THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CONSPIRACY

The ABC has veered so far Left that presenter Jon Faine claims: “We’ve got Scott Morrison as Prime Minister ­because Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes decided.” He's not alone. UPDATE: Faine is also an anti-Catholic bigot, 450 years out of date: "You pay money [for an indulgence] and ...then suddenly you can get to Heaven... You do, you buy them."

The ABC has veered so far Left that presenter Jon Faine claims: 

We’ve got Scott Morrison as Prime Minister ­because Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes decided.

This is a complete fantasy. Stokes did not want Turnbull replaced, Murdoch expressed his alleged opinion only when Turnbull was already mortally wounded by Peter Dutton's leadership challenge, and many of Murdoch's most prominent political commentators are slaved to the end to save Turnbull.

More from Chris Kenny in Murdoch's The Australian:

Apart from the teenage silliness of pretending that Murdoch and Stokes could just phone a few underlings to create a false media dynamic and force serious journalists to conjure up stories and commentary that then swung the votes of more than 40 MPs to change the leadership of the Liberal Party,  [ABC political  editor Andrew] Probyn had obvious facts wrong. In these pages during the week I detailed how his claim that this newspaper had been “unabashed in its advocacy for an end to the Turnbull prime ministership” was not only wrong but the opposite to what transpired.

Across three years of the Turnbull prime ministership and about 936 editorial columns, Probyn will not find a single editorial calling for this outcome.

Yet see how many senior staffers on the ABC, which canmpaigned so furiously to topple Tony Abbott, actually spread this nutty conspiracy theory that Murdoch papers now succeeded in toppling Turnbull, the close friend of ABC chairman Justin Milne:

The reports came not from some eager kid but from the ABC’s political editor, Andrew Probyn...

Radio National host Hugh Riminton declared it was “good, detailed reporting” and another RN voice, Paul Bongiorno, retweeted the story, claiming it shed “more light on dark places”.

MediaWatch host Paul Barry retweeted the story with this recommendation: “Read this and weep. Australia’s media moguls plotting who should be PM. Important story from ABC News and Andrew Probyn.” Even ABC News director Gaven Morris pushed the story around, noting that Probyn had “worked for these two guys” and that his version of events was “worth a read”.

It is a scandal - and frightening - that so many senior ABC journalists actually believe and peddle a conspiracy theory so stupid and so easily disproved.

 UPDATE: Faine is also an anti-Catholic bigot, 450 years out of date, and deaf to a caller who tries to correct him:

Jon Faine: I was astonished when I once discovered that there were things called papal indulgences...You pay money and you get a certificate which says that...

Michael: No you don’t pay money at all. That is rubbish.

Jon Faine: if you invoke the name of Jesus on your death bed then suddenly you can get to Heaven after all. No matter how bad you’ve been –

Michael: But so can you –

Jon Faine: – I thought that was fantastic.

Michael: No, it’s about forgiveness. And you’re being a little bit sarcastic here, because you don’t pay for papal indulgences at all.

Jon Faine: Oh no. I was told by someone that you do, you buy them.

Michael: No you don’t – and you can’t buy them.

Jon Faine: And then you can be as bad as you like but as long as you say something just as you’re dying you’re okay.

Michael: No that is not true either. You have to be genuine in your concern.

Faine should try to catch up with history:

Pope Pius V abolished the sale of indulgences in 1567. 

UPDATE

Lots more Leftist conspiracy mongering on the ABC is detailed in the latest Media Watch Dog blog.