague, who was later revealed to be one Bruce Lehrmann, has always denied the charge.

Image by helen35 from PixabayThe case went to a jury trial in 2022 but a juror was caught in possession of material that compromised his/her status as a jury member and a mistrial was declared. The prosecutor said later that a second trial would not be held as it would be detrimental to Higgins’ mental health.

Since then, there has been a ding-dong battle in the media, with Higgins’ supporters and Lehrmann’s supporters trading barbs. Lehrmann refused to testify in court during the trial, but suddenly decided to give an interview to Channel Seven on 5 June. Continue reading “Lehrmann’s Channel 7 interview does not show him in a good light”

Liberal Party is still stuck in the white picket-fence era

Last weekend, Australia’s Liberal Party made history by losing a by-election to the government, something that had not happened for more than 100 years.

The seat in question, Aston, in the outer-east of Melbourne, had fallen vacant due to the retirement of the sitting member, Alan Tudge. The two main parties, Labor and Liberal, both put up female candidates.

The Labor candidate, Mary Doyle, obtained 53.62% of the vote, while the loser, Roshena Campbell, won 46.38%. Continue reading “Liberal Party is still stuck in the white picket-fence era”

Credlin doco indicates Libs growing desperate as Vic election looms

With elections in the state of Victoria just a week away, politicians are in a feverish mood as they try to rustle up support to win their seats.

The rush to push their barrows has been sped up no end after early voting started on 14 November and reports emerged of big numbers voting ahead of the election. More than 2.2 million of the state’s registered 4.4 million voters are expected to cast their votes before election day. The first four days of early voting saw 556,193 people exercise their franchise.

Thus one can understand why badly crafted election propaganda like a Sky News documentary titled The Cult of Dan Andrews are making an appearance. The opposition is desperate to make inroads into the Labor vote, but with a leader like Matthew Guy, who went backwards in the last election, the task ahead is like rolling a huge boulder up a mountain. Continue reading “Credlin doco indicates Libs growing desperate as Vic election looms”

Conflict of interest: ABC caught changing online story

The ABC has been caught out changing an online news report after iTWire pointed out that the report in question — about Thursday’s Q+A program — contained no mention of the fact that Alastair MacGibbon, the chief technology officer of security shop CyberCX, is currently providing advice to Medibank Group, a company which recently suffered a devastating network attack.

[This story was originally published at itwire.com]

MacGibbon was given a platform to tout his wares on the ABC’s Q+A program on Thursday with only a fleeting mention of the fact that his firm is now advising Medibank how to deal with its ransomware attack and subsequent data leak. Continue reading “Conflict of interest: ABC caught changing online story”

Bias? Don’t know that word, says The Age editor

Another Saturday, and there’s a fresh dose of wisdom from Gay Alcorn, the venerable editor of The Age, a tabloid that is one of the two main newspapers in Melbourne. Once again, Alcorn’s gem was behind a paywall in the morning but is now free to read.

As with her effort some weeks ago — which was dissected here — Alcorn is again trying to play the balance card even as accusations of bias arise. This time, a federal election campaign is in full swing and thus the shrieks from the gallery are that much louder.

Alcorn claims the newspaper, part of once what was a large stable running under the name Fairfax Media until it was taken over by Nine Entertainment, has not moved to the right.

[I worked for the website of The Age for nearly 17 years, from June 1999 until May 2016.] Continue reading “Bias? Don’t know that word, says The Age editor”

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…”

Blah, blah, blah: Scott Morrison goes on and on and on

Listening to the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speak is a painful experience. The man does not seem to know when to stop, even when he is answering pointed questions; he just waffles on and on, giving one the impression that he is trying to exhaust the time available to keep the questions to a minimum.

His verbal acrobatics take him from topic to unrelated topic and the whole thing sometimes makes no sense.

No end of jaw: Scott Morrison. Courtesy YouTube

What came to mind while I was forced to listen to one of his media conferences — I was driving — was the description, in Mark Twain’s 1883 classic Life on the Mississippi, of the pilots who guided steamers down that river during those years.

These men needed to know the river intimately, every swell and literally every rock, in order to avoid getting stuck on a sandbank, or, worse, hitting an obstacle and sinking. They had to develop extremely good memories.

Continue reading “Blah, blah, blah: Scott Morrison goes on and on and on”

Don’t go overboard with the sentiments, Warne was just another flawed human being

There is an unwritten rule in most human societies that one does not speak ill of the dead. You can be the worst murderer, thief, rapist or sociopath and beat your wife every day of the week, but the moment you die, you have to be treated as some kind of saint.

This kind of hypocrisy is so embedded that at least in one language there is a specific word to describe it: Sinhalese, the language spoken in Sri Lanka. [Despite all my efforts, I just cannot recall the word which was told to me when I was in the eighth standard many moons ago.]

Courtesy: megapixl.com

That rule appears to be asserting itself in Australia following the death of cricketer Shane Warne, a player who revived interest in the art of spin bowling when he came on to the international scene in 1992; this was after fast bowlers, predominantly from the West Indies, had ruled international cricket for two decades.

Continue reading “Don’t go overboard with the sentiments, Warne was just another flawed human being”