Billionaires, Grifters, are vehicles for ratings Trump learned that years ago when doing his TV show. Attention matters and refusing it is the death of corporate media. Like Barnum like Madhoff Trump is still a master of the art of attention control.
A great start will be the mainstream media refusing to give Trump platforms such as last Wednesday’s CNN event. Of course, this is a forlorn hope, as the soaring ratings totally vindicated CNN’s decision.
The banner is still aloft over what used to be the home of the brave. It will recover its starry spangle when Trump and his White supremacist movement of anger, hatred and malice are gone forever.
Multiple events in the USA this month have dismayed, disturbed and disgusted the watching world, as Alan Austin reports.
In the same way Peter Dutton targeted Africans as if they were all cut from the same cloth Australia-wide pointing to Dandenong as being representative of why our immigration policies have failed the nation. Meanwhile, Dandenong hasn’t been a national issue at all. He’s gone to Alice Springs to declare Alice’s current indigenous issues reflect indigenous Australia and is in need of AFP policing and not a Voice. It’s exactly a mirror image of Trumpists in America
Dutton blows up 2800 cases as if they are representative of 3% 0f Australia’s 750,000k indigenous people that need policing. If that’s not the same racist argument we have heard for the past 250 years then what is. Particularly because it’s his reason for a “No” vote on the voice
If a reporter gets abused for simply asking “What is your evidence Mr Dutton?” The cop in Dutton reveals itself and The ABC blamed for not simply amplifying Dutton’s politics as Murdoch does. Is Dutton really a leader in control with his finger on the pulse? Is he there to help the people of Alice or simply there to help himself?
Weeks ago Dutton claimed he’d spoken to “authorities on the ground” and when it was pointed out he hadn’t left his office he generated this trip. He said he’d spoken to lots of people “on the ground”. He’s standing alongside Jacinta Price “the lots” remain unnamed and haven’t rushed to support him saying “We spoke to Peter and provided him with his facts” Peter Dutton has a way of manufacturing misdirection, and in this case, it’s look at Alice’s problem as if it were an Australia wide problem. It’s a distraction to the issue really at hand ” The Right of First Nation’s People. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to Constitutional recognition and a Voice” after 240 years.
“Without Compromise,” stands as a fitting tribute to the work Barrett did to inform the public in the city he loved. To be fair to his work the monument could perhaps be placed outside City Hall, since Barrett exposed corruption on both sides of the political spectrum, which in the New York of the ’70s and ’80s was dominated by Democrats. (Including Donald J. Trump, at that time.) But if anyone wishes to honor Wayne Barrett while sticking it to the guy who has spent his life enriching himself at the public’s expense while calling the free press “the enemy of the people,” that spot on Fifth Avenue would be perfect.
Our mainstream media puts wind in the sails of hate
In this article from 2021, Tom Tanuki outlined how the mainstream media gave racial extremists such as Tom Sewell a platform to spread his message of hatred to potential recruits.
I guess that I should be impressed by the fact that the speaker had the intelligence to use the word “if”. After all, various media outlets were telling us that the election was “neck and neck” and that there was a real question about whether Labor would be able to form government, even as a minority. Nobody was pointing out that the Perrottet government was already in minority, had a series of scandals apart from Gladys, as well as a series of questionable decisions such as knocking down stadiums and trains that didn’t fit in the tunnels.
It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs.
During his recent National Press Club appearance, former PM Paul Keating scolded mainstream media journalists — who deserved every stinging syllable of his pinpoint-accurate words, writes Belinda Jones.
LNP will do anything to take media attention off Robodebt
it takes the media’s attention away from Robodebt and the slim chance that they’d report the obfuscation, the inability of people to recall basic information and the obvious fact that it wasn’t incompetence that led to legal advice not being attached or passed on: it was a design feature of the standover merchant tactics that were employed by almost everyone involved.
Trivia Time: who said ‘All the way with LBJ’ regarding Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War?
Harold Holt, who succeeded Menzies as PM, in the completion of a flip from Austral-British to Austral-American focus for our national defence. It was contentious at the time, widely protested by Australian society, and of course (as time has played out), another contemptible waste of Australian lives and resources for no useful purpose. Another compromised commitment to Australia due to political ambition.
If the Islamic Jihad cell had been planning an attack, as the Israelis maintained, then the raid was not illegal in itself. But it left so many dead bodies behind aside from the those of the three militants, not to mention injured, that the commando tactics appear to have shown reckless disregard for civilian, non-combatant life, which is a war crime.
We will see many more raids involving reckless disregard for human life in the West Bank now that Israeli extremists have been put in charge of 3 million Palestinians. It is as though a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. had been made Secretary of the Interior with oversight of native Americans.
PM Netanyahu announced that he would meet the challenge of increased violence by issuing Israelis (including the Israeli squatters on Palestinian private property in the West Bank) more guns. He said he would also try to collect ‘illegal weapons.’ That is, the Israelis are heavily armed but the Palestinians helpless. Squatter attacks on Palestinians help account for the high death toll of the past thirteen months.
We are at a crossroads. The Ultra High Net Worth Individual (UHNWI) class is creating a new international feudal order, assisted by the professional enabler class including politicians in pursuit of their money. One of those enabling mechanisms is the media. In Australia, News Corp serves as the strongest weapon in the creation of their desired world.
Each climate calamity we endure is another learning opportunity for the nation to understand the existential threat of climate change and why we must take the lead in reversing it. For the media to avoid talking about it is a loss for democracy.
How quid pro quo works, and donations remain unrecorded. The ALP on the other hand suffers the slings and arrows of private mainstream corporate media. The ABC was exclused.
Josh Frydenberg sallied forth with a fulsome pat on the back this week … for himself.
“The Coalition’s ‘world-first’ Media Bargaining Code was a ‘success’,” pronounced the former Treasurer. A success indeed; a terrific success for the Coalition’s media mates Rupert Murdoch, Peter Costello and Kerry Stokes.
To be fair to Josh, he was only repeating what was in the press. Josh’s “media reforms” had forced Google and Facebook to pay millions in cash (secretly) to Big Media. In return, the News Corp, Nine, Guardian Australia and so forth sang the praises of Josh’s “world-first”. Manufacturing consent is a breeze, you just have to pay people.
One thing you can be certain of it’s not ANTIFA. However the Usual Suspects are hiding in plain sight!!
The concerted attacks against comedian Friendlyjordies are simply not funny.
Jordan Shanks-Markovina, known as Friendlyjordies, is a funny man and a popular YouTuber but his incisive investigative videos, which reveal embarrassing truths about politicians and powerful corporations, are ruffling too many feathers, it seems.
It’s been the same here in Australia. Morrison did it in the hope of political gain with Deves. Pentecostalists have entered Politics and are spreading hate. The only reason we haven’t seen a mass shooting is because of our gun control laws and the level of tolerance and inclusion due to multiculturalism in this country. The LNP have simply tried to Americanise our politics and will continue to do so if Peter Dutton is an indication. He went straight to America after being nominated Opposition leader in parliament.
AOC is right. This entire year has seen Republicans and their media agitators and MAGA supporters develop horrific conspiracies against the LGBTQAI+ community in order to gain political power. Revving up the hatred against “the Left” who only want tolerance and welcoming for all people.
Despite having picked so many winners, I have to put up with the Fake News. For me, Fox News was always gone, even in 2015-16 when I began my “journey,” but now they’re really gone. Such an opportunity for another media outlet to make an absolute fortune, and do good for America. Let’s see what happens?
For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am Angry about the Midterms, don’t believe it. I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn’t the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a “Stable Genius.”
Eyes are off the ball and haven’t noticed The AGE crying out for attention
I don’t live in Victoria and I don’t vote in Victoria but from a distance it appears to me that the two main contestants in the upcoming state election are the current Premier representing the ALP, Dan Andrews and Newscorp although, in the latter case it is not clear if it is the dirty digger himself standing or the prodigal son who may be living on his yacht in Port Phillip Bay – but is he on the Victorian electoral roll ?
Truth is it’s neither and they don’t seem all that fussed about the Liberal Party but they both dearly want to destroy the ALP.
The Age’s attempt to make out that Dan Andrews is pushing to make public reporting of IBAC leaks illegal, and that Matthew Guy, is a crusader for press freedom is actually propaganda built on a house of cards. Buried yet again in the Age’s biased report is the hidden fact. It’s IBAC and QC Redlich who is appealing for stronger laws against the leaks in their investigations. Leaks well before any formal report is even released and leaks before any conclusions have been reached. The new Age is in the full conspiracy swing of an American a PR agency modelled on Fox News, News Max and OAN in competition with Murdoch’s Herald Sun for number one spot.
IBAC now wants to go a step further and is pushing the government for “urgent” legislation that would make it an offence for any person to report the contents of draft IBAC reports.
In a strongly worded statement, IBAC said it was a “critical” part of the natural justice process to give people the chance to respond to preliminary findings.
It said this natural justice process had forced it to seek the injunction to prevent The Age from publishing information from the draft report. (The Age)
But it’s not the accident itself that’s at issue here. The point I’m making is that for the issue to resurface in the midst of an election campaign is rather interesting timing. Coincidence? Of course, one couldn’t accuse the Murdoch paper of having an agenda. I’m sure that every ten-year-old incident where no new evidence has been produced is always worthy of a front page, so I’m sure we’ll have something about Matt Guy’s lobster lunch and how one of the guests was an Australian citizen thanks to the largesse of Amanda Vanstone and her compassionate granting of citizenship.
Murdoch led us to conspiracies which led us to even the more extreme QAnon mindset along with both militant, religious, and Far-Right groups in the USA and here. Australia’s own homegrown Christian-right dream of a theocratic-led state like ISIS and are calling for one openly.
Andrew Bolt declared, after the bombings in Barcelona, that the Australian Christian youths should have the same commitment as those bombers had in Spain. To the death, he wrote with the blessing of Murdoch’s media. Mind you he doesn’t have the same commitment himself but insists and drives others to have it. He went into immediate hiding for 4 days after the Christchurch massacre and then outpoured own denial to any violence. What did he mean when he said Australian Christian youth were gutless and needed to fight back? He certainly said it, wrote it, and they read it. The Australian militant mass murderer in Christchurch hero-worshipped and listened to a series of far-right guests giving voice to aggression on Andrew Bolt’s show. The Murdochs didn’t even profit from it yet they promoted it. The fact that Bolt admired the commitment to the death, of the Barcelona bombers says it all. He was a media crusader and recruiter for the radical right and as Judge Mordecai Bromberg declared a lazy and no-talented hack who had no regard for facts.
The same forces are in play in Australia: desperate people, stoked with existential dread at the crimes of the Elites, exacerbate each other’s sense of victimhood. They falsely claim the pandemic was manmade, and vaccines intended to control them or kill them slowly. They celebrate their pure blood and sperm. They wondered if they felt sick after gathering unvaccinated because the government had sprayed them with toxins. (Because conspiracies are unfalsifiable, every consequence of stupidity becomes fodder for paranoia.)
Editors at Nine Entertainment and the ABC have been diagnosed with Acute Journo’s Ear Syndrome and possible Craniorectal Inversion following reports of an $8 billion Medicare fraud. Callum Foote reports.
Ron DeSantis, is the governor of Florida, although he’s this Trumpian, maybe alternative to Trump from the right wing, was educated at the best schools in America. What is it? Harvard and Yale.
Jim Mamer: Harvard.
Scheer: And yet he mangled history so badly, and in your column, you raised a question of whether it was out of ignorance or malice or what have you, but really, tell us about the state of historical knowledge among young, well, any Americans. You’ve been at it for a long time and you just pointed out these blatant errors. So let’s go there. Do we Americans really know anything about our history, the world’s history, and whose fault is it?
“Extremely investor friendly” is how the latest fossil fuel buyer describes Australia. Along with the twilight of the coal era with its astronomical profits has come the rise of squalid public relations tactics. Zacharias Szumer investigates the case of Liechtenstein-based coal trader Sev.en Global Investments, its billionaire owner Pavel Tykač and Sev.en’s propaganda associates.
It is vital to free ourselves from belief in the systems of white supremacy and imperialism that are inculcated in the educational system and are affirmed and amplified by the media and establishment opinion.
The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II puts the need for political and psychological liberation in high relief. We are encouraged to admire an anachronistic monarchy, and are exhorted to join in mourning an individual and a system that have caused great harm to Black and other oppressed people around the world.
Prominent right-wing commentators are condemning Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) proposed national abortion ban. But their concern isn’t that they oppose threatening doctors with up to five years in prison if they perform an abortion on a patient who has been pregnant for more than 15 weeks. It’s that they know Graham’s bill endangers the GOP’s chances of gaining power and thus having the opportunity to ban abortions.
For decades, propaganda has steered the course of the mass media’s narrative, dominated by the needs of state and corporate power. John Pilger explains that nothing has changed in today’s world.
But the media treated the speech as if it were just another in an endless series of partisan vollies instead of what it was – a declaration by the president of the United States that America must choose between democracy and authoritarianism.
The major networks didn’t broadcast the speech.
Why must we wait until some of America’s ablest journalists are sacked before they are willing and able to tell America the truth?
It is not “partisan” to explain what Trump and his anti-democracy movement are seeking.
It is not “taking sides” to point out that the Trump Republicans are trying to establish an authoritarian government in America.
It is not “violating journalistic standards” to tell the unvarnished truth about what America is facing today.
In fact, a failure to call out the Trump Republicans for what they are – liars, enablers, and accessories to crimes against the constitution – itself violates the most basic canons of journalistic ethics.
“Balanced journalism” does not exist halfway between facts and lies.
With the ABC neutered these past decade and Murdoch media, Ch9 and other mainstream organizations tied to the Government and it’s donors for financial gain political media in this country holds any oppositions to account rather than the Government. Democracy is no longer being served and an autocracy is encouraged to flourish. Grass roots politics brought an end to the slippery slide and has temporarily allowed the nation to catch its breathe.
Revelations about Scott Morrison’s power-grab of five secret ministries raise serious questions about the health of Australian media and in turn, the media’s commitment to contribute to a strong democracy.
The core function of political media is to hold power to account. The fact that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was able to secretly sign himself in as co-minister in the portfolios of health, finance, resources, treasury and home affairs, in collusion with the Governor-General, speaks volumes of journalists’ unwillingness to scrutinise the powerful.
The Murdoch’s claim to be major supporters of “free speech” but only as long as it’s not directed at them it seems. Their company Fox News has never shown it was strongly critical of what occurred that day. In fact they have shown to be major supporters and in no way apologists for what had occurred. Stronger criticism of Fox News was certainly provided by much of American media and in stronger terms but they took no action. Why is Australia the place they are taking their Godzilla like legal stand?
Lachlan Murdoch has threatened online news website Crikey with legal action over an article that suggested he and his media mogul father Rupert Murdoch were responsible for the riots at the US Capitol in January.
I spoke to Israeli television host Guy Zohar on his show “The Other Side” last week to try and understand why the Israeli mainstream is cutting the far right slack, particularly at a time when it is primarily responsible for much of the homegrown antisemitism in the United States.
While we have managed to elect a new government, we are still stuck with the same old media who cannot or will not imagine a non-toxic politics. This will likely not be the last time the Albanese government may have to change its position. Any government must be granted the space in which to reverse bad decisions without enduring toxic criticism from toxic media who are more interested in furthering discord than they are in facilitating positive change.
Israel doesn’t just kill, and incarcerate journalists, poets and authors but applies a censorship regimen to all information, and news disseminated in the State. It tries to control it outside its borders as well.
In 2021, the Israeli military censor barred the publication of 129 articles in the media, and interfered with the content of another 1,313, according to data provided by the censor at the request of +972 Magazine and the Movement for Freedom of Information in Israel. This marks the third year in a row that there has been a decline in the military censor’s activity, which is now at an 11-year low (the entire period for which we have data).
All media outlets in Israel, as well as authors and publishers, are required to submit articles relating to security and foreign relations to the IDF chief military censor for review prior to publication, in line with the “emergency regulations” enacted following Israel’s founding, and which remain in place. These regulations allow the censor to fully or partially redact articles submitted to it, as well as those already published without its review. Media outlets are barred from indicating in any way whether the censor has altered a story.
The decline in the censor’s work is a small consolation when considering that it regularly interferes in the news we read without our knowledge.
In what is a fitting 90th birthday present for the ABC, Qantas has inked a new deal with the public broadcaster for ABC news bulletins to screen on Qantas flights and in airport lounges. The arrangement means Sky News Australia will no longer be screened in the airline’s lounges, a development that will please critics of the divisive pay TV channel.
Is it hypocritical to write an op-ed about my hatred of op-eds and how they are an outdated medium? Probably, but fuck it, hear me out, and I’ll explain why “I hate free speech in the marketplace of ideas.”
olddogthoughts 