Andrew Bolt: ABC’s witch-hunt defence doesn’t hold weight
Against claims of leading a witch hunt against Cardinal George Pell, Media Watch host Paul Barry has delivered arguments that simply don’t stand up, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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The guilty often lie when cornered. That’s another reason to think the ABC secretly knows it’s guilty as sin of leading a witch hunt against Cardinal George Pell.
How else to explain the misleading defence this week on the ABC’s Media Watch program?
The ABC has been condemned for its persecution of Pell, who then spent 405 days in jail for a crime he could not have committed.
It promoted and treated as true a string of vile accusations against Pell of child abuse — every one so false or improbable that there’s been not one successful conviction.
Pell, after the High Court cleared him two weeks ago, called out the ABC: “In a national broadcaster to have an overwhelming presentation of one view, and only one view, I think that’s a betrayal of the national interest.”
But on Monday, the ABC’s Media Watch program, hosted by Paul Barry acknowledged just one small unfairness — the failure of its chief Pell persecutor, Louise Milligan, in one report to note Pell’s defences against claims made against him.
But against the claim of witch-hunting, Barry came up with arguments so weak or obviously false that in my view they confirmed the ABC is as guilty as charged.
Let me focus on just two of those arguments that the ABC must — or should have — known were false.
First, Barry suggested he himself had been fair because he’d last year said some newspapers had run opinion pieces wondering if a jury had wrongly convicted Pell of raping two teenagers in an open change room of his busy cathedral.
But I have good reason to remember that Media Watch program. That’s because he’d sneered at Miranda Devine and I for having suggested Pell was innocent.
He’d smirked: “You might have expected a unanimous guilty verdict for such sickening crimes would draw universal condemnation.
“But Pell still had plenty of friends in the media, like News Corp columnists Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt, to paint the cardinal as the victim.”
The second misleading argument is worse, not least because Barry seems to endorse the ABC’s official defence against the charge that it persecuted Pell.
“The ABC told us more than 80 different voices were used by ABC programs, 36 of which, it says, were impartial,” Barry said. “Prominent people who could be described as either supporters of Cardinal Pell or representatives of the Catholic Church were interviewed or appeared on panel discussions: Father Frank Brennan … Francis Sullivan (twice); Archbishop Peter Comensoli (twice); Greg Sheridan; Paul Collins; and Terry Laidler.
“Comments from Professor Greg Craven and Tony Abbott were also included in the package leading PM” — a package that ran only after the High Court finally cleared Pell.
Wait. So the ABC says 36 of those 80 “voices” it used were unbiased.
Then 44 were biased. Why didn’t the ABC say how many were biased against Pell? What’s it hiding?
Note something else. Of those 44, Barry names eight he claims were either “supporters of Cardinal Pell” or his church. But three of those eight did not defend Pell at all.
Terry Laidler, a former ABC presenter, is no Pell fan, and merely described what had happened in court. Paul Collins actually attacked Pell’s leadership. As for Francis Sullivan, what a joke. Barry and the ABC imply Sullivan was one of those defending Pell on the ABC.
Here is Sullivan on the ABC’s Q&A, not defending Pell but joining yet another ABC pack attack on him and those who defended him.
TONY JONES (host): “Andrew Bolt, Piers Ackerman and others raised the notion that Pell had been made a scapegoat for the ills of the Catholic Church that he presided over … (Labor frontbencher) Kristina Keneally raised the point, it’s disrespectful both of the jury and of the victim witness …”
FRANCIS SULLIVAN: “Let’s face it, George Pell is a very divisive character … But I agree with everybody at this point … We don’t want to put the victim now on trial by suggesting that somehow, maybe what they said was wrong … So, as far as I’m concerned, everyone should just shut up.”
That’s what the ABC calls defending Pell. That’s what it claims is evidence it wasn’t on a witch hunt.
May it die of shame for what it did to Pell, and for the falsity of its defence.
CORONAVIRUS MODELS FLAWED
What have our politicians done with their coronavirus bans? Now add this to the crippling cost: 780,000 Australians lost their jobs in just three weeks. They are now banned from leaving their homes except for exercise, medical care or basic shopping.
We are overreacting to what are now clearly flawed models of how the coronavirus would hit a country like ours, with a generally younger, fitter and more dispersed population and a first-class health system.
That is clear from two news stories this week.
From NSW: “Secret state government modelling has revealed coronavirus would have claimed as many as 700 lives by today had NSW not forged ahead with tougher lockdown measures.”
But from Victoria: “Theoretical modelling shows some 36,000 people would have died from coronavirus in Victoria if physical-distancing restrictions were not put into place,” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has said.
Either Victoria is dealing with a different virus, or it’s still trusting an alarmist model that last month used unreliable Chinese data to warn of up to 150,000 Australian deaths.
Andrew Bolt is a Herald Sun columnist
Originally published as Andrew Bolt: ABC’s witch-hunt defence doesn’t hold weight