Gerard Henderson
No surprise as NYT’s Damien Cave fails to apologise for ‘hopeless’ coverage of Joe Biden’s decline
STOP PRESS
● DAMIEN CAVE, THE NEW YORK TIMES’ MAN IN SYDNEY, THROWS THE SWITCH TO DENIAL ABOUT HIS PAPER’S FAILURE TO REPORT PRESIDENT BIDEN’S HEALTH
Did anyone hear the Journos’ Forum on ABC Radio Sydney on the evening of Thursday 25 July? Richard Glover was the presenter and the panel comprised Damien Cave (the New York Times’ Australian correspondent), Jessie Stephens (Mamamia executive editor) and Nick Dole (ABC’s NSW State politics reporter).
The segment commenced with a clip from President Joe Biden’s speech that he would not contest the US presidential election in November 2024. Let’s go to the transcript when the discussion commenced:
Richard Glover: How does the decision remake the contest for both sides? And what did you think of today? I mean, Damien, it was a good speech. There were no, sort of, terrible mistakes in it. But the voice does sound frail, almost. In that voice, you could see the reason why this was really inevitable.
Damien Cave: Yeah, I mean, I think, his voice and where Biden is at has become even – the contrast between that and Kamala Harris – has even just emphasised where sort of Biden is at and the decision to hand the baton to her just completely redraws the lines of the election. Suddenly, instead of a battle between two old men, it’s a fight between one old man, who’s a convicted felon and a younger woman who was a former prosecutor. And to some degree, that’s the framing. It’s just completely rearranged the whole race, quite close to the election, at least for Americans.
How about that? The New York Times’ man in Sydney told ABC Sydney Radio listeners (if listeners there were) that the contrast between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden emphasises “what sort of man Biden is”. What a load of absolute tosh. President Biden’s cognitive decline is sad. However, it could be detected as early as 2019 – that is, before the November 2020 election.
The fact is that anyone in the United States who followed US national politics in, say, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Washington Times and/or Fox News would not have been surprised by the President’s evident mental decline. The same can be said of Australians who read The Australian and/or News Corp’s dailies and/or who watched Sky News Australia.
Damien Cave did not acknowledge that his own newspaper’s coverage of President Biden’s health was hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. As recently as 21 June 2024, the New York Times carried an article titled “How misleading videos are trailing Biden as he battles age doubts”. Get it? The videos of Joe Biden’s behaviour – as shown on Fox News – were “misleading”. But this was misinformation/disinformation – New York Times style.
It was only after President Biden’s disastrous performance in his CNN debate with Donald J. Trump that the NYT changed its view. The debate took place on 27 June. The following day, NYT Editorial Board published a piece titled “To save his country, President Biden should leave the race”. Soon NYT columnist Tom Friedman and actor/producer George Clooney joined in the chorus on the opinion pages. On 2 July, the paper ran an article titled “Biden’s lapses are said to be increasingly common and worrisome”. This article used some of the videos of Biden which the paper had dismissed as misleading on 21 June.
Did Damien Cave apologise for the New York Times’ dismal failure to cover President Biden’s health? Not on your nelly. But he did predict that the next few weeks would be “all kinds of negative campaigning and, frankly, lies from the Republican side”. Enough said.
LIZ STORER THROWS THE SWITCH TO HYPERBOLE AGAINST THE EMPIRICAL JAMES MACPHERSON IN A REAL DEBATE ON SKY NEWS
Sky News’ The Great Debate is not a misnomer. On Thursday 25 July, Ellie’s (male) co-owner had poured a Post-Dinner Drink. It was after 10pm, you know, and he watched Liz (“I interrupt as much as David Speers”) Storer and James Macpherson disagreeing about Israel in general and Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular. Caleb Bond, the other panellist, was relatively quiet.
Media Watch Dog got the impression that your man Macpherson is an empirical sort of bloke. Whereas Ms Storer is a give-hyperbole-a-chance type. Liz Storer told viewers (i) that Netanyahu had berated his audience in his address to the US Congress, (ii) she doubted very much whether the Israeli prime minister’s speech was watched at home, (iii) and maintained that Netanyahu was widely unpopular in Israel.
Liz Storer went on to claim that the Israelis “have killed 40,000 people” in Gaza. She did not mention that this is a figure supplied by the terrorist group Hamas. Moreover, the Storer rant did not acknowledge that Israel claims to have killed some 15,000 Hamas fighters. In other words, the civilian deaths are substantially less than the Hamas 40,000 figure. Ms Storer asked whether Israel is going to kill everyone who supports Hamas and claimed “that’s all of them” – an assertion that Israel will have to kill millions of Gazans to achieve its war aims. That’s giving hyperbole a bad name.
It is not clear whether Liz Storer has been to Israel or Gaza or the West Bank. What is clear is she underestimates the intention of Israel to defeat Hamas. Sure Netanyahu is unpopular in Israel but he enjoys some support. Moreover, his government’s war aims enjoy considerable backing. For example, in late May 2024 a Pew Research Center survey found 39 per cent of Israelis said that the country’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been “about right” and 34 per cent said it has “not gone far enough” – indicating continued support for the war. Another 19 per cent said they think it had gone too far.
With form like this, Comrade Storer might soon get invited on to the ABC. But not Macpherson. At least, Sky News’ “The Great Debate” from time to time contains viewpoint diversity. Something not found at the taxpayer funded public broadcaster.
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
● LEFT-WING COMRADES JUDITH BRETT & MARK KENNY LINE UP IN CRIKEY TO GIVE SURVIVAL ADVICE TO THE LIBERAL PARTY
Media Watch Dog has just got around to reading the series “Where to for real Liberals?” which the comrades at Crikey have put together. Spoiler Alert! According to Bernard Keane, Crikey’s political editor, Malcolm Turnbull is “the last actual Liberal leader” (see Crikey 25 June 2025). You get the picture.
Ellie’s (male) co-owner was oh-so-impressed by two contributions. One by Judith Brett – who presents as a Liberal Party sympathiser but is a former editor of the leftist Arena Magazine. And Mark (“Please call me professor”) Kenny who started his career working for a socialist left Labor Party backbench parliamentarian in South Australia and rose to become an Australian National University professor via the ABC and Fairfax Media.
Dr Brett (for a doctor she is) concluded her contribution to the Crikey series with this comment under the heading “Dutton doesn’t realise importing US politics means the death of the Liberal Party”.
The combination of compulsory and preferential voting gives Australian politics a flexibility unavailable to its electorally sclerotic ally. It allows new political formations that reflect shifts in the views and makeup of the electorate. As the Liberal Party has moved to the right, looking more and more like its Coalition ally, compulsory preferential voting has enabled the moderate centre it once represented to find new candidates. That Peter Dutton has scorned them does not augur well for his party’s future.
So, there you have it. According to Judith Brett, the Liberal Party has little, or no, future. Could this be the very same Judith Brett who wrote this in an article for The Age on 17 July 1993 titled “The party on the road to nowhere” and who declared “the Liberal Party in the 1990s seems doomed”. Sure is.
So, in July 1993, Comrade Brett told Age readers that the Liberal Party seems doomed. And, in June 2024, the very same Judith Brett told Crikey readers that the Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton advances policies which do “not augur well for his party’s future”. During the intervening 31 years, the Liberal Party has been in office for 20 years.
And then there is Professor Kenny (for a professor he is). Writing in Crikey on 11 July 2024 in an article titled “From broad church to narrow cult: Peter Dutton’s ‘Hansonisation’ of the Liberal Party”, Mark Kenny had this to say:
Moderates in the contemporary Liberal Party are mere passengers in a new hard line politics influenced by the divisive right-wing populism Abbott once worried would destroy the party. Its touchstones are international phenomena like Brexit and Donald Trump, and its social licence is renewed nightly by hyper-partisan subscription TV. With the honourable exceptions of Bridget Archer (Tasmania), Julian Leeser (NSW) and Senator Andrew Bragg (NSW) – all of whom swam against an aggressive tide of anti-Voice invective in Dutton shows no sign of changing course, having doubled down in recent weeks against Labor’s renewable energy transition with high-impact, high-risk embrace of nuclear energy.
So, there you have it. According to Mark Kenny, who is a regular panellist on the ABC TV Insiders program, the Liberal Party is destined for failure under its present direction.
How wonderful to think that the likes of Judith Brett and Mark Kenny – who would never vote Liberal – are so concerned about the future of the Liberal Party that they found time to provide it with survival tips in Crikey. Can You Bear It?
● YET ANOTHER OUT-OF-TOUCH “JOKE” ON MONDAY’S EXPERTS FILL-IN FOR Q+A
MWD is a fan of Sky News Australia. Hendo is not a particular supporter of horse racing but watches the Melbourne Cup held before Gin & Tonic Time on the first Tuesday of November. And he is aware of the Sky Racing Monday’s Experts program which airs at Hangover Time on the day after the Sabbath.
What a surprise, then, to learn that ABC’s brand new, very own Monday’s Experts is filling in for Q+A – which was once a leading current affairs program – currently on what journalists call a well-earned break. Except that it isn’t well earned – and its “break” stems from falling ratings and piss-poor discussions lacking in viewpoint diversity.
But MWD digresses, once again. MWD was very surprised when a second Monday’s Experts was born in Australia. Hosted by Tony Armstrong and Catherine Murphy, it presents as a sports entertainment program.
In a previous issue, MWD reported on a bad taste attempt at humour by Ms Murphy who thought that an AFL player’s very serious injury was appropriate for an attempt at humour (See MWD Issue 689, 12 July 2024).
Comrade Murphy was at it again on 22 July. Let’s go to the transcript involving Comrades Armstrong and Murphy along with Rugby Union footballer Allan Alaalatoa and Broden Kelly who, (in the terminology of the late Barry Humphries) identifies as a comedian.
Broden Kelly: Allan, you’re rocking some big stitches.
Allan Alaalatoa: Oh, yeah I know …
Broden Kelly: On your right ear … it looks like it’s split right down, like it could have come off. Now, you were telling me before that this is a pretty regular occurrence where in Rugby, you’re gonna, your ears are constantly getting hit. Is that right?
Allan Alaalatoa: Yeah … If I don’t strap my head, then that’s always getting cut and always getting split open. So, I had, I had 10 months off with rehab. And I thought that’d all be sweet when, when I came back in first session, someone clipped it on purpose …
Catherine Murphy: You have a smaller bandage than Donald Trump.
How about that? Whatever ABC types think of Donald J. Trump, he did survive attempted murder. And yet the ABC’s Catherine Murphy thinks it’s funny to make a “joke” about Trump’s ear injury. Which raises the question. Can You Bear It?
● THE SMH’s LETTERS EDITOR ACKNOWLEDGES THAT SMH LETTER WRITERS EXPRESSED ALMOST A TOUCH OF SATISFACTION IN THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF DONALD J. TRUMP
These days Nine’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald resemble the ABC in that they are conservative free zones in which left-wing comments dominate the Opinion and Letters pages. Sometimes without self-awareness.
Here’s how Harriet Veitch, Acting Letters Editor of the SMH, commenced her postscript comment (in which she analyses letters received over the week) on Saturday 20 July:
Postscript
There are slow weeks on the Letters pages when writers might scratch around for topics. But that was not the case this week, which has been a riot of juicy subjects.
Comrade Veitch first mentioned greyhound racing followed by much laughter by readers at the Liberal Party. Followed by this:
Overlapping this, moving into the next day, was the shooting of Donald Trump. Nobody was rude enough to applaud the act but there was almost a touch of satisfaction that a man who has regularly encouraged dissent and violence was attacked in a country known for a high level of gun ownership and an official reluctance to curb it.
So, there you have it. The SMH’s Letters editor was happy to declare that the writers to the paper exhibited “a touch of satisfaction” that a young man had attempted to murder a former president – a criminal act in which a man died and two others were seriously injured. Turn it up. Moreover, Can You Bear It?
SHAUN MICALLEF HANDS OVER ABC COMEDY TO AN OLDER PERSON – TO WIT, HIMSELF
The ABC recently made an unsurprising program announcement – the return of Shaun Micallef:
The ABC is thrilled to announce the return of Shaun Micallef with a brand new eight-part talk show, Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction, premiering Wednesday 14 August at 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Avid readers will recall this is the same Shaun Micallef who said he was stepping down from his ABC program Mad as Hell to give someone younger a go. In 10 July 2022 tweet he said:
PPS Okay, it is true we’ll not be returning next year, BUT this is entirely down to me, okay? After 11 years and 15 seasons, I just felt it was time for someone younger to take advantage of the resources and opportunities on offer. I’m turning 60 in a week for f--k’s sake.
PPS Okay, it is true we'll not be returning next year, BUT this is entirely down to me, okay? After 11 years and 15 seasons, I just felt it was time for someone younger to take advantage of the resources and opportunities on offer. I’m turning 60 in a week for fuck’s sake.
— Shaun Micallef (@shaunmicallef) July 10, 2022
And when appearing on Frankly on 7 October 2022 he said: “I genuinely wanted to give the microphone over to someone who was perhaps younger, or some different voices.”
Your man Micallef has at least displayed some self-awareness – In the trailer for the series on iview, Micallef says:
Two years ago, I resigned from television to make way for bright, new, young talent here at the ABC. As it turned out there wasn’t any, so I’m back doing a new show.
Micallef goes on to explain the concept of the show – if your house was about to be destroyed, what two things would you save? MWD can barely wait for the first show. However, at least it isn’t another Gruen-esque news-based panel show. Be grateful for small mercies.
Can You Bear It?
MEDIA FOOL OF THE MONTH
NINE’S TONY WRIGHT DRAWS PARALLELS BETWEEN CHARLES I’s EXECUTION AND DONALD J. TRUMP’S WIN IN THE US SUPREME COURT
There was a (positive) reaction to the fact that this segment was born again last month, after what journalists call a well-earned break. As avid Media Watch Dog readers will recall, Nine newspapers’ political and international editor Peter Hartcher scored a mention with the claim that Opposition leader Peter Dutton was a dedicated follower of Stalinist fashion.
Hartcher’s assertion was that Dutton’s plan to have governments running power plants – with respect to nuclear energy – was a steal from Josef Stalin’s Five Year Plan in 1928. Overlooking the fact that the State Electricity Commission (SEC) of Victoria was set up in 1921 under the chairmanship of General Sir John Monash – who was no Bolshevik. And that the Soviet Union’s electricity plan followed seven years later.
But MWD digresses, once again. On 6 July 2024, Nine newspapers, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald ran an article by associate editor Tony Wright titled “Trump and the king who lost his head”.
Your man Wright bounced off the Supreme Court of the United States’s (SCOTUS) decision in Trump vs. United States. Six out of nine judges found that the US presidency was presumptively immune from prosecution for actions taken when in office.
A somewhat excited Comrade Wright drew a connection between the fact that Donald J. Trump was found to be immune with respect to certain acts while in the Oval Office with – wait for it – the regicide of Charles I in January 1649. This is how the article commenced:
Donald Trump offers little indication he has read history — or anything else worthwhile, really. If he had, he might have come across the story of King Charles I, who was a big fan of the doctrine known as the divine right of kings. Charles I ruled as king of England, Scotland and Ireland in the 17th century, believing he should answer to no earthly authority.
Comrade Wright went on and on about – well, who knows? He reported, some three centuries after the event, that Charles I was found guilty of treason and executed by beheading – after the court rejected his claim that “a king cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction on earth”. Here’s what Wright had to say:
Washington, DC, of course, and, for that matter, the buffet hall at Mar-a-Lago in Florida are far distant from London; 2024 is a long stretch from 1649, and the chopping block was retired some time ago.
How about that? Anyone who bought The Age or the SMH on 6 July would have discovered that London is a long way from Mar-a-Lago and that Charles I’s belief in the immunity of the English monarch was relevant to the decision of SCOTUS. The Melbourne-based scribbler went on to mention Jesus Christ, the US Declaration of Independence, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, Charles II, Oliver Cromwell and Zzzzzzz – and concluded:
Ancient history. Nothing remotely like it could happen again. Could it?
Let’s hope not. Having waded through Comrade Wright’s literary sludge, Ellie’s (male) co-owner is now a strong opponent of regicide – if only because it can lead to a Tony Wright (false) comparison between the beheading of an English king and the victory of an American in a court case some centuries later.
Tony Wright – Media Fool of the Month.
OUTSIDE INSIDERS
As avid readers are well aware, a certain William (Bill) Thompson – a Melburnian who identifies as the ABC’s Southbank Correspondent – set up the “Outside Insiders” video segment some years ago. This is a print edition of the Bill Thompson initiative to report on the ABC TV Insiders program. Mr Thompson remains in situ in Melbourne but Insiders has fled Melbourne for the (media) safety of the Canberra Bubble and, consequently, will now be loosed from the troublesome Mr Thompson. [Maybe that’s why Insiders junked Melbourne – just a thought. – MWD Editor]
SPEERSY’S SOFT AND BORING INTERVIEW WITH HIS EX-COLLEAGUE ZOE DANIEL.
Media Watch Dog is of the view that the ABC TV Insiders program (executive producer Samuel Clark) is increasingly dull. No surprise really, since the panel increasingly consists of journalists (mainly Canberra-based) talking to other journalists (ditto) about Australian national politics as it plays out in Canberra. Moreover, while panellists include lotsa Coalition and/or Peter Dutton antagonists – there is perhaps only one Labor antagonist. Step forward Amy Remeikis – who criticises the Labor government from a Green Left perspective. In short, Insiders reflects the taxpayer funded public broadcaster’s reality as a conservative-free-zone virtually devoid of viewpoint diversity.
And then there is the choice of guest for the political interview with David (“Please call me Speersy”) Speers – another Canberra journalist from inside the Canberra Bubble. On 21 July it was the “teal” Independent from the Melbourne seat of Goldstein – Zoe Daniel.
Now, Ms Daniel feels quite at home at the taxpayer funded public broadcaster. After all, before entering politics she was an ABC journalist – including four years as the ABC’s United States Bureau chief between 2015 and 2019.
As is well known, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government has an absolute majority in the House of Representatives. In other words, it is not dependent on the support of Independents or the Greens to pass legislation in the lower house.
In spite of this, the Clark/Speers duo invited Ms Daniel on to Insiders for her second interview since she entered the House of Representatives in mid-2022. Most Independent MPs in the House of Representatives have had no interviews on Insiders – three have had one each. But Daniel has had two. How about that?
God only knows how many journalists the ABC has in the United States right now – and maybe even the Almighty has lost count. Even so, Comrade Speers commenced the interview by asking the Melbourne-based Teal Independent this question about US politics:
David Speers: Zoe Daniel, welcome to the program.
Zoe Daniel: Morning, David.
David Speers: So, how chilled are you at the prospect of a second Trump presidency?
Zoe Daniel: Uh, look, I don’t know about chill. Uh, I think we need to be prepared, but we also need to simply accept that this is probably going to happen and find ways of dealing with it.
Stimulating television, eh? The point being – does anyone care what the Independent MP for Goldstein thinks about the possible next US administration? Well, Comrade Daniel certainly does. At around Gin & Tonic Time on Monday 22 July she put out this post on X:
Zoe Daniel MP (she/her) @zdaniel
Four years of observing Donald Trump in Washington taught me this:
Be prepared.
The only predictable thing about him is his unpredictability. pic.twitter.com/zOOwhE6mQZ
22/7/2024, 4:30 PM
Four years of observing Donald Trump in Washington taught me this:
— Zoe Daniel MP (she/her) (@zdaniel) July 22, 2024
Be prepared.
The only predictable thing about him is his unpredictability. pic.twitter.com/zOOwhE6mQZ
In fact, Zoe Daniel was only into her first response when she threw the switch to cliché, stating:
Zoe Daniel: I think the only thing that’s predictable about Donald Trump is his unpredictability. Uh, and we have to just go into it knowing that and accept that things will be different.
Who would have thought that Donald J. Trump was somewhat unpredictable? Worth an interview with Speersy, surely.
Comrade Daniel went on to discuss NATO, US policy, Ukraine and Israel. But said nothing fresh or even of interest. Eventually Daniel received a question of some relevance to her role as an Australian federal parliamentarian.
David Speers: Alright, let’s come to issues here this week. The CFMEU: administrators will be sent in to help clean up the union. What about bringing back the Building and Construction Commission, the ABCC? You voted to abolish it. Do you think it now should be brought back?
Zoe Daniel: Yeah, so, just for the sake of clarity, I voted to abolish it within one of those massive omnibus bills that the government likes to do. So, it was the industrial relations legislation that had a whole bunch of other really good stuff in it. And it was a difficult piece of legislation to make a decision on, actually –
David Speers: [interjecting] So, did you think it should go or not?
Zoe Daniel: Uh, I don’t think it was particularly effective. Uh, so, I didn’t sort of have a strong view that it should stay. Uh, I think there’s an argument that there should be something ….
So, Zoe Daniel voted to abolish the ABCC – but didn’t really. As to restoring the ABCC – well, uh, there’s an argument that there should be something or other, since the “toxic element” in the CFMEU should be “cleaned out”. But, please don’t ask the Member for Goldstein how.
When Speersy asked his former ABC colleague about “the teal platform”, Ms Daniel replied “there is no teal platform … teal is a media construct”.
Turn it up. The teal campaigns – aimed at defeating sitting Liberals in well-off Liberal Party electorates – were financed by the multi-millionaire Simon Holmes à Court and his Climate 200 organisation. The teals – Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel, Kylea Tink, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall – tend to vote together. They conduct joint media conferences and pose together for the cameras. But, Zoe Daniel denies there is a teal platform.
The (soft) interview concluded with the Teal member for Goldstein calling for an end to “negative language” – just after she accused the Albanese government of being “pathologically unambitious on almost everything”. Sounds somewhat negative, don’t you think? Presenter Speers let the comment go unchallenged – and so the interview ended with neither a bang nor a whimper. Yet, Zoe Daniel, ex-ABC, attained a 13-minute interview on Insiders.
[I note that the Speers-Daniel interview was almost interruption-free compared with a recent David Speers/Peter Dutton interview which contained some 49 Speersy interruptions – MWD Editor.]
IT’S A FUNNY OLD WORLD
In 1967, the music hall entertainer Ken Dodd (1927-2018) sang the song “It’s a Funny Old World” in his album For Someone Special. The term was popularised by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in November 1990 when she was forced by her Conservative Party colleagues to step down. At her final cabinet meeting the Iron Lady reflected: “It’s a funny old world”. And so it is – as this MWD segment demonstrates.
THE PHILLIP ADAMS vs. KIM WILLIAMS (VERBAL) WAR – THE VERY LATEST
It was Gin & Tonic Time last evening when Hendo decided to tune into the Neil Mitchell Asks Why? podcast. Why? – Media Watch Dog hears avid readers cry. Well, he was thirsty and Ellie was not due for a walk for around 50 minutes.
It turned out that the Melbourne-based broadcaster was interviewing the (relatively) new ABC chair – none other than Kim Williams. Early on, following a discussion on Israel, the following exchange took place:
Neil Mitchell: But while we’re on that issue [Israel], are you comfortable with the way the - and there has been criticism with the way the ABC generally has handled the war and the conflict within this country?
Kim Williams: Look, I think that any major moment of conflict is going to result in a wide variety of positions and views. And the responsibility of a body like the ABC is to maintain a middle course and an objectivity. And to stay a course that, to the extent possible, reflects an accurate depiction of that which is happening in order to inform the public and enable the public to form its own judgments. Generally, I think the ABC has done a pretty good job through this ….
Your man Williams is certainly verbose. This kind of hides the fact that the ABC has not run a “middle course” when reporting on the Israel-Hamas war. This has been documented in Media Watch Dog since Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
And then discussion turned on the relationship between Kim Williams AM (born 1952) and Phillip Adams AO AM, Hon DUniv (Griffith), Hon DLitt (ECU), Hon DUniv (SA), DLitt [sic] (Syd), Hon. DUniv (Macquarie), FRSA, Hon FAHA (born 1939). Let’s go to the transcript:
Neil Mitchell: What have you done to Phillip Adams? He says that you’re immensely bright, but that doesn’t necessarily mean intelligence. And he prefers Kim Jong-un to you. What’s the fight with Phillip Adams?
Kim Williams: Well, I don’t have a fight with Phillip Adams. He has one with me. I haven’t spoken to Phillip Adams in 35 years. But he clearly harbours a deep animus towards me ….
Neil Mitchell: Do you have a lot of enemies?
Kim Williams: I think everyone in the course of life develops, hopefully unwittingly, enemies. Phillip’s - the extremity of Phillip’s views about me is something that does puzzle me because we literally haven’t spoken in decades. And I’ve written him two or three letters about matters that were untruthful and incorrect – and that clearly has offended him deeply. And I couldn’t care less that he’s offended ….
Neil Mitchell: Did you ever listen to his radio program? He’s only just stepped down of course.
Kim Williams: I have to say that I stopped listening to Phillip a long time ago.
Neil Mitchell: So, he’s not missed by the ABC chairman?
Kim Williams: I think, I think he once said that he’d, that Australian television had made one year of television and then repeated it 30 or 40 times. I, when I did listen to his program, often had that feeling about his radio program.
What fun. Your man Williams reckons that Phillip (“How many times have I told you that I was a teenage communist?”) Adams was into broadcasting repetition and so he ceased listening to Comrade Adams’ little wireless program many moons ago.
Ellie is currently Australia’s most famous real cattle dog. The ABC’s Bluey, who hangs out with Mr Williams at the taxpayer funded public broadcaster, is a fake cattle dog. In any event, Ellie just loves bitch fights between blokes like Phillip and Kim.
According to your man Williams, he and Comrade Adams have not spoken to each other since circa 1990. They just bitch about each other via the likes of The Monthly and Neil Mitchell’s podcast. In 2024 Adams told The Monthly that he reckoned that Kim Jong-un (the leader of North Korea) would do a better job chairing the ABC than Kim Williams. The Sydney-based Kim reckons that Squire Adams of the Hunter Valley presented the same radio program for three decades. And this remotely-conducted verbal punch-up is making the news.
It’s a Funny Old World.
[Yep. It certainly is. I well remember. By the way, I suggest that in the next issue you should cover what Mr Williams told Mr Mitchell about the ABC. – MWD Editor.]
AN ABC UPDATE
VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY MISSING IN ACTION AS ABC RADIO NATIONAL PRAISES JOE BIDEN & KAMALA HARRIS BUT FANGS DONALD TRUMP
Media Watch Dog has consistently maintained that the conservative free zone that is the ABC lacks viewpoint diversity. ABC management constantly denies this – which suggests that maybe the likes of managing director David Anderson does not listen/watch/read the taxpayer funded public broadcaster’s output. Here’s why:
• ABC Radio National – 22 July 2024
Sabra Lane interviews Norman J. Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Your man Ornstein is a fine scholar well known to some Australians. But he is no supporter of Donald Trump.
Comrade Lane’s first two questions were of the soft kind. Namely, “Has [Kamala] Harris got what it takes to defeat Donald Trump?” and “Many American voters seem to have overlooked Mr Trump’s faults – why is that so?”.
First up, Ornstein said that when Vice-President Harris has a debate with Donald Trump “she will be able to carry the case forward in a way that, sadly, Biden was not”. In relation to the second question, Ornstein had this to say:
Norman Ornstein: Our media, to be frank, have fallen way short of what we want of them. There is this fear of appearing biased towards the left. So, they end up being biased towards the right. And we’ve seen this obsession with Joe Biden’s age and mental acuity without any particular focus on Donald Trump’s age, physical issues and mental decline.
Quelle Surprise! Norman Ornstein reckons that the mainstream media in the United States is “biased towards the right”. Really. The New York Times and CNN is biased towards the right. Your man Ornstein then proceeded to fang Donald Trump, depicting him as a deranged fool.
• ABC Radio National Breakfast – 22 July 2024
Patricia Karvelas interviews Susan Platt, President Biden’s former chief-of-staff. Not surprisingly, she praises Kamala Harris and bags Trump with comments like this:
Susan Platt: [Kamala Harris is] going to be able to prosecute the case against the 34 felony count Donald Trump, who, you know, talks about the patriots that are in prison for mounting an insurrection. The only patriot that I know right now – the only true patriot in this country that’s in the media is, is Joe Biden, not Donald Trump.
• ABC Radio National Breakfast – 22 July 2024
Patricia Karvelas interviews Patrick Gaspard, the leader of the Center for American Progress and a former staffer for President Barack Obama. He praises President Biden and Vice-President Harris without qualification.
So that’s all, folks. Three interviews. All three praise Kamala Harris and two bagged Donald Trump. That’s viewpoint diversity – ABC-style.
DOCUMENTATION
GERARD HENDERSON’S RUPERT MURDOCH INTERVIEW IN AUSTRALIAN ANSWERS (1990)
There was enormous interest in the last Media Watch Dog issue. Including MWD’s revelation about Margaret Simons of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University. [As I recall, this esteemed outfit used to be called the Centre for Advanced Journalism – MWD Editor.]
It turned out that Dr Simons (for a doctor she is but don’t call her if someone is having a heart attack) predicted in February 2006 that Rupert Murdoch “will die” before February 2016. Yet, the News Corp’s executive chairman (born 1931) is still going strong. It is evident to anyone who saw his interview with Paul Whittaker in the Sky News documentary The Australian: 60 Years of News.
Comrade Simons lectures about journalism at the University of Melbourne and instructs those who aspire to have a career in journalism about journalistic standards. It’s not clear if the Simons journalism course contains a session on “prophecy”, including that of the false genre.
Thanks to the avid reader who reminded Ellie’s (male) co-owner that he interviewed Rupert Murdoch for his (Hendo’s) book Australian Answers (Random House, 1990). This consisted of some 31 chapters on prominent Australians, including Murdoch who had to become a United States citizen to advance his company’s media interests. All were interviewed about the social, political, economic and religious issues facing Australia at the time. One of the interviewees was Rupert Murdoch (re which see below).
In the Introduction to Australian Answers, Gerard Henderson developed the theory about what he called the “Federation Trifecta”. Namely, (i) the introduction of a centralised wage system which paid scant respect to market forces following the Harvester Judgment of 1907, (ii) protection all round for industries which could not exist in world markets due to the centralised wage system and (iii) White Australia. That trio made up the trifecta. Henderson argued that the Federation Trifecta was incompatible with Australia’s reality as an immigrant nation which traded on world markets.
Protection was there to protect industry from the impact of the Harvester Judgment. And White Australia was primarily introduced to protect trade unionists from having their wages and conditions undercut by cheap labour from the Asia Pacific. The Federation Trifecta led to Australia becoming increasingly unproductive in the years after Federation in 1901.
In the decades after Federation, there was a broad acceptance in Australia of the Trifecta based, as it was, on economic, industrial relations and social considerations. However, this did not extend to foreign policy – as the division over conscription for overseas service demonstrated during the WWI when Australia was significantly divided.
Gerard Henderson reintroduced Australian readers to the work of the economist Edward Shann in his (Shann’s) 1930 book An Economic History of Australia. Later, in his newspaper columns, he (Hendo) also wrote about the work of the economic historian W.K. Hancock and his 1930 book Australia. Both men stood as beacons of economic light advocating a more flexible economy with respect to trade and industrial relations at a time of protectionist fudge.
The Federation Trifecta was not completely demolished until the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s with respect to protectionism and industrial relations. However, White Australia was effectively junked in early 1966.
* * * * *
For those who want to read the Australian Answers chapter which contains the Rupert Murdoch interview it can be found here. It took up some of the themes in the book’s introduction and more besides.
More Coverage
Read related topics:Joe Biden
Join the conversation
Our tax woes need to be fixed. Here are my two solutions
Unless commodities boom again, big election promises will not be sustainable if most international companies operating in Australia continue to not pay proper company tax.
Read more
Let’s face it, Melbourne is turning into a flat and miserable city
Melbourne’s CBD is struggling to regain its pre-pandemic vibrancy. Small business laments the slow return of workers to offices, underscored by a state government that allows its public servants to continue working-from-home.
Read more