ABC Radio National’s Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas silent for Israel antagonist

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was caught above ground by the IDF.

The news had just reached Australia on the morning of Friday 18 October that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed by Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. Sinwar led the attack on Israel on 7 October last year which involved acts of murder, rape, torture and kidnapping in the largest killing of Jews in a day since Nazi Germany’s Holocaust.

So what did Oscar Coleman – a producer at ABC Radio National’s Breakfast – do? Why, arrange for Daniel Levy, president of the US-Middle East Project, to be interviewed shortly after 7.30am by Patricia Karvelas – that’s what. Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, is a vehement critic of contemporary Israel.

In a remarkably soft interview with no interruptions, Levy criticised Israel in general and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. What’s more, he dismissed the notion that the death of Sinwar could lead to Hamas’ surrender and the release of its Israeli hostages. The interview included this comment:

Daniel Levy: Indeed, Prime Minister Netanyahu made a short statement in Israel some hours after the confirmation of the killing of Sinwar, and made it quite clear that the war in Gaza, the war on Gaza, on the Palestinians there, would continue. And he set down a condition, which I think everyone who hears this will immediately understand is not a negotiating, achievable thing. By saying, if Hamas fighters want to come up with their hands up, wave the white flag and give back the hostages, then we can move forward. He said to the people of Gaza: “We are freeing you.” Those are the same people, all of whom essentially have been displaced, many living under conditions of starvation, 40,000 been killed, everything destroyed.

Patricia Karvelas has a record of interrupting and even fact-checking her interviewees, most recently on 17 October when she fact-checked Albanese government minister Pat Conroy.

However, Israeli antagonist Levy was neither interrupted nor fact-checked by Karvelas. Despite the fact that he said that Israel had killed 40,000 Gazans without mentioning that the number included an estimated 20,000 Hamas fighters/terrorists.

David Levy’s implied message was that Israel had killed 40,000 Gazan citizens – as if Israel was at war with non-combatants. Patricia Karvelas’ failure to challenge Levy’s claim was poor journalism.

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CAN YOU BEAR IT?

Insiders panellists Mark Kenny and James Massola fang Senator James Paterson – with no other view expressed

Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October (Middle East time) was news in Australia by early on the morning of Sunday 8 October. However, as Media Watch Dog has pointed out, this was all but ignored by the ABC TV Insiders program (presenter David Speers, executive producer Samuel Clark) – which presents as ABC TV’s most important discussion program. Your man Speers said virtually nothing about the issue. Of the three panellists, only Peter van Onselen was asked to comment on the incursion – which he did in less than a minute towards the end of the program. That was it. Talk about burying the lede – as journalists say.

It was different on Sunday 13 October this year, around the time the first anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war which has now extended as Israel is effectively fighting a conflict on seven fronts.

It was one of those occasions when three Canberra-based journalists talked to the Canberra-based Speers about Australian national politics. On the Insiders’ couch was Mark (“Please call me professor”) Kenny of the Australian National University, Nine’s James Massola and ABC News’ Carly Williams.

Early on, Comrade Kenny ran the give-peace-a-chance line. He argued that Israel “has a right to defend themselves” but that “they have a responsibility to show restraint”. Kenny claimed to “speak for most reasonable people”, whom he said would say that the “killing of women and children in vast quantities strain those boundaries”. Comrade Kenny seemed unaware that civilians were killed in vast numbers in World War II in European and Pacific theatres.

Later on, the learned ANU professor expressed displeasure that Coalition Senator James Paterson said, when interviewed by David Speers, words to the effect that it was okay if, unlike the United States, Australia did not call for an immediate ceasefire (as the Biden administration has done). Comrade Kenny seemed unaware that Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam had disagreed with the Nixon administration on certain issues as had the Hawke Labor government with respect to the Reagan administration.

Then James Massola had a go at Senator Paterson. Let’s go to the transcript:

David Speers: What did you think, James?

James Massola: A couple of thoughts. First, you know, looking or thinking rather about James Paterson’s background, a former staff member at the Institute of Public Affairs. Notwithstanding the seriousness of what some of these people who’ve been out here speaking at Lakemba Mosque and what have you – sort of saying it was October 7, “a day for celebration”. Obviously, that’s not the case. But it sits a bit uncomfortably with me to hear someone like James Paterson, who’s been a long champion of free speech to be saying, “let’s shut down – free speech”. That didn’t quite wash with me.

Turn it up. In his interview with David Speers on Insiders, Senator Paterson objected to what Khaled Beydoun, a visiting American professor, had said about October 7 being a “a good day”. In fact, when Paterson spoke, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had already told Beydoun that his visa would be cancelled on account of his inflammatory comments – which were delivered at a function organised by a group with links to the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In other words, Massola verballed Paterson. The shadow minister for Home Affairs never said “Let’s shut down free speech”. The Nine journalist appears to have made this up. Moreover, Massola did not say what the Institute of Public Affairs had to do with Paterson’s comments on the Israel-Gaza war.

So there you have it. Insiders panellist Kenny bagged Senator Paterson for his position on a ceasefire and then Insiders panellist Massola bagged Senator Paterson for allegedly calling for free speech to be shut down. No other view was heard. And yet the ABC claims that Insiders is tops for political debate. Can You Bear It?

[No. Not really – now that you ask. As I recall, MWD fave Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) once wrote: “There’s none so blind as those that will not see.” Your man Swift was correct. – MWD Editor.]

Nine columnist and Dutton antagonist Niki Savva volunteers to do a deep dive into the mind of Peter Dutton

While on the topic of Insiders’ panellists – consider the case of Niki Savva. Like Professor Kenny, Ms Savva is a Peter Dutton antagonist. And like Comrade Kenny, Comrade Savva is on the speakers’ list at the forthcoming 2024 Canberra Writers Festival – re which see this issue’s “Your Taxes At Work” segment.

As Media Watch Dog’s avid readers will recall, in 2010 Niki Savva wrote a book titled Confessions of a Conservative Leftie (Scribe, 2010). The fact is there is no such entity as a “conservative leftie”. But the point here is that Comrade Savva conceded that she is at least a 50 per cent leftie.

How strange, then, that the 2024 CWF is hosting a session termed “What would a real conservative agenda look like?”. How’s how it is described:

Our political parties are often focused on saying who they aren’t, and what they won’t do. Terms like “progressive” and “conservative” can seem hollow at best, and misleading at worst. What does it mean to be a political conservative in our current conversation? And what could it mean if we ditched the populist shibboleths and went back to basics? Join journalists Mark Kenny, Paul Sakkal and Niki Savva as they consider the kind of Australia a conservative government could build. 

How about that? Niki Savva is not a political conservative. Nor is Mark Kenny. Meanwhile, Nine’s Paul Sakkal presents as politically neutral. Yet the powers that be at the 2024 CFW have gone to Comrades Savva and Kenny to find out what it means to be a political conservative.

But, wait – there’s more at the 2024 CWF. Here it is:

Being Peter Dutton

From rookie Queensland cop to leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton’s trajectory is more than a political origin story, it’s a cultural mirror. His fears, furies and preoccupations tell us something important about ourselves. Lech Blaine and Niki Savva take a deep dive into the mind of the Opposition leader, and consider where he might lead us. 

How about that? Lech Blaine and Niki Savva – both of whom are Dutton antagonists will rock up at the 2024 CWF and “take a deep dive into the mind of Peter Dutton”. MWD readers are well aware of Savva’s hostility towards Peter Dutton. But, perhaps, not so much that of Lech Blaine.

In his recent Quarterly Essay titled “Bad Cop”, Blaine describes Peter Dutton as “ a vampire”, “a punisher” and “Australia’s budget Donald Trump”. The last is not meant as a compliment. The author also described his subject as “small and scared” – whatever that might mean.

In other words, CWF attendees will have to cough up $28 per head to hear Dutton antagonists Savva and Blaine discuss the topic “Being

Peter Dutton”. Which raises the question: Can You Bear It?

Niki Savva is a Peter Dutton antagonist. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Remembering George Negus (1942-2024)

George Negus died on 15 October. He had a highly successful career in print and broadcast journalism. However, like all of us mere mortals, Negus was impacted by The Fall – the imperfection of mankind. Moreover, he was a journalist of his generation – sometimes more interested in his views than those he was interviewing on television. This was evident on occasions in his oh-so-long questions. Or were they statements?

George Negus & Ian Leslie

Media Watch Dog was particularly interested in the reflections of Ian Leslie, one of Negus’ colleagues on 60 Minutes – which happened to vary somewhat according to whom he told his story.

Leslie wrote an obituary which was published in Nine Newspapers on 16 October under the heading “My friend with an opinion on everything” where he had this to say:

The Negus interviewing style came as a shock. His questions were legendary, if not annoying to those of us schooled in the proper ways of interrogating our subjects. George’s questions would frequently be much longer than his guest’s answers. We called them mini scripts. But it worked like magic – the audience grew.

His view of the world and the functioning of society, according to the bible of Negus, was the cause of monumental arguments in the 60 Minutes cottage. While his affections pointed to the left of the social divide, I would not describe him as left-wing. A libertarian democratic socialist is a fair assessment.

However, when interviewed by Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio National Breakfast that very morning – Leslie changed his position somewhat. Let’s go to the transcript:

Patricia Karvelas: He [Negus] was a feisty reporter, and you note that he argued his political views quite openly, which is quite uncommon for journalists. Journalists, you know, are meant to be very, very objective. Tell me about that.

Ian Leslie: Well, you know, I know much is said about that, because George was certainly a bit of a leftie. But, while it imposed on his private discussions within the unit, and we’d have lots of arguments about politics, it never really intruded or overly flavoured his work. He really measured that very, very well. So, I would say that it didn’t affect his reporting ….

Media Watch Dog does not concur with Leslie’s second analysis. George Negus was a left-wing activist journalist. In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Leslie also had this to say:

George cut his political teeth in Canberra during the Whitlam years as press secretary to then attorney-general Lionel Murphy.

It was where I first encountered a feisty George Negus. It did not end so happily. As a young news reporter, my style was to barge in and doorstop politicians for a comment. George was ushering Murphy into a Commonwealth car when I stepped between the two men and started firing off questions. George’s job was to shield his boss. He barked to the driver to wind up the window, thus trapping my hand and microphone as the car sped off. I never saw the microphone again.

However Leslie’s story changed somewhat when talking to Karvelas. You be the judge:

Patricia Karvelas: You first met George when you were working on opposite teams. You were a young reporter. Tell me about that.

Ian Leslie: Well, yes, at that point I didn’t like him very much. That changed, of course … I was a news reporter with the 10 Network. Was back in the early ’70s when the Whitlam government was in office. George was then the press secretary to Lionel Bowen[sic], the federal attorney-general. At that time, the big talking point was the raid on the Croatian houses in Sydney, which Lionel Murphy single-handedly ordered. And so, we were after him, and we wanted a comment. I saw them coming out of a building, at Martin Place. And I said to my crew: “Quick, let’s, let’s doorstep the attorney-general”. George stood between me and Lionel Murphy, ushered Murphy into the car and I said: “Mr Murphy, can we talk to you?”, and Negus just pushed me away. And I stuck my hand, my hand and the microphone through the window, and started asking the attorney-general some questions. At that point, George was sitting in the front seat, and he wound up the window, and my hand got stuck in the window of the car as he’s just driving off. 

Patricia Karvelas: Ouch.

Ian Leslie: I managed to withdraw my hand, but I lost the mic.

So, in Nine newspapers Leslie said that Negus ordered the Senator Lionel Murphy’s driver to wind up the window. Whereas on the ABC Leslie stated that Negus wound up the window. Either way, if Leslie’s memory is accurate, this was an aggressive act which could have resulted in a serious injury, perhaps death, if Leslie had been dragged by the Commonwealth car.

In the next issue MWD will look at George Negus’ time as Lionel Murphy’s press secretary. Murphy was much loved by the left. However, his campaign against Croatian Australians was unfair and prejudiced. And Murphy’s raid on the ASIO headquarters in Melbourne was not only highly unprofessional, it was also an incident of bullying since ASIO’s male and female staff were effectively locked in an auditorium for some hours and denied access to toilets, etc.

George Negus & Margaret Thatcher

Perhaps George Negus is best known these days for this exchange where he interviewed British prime minister Margaret Thatcher for Network 9’s 60 Minutes on 27 September 1981. The famous part of the interview can be found here.

In brief, Negus told Thatcher that “people stop us in the street [and] almost all tell us that Thatcher was ‘pig-headed’”. The idea that the good people of Britain were stopping an Australian journalist in the streets of London and volunteering to the 60 Minutes reporter their opinions on anything at all was a figment of Negus’ imagination.

Mrs Thatcher noticed the weakness in Negus’ claim and asked: “Will you tell me who has stopped you in the street and told you that?” Needless to say, Negus could not.

Interviewed on Sky News’ The Bolt Report, the commentator Will Kingston seemed impressed by Negus’ line of questioning. Unlike Andrew Bolt who thought that the exchange was an example of Thatcher’s wit and cleverness at her prime.

After all, it’s lazy journalism to ask interviewees to respond to an alleged comment by anonymous individuals. But the Negus-Thatcher 1981 exchange lives on – along with the memories of the Australian journalist and the British prime minister.

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YOUR TAXES AT WORK

This hugely popular Media Watch Dog segment looks at how taxpayers’ money is spent by governments and councils – along with the various institutions they fund. Of particular interest to Gerard Henderson – a published author who never gets invited to literary festivals, which obviates the need for him to respond to any literary festival RSVP in a negative way – are the various taxpayer funded writers’ weeks.

MWD defines a literary festival as an occasion when a soviet of leftist activists and bureaucrats get hold of a bucket load of taxpayer funds and invite members of the leftist intelligentsia to rock up to festivals (speakers’ fees, travel and accommodation costs all paid). There they meet fellow panellists of like mind and participate in forums in which everyone agrees with everyone else in a leftist kind of way.

Each year, MWD focuses on various writers’ festivals – in particular, the taxpayer funded get-togethers in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.

The 2024 Canberra Writers Festival: another leftist stack

The 2024 Canberra Writers Festival will be held between 23-27 October at the national capital. It’s another taxpayer funded leftist stack. The principal sponsor is the ACT government (which is funded by the ACT and Commonwealth government taxpayers).

Here’s a list of some of those performing at the 2024 Canberra Writers Festival who are involved in the public debate:

Joe Aston, Eric Beecher, Allan Behm, Lech Blaine, Frank Bongiorno, Josh Bornstein, Nick Bryant, Kim Carr, Barrie Cassidy, David Day, Richard Denniss, Andrew Fowler, Varun Ghosh, Virginia Haussegger, Anita Heiss, Fran Kelly, Mark Kenny, Malcolm Knox, Andrew Leigh, John Lyons, Karen Middleton, Louise Milligan, Rick Morton, Ian Parmeter, David Pocock, Amy Remeikis, Sam Roggeveen, Niki Savva, Emma Shortis, Peter Stanley, Christos Tsiolkas, Michael Williams, Tim Winton, Bruce Wolpe, Clare Wright.

Not a political conservative among this lot. Sure, there are some politically neutral types (e.g. Joe Aston) along with some social democrats (e.g. Andrew Leigh, Bruce Wolpe). But most of the 2024 CWF performers are on the left and MWD cannot locate one political conservative at this taxpayer funded event. Not one.

It says a lot about the sandal-wearing leftists in our midst that they don’t appear to be bored attending literary festivals where everyone agrees with everyone else rather than listen to a clash of ideas. But there you go.

Over the next couple of weeks, MWD will provide a few case studies of what passes for debate in the 2024 Canberra Writers Festival. Let’s start with a couple, commencing with the Opening Night Feature on 23 October titled “What if?”. Here’s the promo:

What If?

We live in a time of big, era-defining questions. What if Trump wins the US election – again? What if deepfakes kill the news? What if AI kills the arts? What if tech bros kill democracy? What if another pandemic hits? What if we miss our climate targets? And the biggest question of all: What if we refuse to learn from our mistakes?

What if? What if? What if? What are the big ideas on the table? How do we turn our fears into possibilities? Is there a case for hope? Join a stellar panel of thinkers for a night of reflection and reckoning. Featuring: Mark Kenny, David Lindenmayer, Katherine Mansted, Amy Remeikis, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts and Senator David Pocock. Hosted by Emma Shortis.

Not a political conservative in sight invited to answer the “What if?” question. David Pocock is the leftist Teal Senator for the Australian Capital Territory. Mark Kenny started his professional career as a staffer for a backbench socialist left Labor MP in South Australia. John Lyons is a leading critic of Israel at the ABC. Amy Remeikis has just moved to the leftist Australia Institute from the leftist Guardian Australia. Emma Shortis works for the leftist Australia Institute when she is not providing misinformation to ABC TV’s 7.30 on the US presidential election re which see Media Watch Dog’s previous issue. As to David Lindenmayer and Katherine Mansted, well it’s more of the left-of-centre same. How boring can a writers’ festival be?

But there was more. Here’s another session on 26 October titled:

How about that? The 2024 CWF organisers reckon that “terms like ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ can seem hollow at best and misleading at worst”. But never mind, the Canberra Writers Festival is holding a session on each term to work out what “real progressivism” really is. Really.

Richard Denniss is executive director of the leftist Australia Institute. David Lindenmayer is an Australian National University academic and environmentalist. Veronica Gorrie is an author and anti-police activist. And then there is MWD fave Amy Remeikis. Comrade Amy (“Sure – I’m a landlord but I’m also a renter”) Remeikis is a former Guardian Australia wage slave who has taken up a gig at – wait for it – the leftist Australia Institute. [Here’s hoping that the comrades at The Australia Institute pay Ms Remeikis a just wage. – MWD Editor.]

The answer by Ellie’s (male) co-owner to the question “What would a real progressive agenda look like?” – when discussed at a literary festival that is a leftist stack – is BORING.

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SHANE WRIGHT & CANDLESTICKS – THE CONTINUING SAGA

As Media Watch Dog readers are well aware, Nine’s Shane Wright has risen without trace (as the late Kitty Muggeridge once said about the late David Frost) to become the senior economics correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald – not having published anything of note apart from newspaper articles and columns plus the occasional essay. Even so, you would expect a person in such an elevated position to know about the international energy market.

It’s only a few years since your man Wright ridiculed anyone who said that coal had any future as a part of energy supply – even in such markets as India, China and Indonesia. He declared on ABC TV Insiders on 11 June, 2017 that “coal is like candlesticks” and compared those who said that there is still a demand for Australian coal exports with members of the Candle Makers Union circa 1870 who (allegedly) argued the case for candles over electricity. Now read on.

Coal purchases from India, China & Indonesia further damage the crystal-ball gazing of Shane Wright and Matt Kean

On Thursday 17 October, The Australian ran a report under the headline: “China and India behind a likely record for coal demand”. Needless to say, the article did not reflect well on the prophecy of Comrade Wright.

According to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook Report, global coal production will hit another record in 2024, after reaching an all-time high in 2023.

Coal usage has declined in Western countries due to efforts to transition to renewables – but this has been more than made up for by increases in Asian nations like China, India and Indonesia. In particular, Indian coal usage is expected to continue increasing rapidly into the future.

The article did include comments from former NSW Liberal Treasurer Matt Kean, who was appointed as Chair of the Climate Change Authority by the Albanese government. Mr Kean’s view of coal is broadly aligned with Mr Wright’s, and he bashed the extension of coal power plants in Australia.

It seems policymakers in Asia do not agree with the prophecy of Wright, nor the attitude of Kean. And so Australian coal exports will not be going the way of candlesticks anytime soon.

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HISTORY CORNER

Crikey proprietor Eric Beecher relied on a 1962 communist party pamphlet to fang the late Joseph Lyons and the late Sir Keith Murdoch

Eric Beecher, the proprietor of Private Media which publishes the Crikey newsletter, is invariably lecturing others about the (alleged) decline in journalism. This is most recently evident in his book The Men Who Killed The News: The Inside Story of how Media Moguls Abused their Power, Manipulated the Truth and Distorted Democracy (Scribner, 2024). A somewhat long title, don’t you think?

Comrade Beecher’s 400-page tome commences with a chapter headed “Why this Book?”. It’s a good question. Here’s the author’s answer:

The abuse of journalism by media moguls isn’t a new story. The shelves are lined with their biographies. But it’s clear to me, after a lifetime spent inside the media ecosystem, that not even a library of biographies and histories can begin to explain the cumulative damage inflicted on liberal democracies by owners of journalism who place profits and power ahead of civic responsibility and decency. I have written this book to try to describe how abuse of media power works, its impact on society, and the ways in which its perpetrators get away with it.

Avid Media Watch Dog readers might be surprised that it took your man Beecher “a lifetime” to discover this. But there you go. Indeed, it took Beecher-the-Preacher a full two years to discover that working for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp as editor-in-chief of the Herald Sun in Melbourne was not a good idea. He called it a “flirtation with Murdoch”. Sounds more like a commercial affair than a mere flirtation. [Quite so. I’ve not heard of a 104 weeks long flirtation – re which see MWD 23 August 2024. MWD Editor.]

In his review of Beecher’s book in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 28 September, writer and ABC broadcaster Jonathan Green referred to the following section of The Men Who Killed the News as containing “one of the book’s best and most telling anecdotes”. Here it is, at Page 34, concerning Sir Keith Murdoch (Rupert’s father) and Joseph Lyons (Australia’s prime minister from January 1932 until he died in office in April 1939):

A scene in Murdoch’s office in the 1930s was witnessed and later described by a former Herald copy boy who served his boss tea: “Murdoch was still shouting and J.A. Lyons was standing before the desk. I put the tea down on the big desk and went out through the door. As I went through it, I turned and there, with his hat in his hand, like a man seeking a job, stood the Prime Minister before Murdoch’s desk. As I shut the door, I heard the leader of the nation say: “Yes, sir.” 29

Footnote 29 reads as follows:

29. Young, Sally, Paper Emperors, The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2019.

In her book Paper Emperors, Sally Young wrote this at Page 337:

A perception of Murdoch as a puppeteer pulling the strings of the Lyons’ Cabinet took hold. Duncan Clarke, a former copy boy at the Herald who was a Murdoch favourite until he left to join the Communist Party of Australia, added to that perception. Clarke described a scene he said he had witnessed in the 1930s when he took Murdoch his tea: “Murdoch was still shouting and J.A. Lyons was standing before the desk. I put the tea down on the big desk and went through the door. As I went through it I turned and there, with his hat in his hand, like a man seeking a job, stood the Prime Minister before Murdoch’s desk. As I shut the door, I heard the leader of the nation say: `Yes, sir’. Many years later I was to learn that the Herald had played a big part in paving the way for Lyons to rat on the Labor Party and become leader of the [UAP]…. [Afterwards] Murdoch assumed personal control of the turncoat.”

Sally Young’s Footnote 11, reads as follows:

11. Clarke, 1962, p.8. Clarke claimed that the “bribes” were part of the negotiations, including ‘a pension of 500 pounds for Dame Enid’. He was not the only one to make such a claim, but no sound evidence of bribery has yet been uncovered.

So, there you have it. In The Men Who Killed The News, Comrade Beecher did not tell his readers (if readers there were) (i) that “the former Herald copy boy” was Duncan Clarke, (ii) that Comrade Clarke was a member of the Communist Party of Australia and that (iii) Clarke alleged that Keith Murdoch had bribed Lyons in order to get him to quit the Labor Party and become leader of the United Australia Party in 1931. But there is no evidence of bribery to support the claim.

If Beecher-the-Preacher had done his research, he would not have relied on Duncan Clarke as a source for what Jonathan Green referred to as “one of the book’s best and most telling anecdotes”. In fact, the anecdote is a load of crock. Here’s why:

• In 1962, Duncan Clarke wrote a 52-page pamphlet titled Meet the Press. It was published by Coronation Press. At the time of writing Meet the Press, Clarke was a journalist on the CPA’s weekly newspaper in Melbourne The Guardian. He was also a member of the CPA’s Victorian state executive. In 1960, Clarke visited the communist totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union and China. In other words, Clarke was a CPA apparatchik. He died in 1991.

• Meet the Press was a pro-communist anti-capitalist rant. The author regarded newspapers, like The Herald in Melbourne, as part of evil capitalism. Comrade Clarke claimed that communist North Korea did not invade non-communist South Korea in 1950. He wrote about Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union as if they were constant enemies – overlooking the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939 which lasted until 7 June 1941. Moreover, Clarke refuted any claims that workers were suppressed under the communist totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe at the time. In short, Meet the Press was a Leninist/Stalinist tract.

• Chapter 1 of Meet the Press commences with the alleged encounter of The Herald between Duncan Clarke and Sir Keith Murdoch. The occasion is dated as having taken place in 1935. Clarke “recalled” the (alleged) event in 1962 – some three decades later. He maintained that he heard Prime Minister Lyons say “Yes, sir” to Murdoch. But what if he said “Yes, Sir Keith”? That would have been the appropriate form of address to a knight in 1935. And what if Clarke had a clear “recollection” of an event which never happened or just made up this claim?

• By 1935, Lyons’ United Australia Party had won two elections – in December 1931 (by a landslide) and September 1934. The Prime Minister was in good health and not contemplating retirement. There is no reason why Lyons would have asked Murdoch for a “pension of £500 for Dame Enid” in 1935 – who, by the way, was not a dame at the time. And no reason why Keith Murdoch would have given it. Since by then the UAP had been in existence for some four years and that it was impossible to bribe Lyons to leave the Labor Party since he had already done so.

• In any event, Joseph Lyons – when he was treasurer in James Scullin’s Labor government – quit Labor on a policy disagreement. His disagreement turned on the proper economic policies to handle the Great Depression. Not long after Lyons quit Labor, the UAP was formed out of the Nationalist Party and Lyons became its leader. And, not long after, prime minister. As in 1916 and later 1955, in 1931 Labor split over a disagreement on an important party issue.

• As it turned out, Australia’s economy recovered relatively well from the Great Depression – as did Britain. Both nations did better than the United States throughout the 1930s. The US had a second Depression in 1938 – Australia and Britain did not. Joseph Lyons was prime minister for most of the 1930s.

* * * * *

Eric Beecher bemoans the “abuse of media power”. Yet he has just written a book in which he claims that Joseph Lyons was a toady to Sir Keith Murdoch and that Murdoch was into bribery – based on the Meet the Press pamphlet published by the Communist Party and written by Duncan Clarke who was a CPA operative. Moreover, as the former Communist Party operative Bernie Taft wrote in his book Crossing the Party Line (Scribe, 1994), Clarke “was notorious for his drinking and womanising”. Yet the late Comrade Clarke is the source for the key anecdote in his book.

Eric Beecher has fallen for the journalists’ principal failing. Namely, believing what you want to believe even if there is no evidence to support the claim and the source of the rumour is discredited. This is the kind of shoddy journalism which Beecher-the-Preacher is wont to condemn in the works of others.

[Thanks for that. But perhaps this should have been run in your hugely popular “Can You Bear It?” segment. Just a thought. – MWD Editor.]