The Bannon debate continues, the hunt is on for the White House insider, Adele Ferguson announces a book, plus other media tidbits from the day.
Bannon confirmed for The Economist fest. As Australians continue to debate the merits and otherwise of the ABC’s Four Corners giving its full program to Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon this week, The Economist has doubled down on its invitation for the former Breitbart executive to speak at its Open Future Festival later this month. While The New Yorker rescinded its invitation to Bannon after a backlash from writers and readers, The Economist has confirmed its lineup stands.
Editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes said in a memo that Bannon’s world view was antithetical to those of the publication, but he was invited because of his role in Trump’s ascension to the presidency and because he continues to advise populist far-right parties in Europe:
The future of open societies will not be secured by like-minded people speaking to each other in an echo chamber, but by subjecting ideas and individuals from all sides to rigorous questioning and debate. This will expose bigotry and prejudice, just as it will reaffirm and refresh liberalism. That is the premise The Economist was founded on.
“There are adults in the room”. Elsewhere in the US media, The New York Times has prompted even more White House buzz by publishing an anonymous opinion piece written by a “senior official” in the Trump administration.
It describes a chaotic White House while describing some of the efforts by staff to “resist” the president. The anonymous piece is extraordinarily unusual for The Times, and was published with a statement explaining the decision and inviting questions about the vetting process:
We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers.
CNN spoke to op-ed page editor Jim Dao about the decision, who said the piece was arranged through an intermediary over the past few days. Dao said the piece had been edited to disguise the person’s writing style, as well as other precautions to protect their identity which he would not go into.
Banking Bad. Fairfax’s Adele Ferguson has signed a book deal that will draw on her four years’ reporting on scandal and corruption in the corporate sector. Ferguson, who has won eight Walkley awards, will write about the lead-up to the banking royal commission, which her reporting pushed for.
Foreign media owner rules tighten. It was one of the footnotes to the media law changes this year that have allowed Fairfax and Nine Entertainment to merge: we’ll now know more about the level of foreign control of our media. Foreigners holding 2.5% or more of an Australian media company will be forced to register that interest with broadcast regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) from September 1 (last weekend).
ACMA yesterday issued a first reminder for all those foreign groups, individuals and the like that they have until February 28 next year to declare their holdings. The new rules not only apply to foreign companies and individuals, but also executors, administrators and liquidators. Any changes have to be notified within 30 days of that change taking place.
This requirement is considerably tougher than the standard 5% disclosure requirement for companies listed on the ASX. It will mean that by early next March we should have a better idea of which foreign group owns stakes in Australian media companies. — Glenn Dyer
Glenn Dyer’s TV ratings. This week a notable event happened in Melbourne: the Nine Network panicked and moved its ailing AFL Footy Show not to Wednesday night (as it has previously done when there is an AFL game scheduled on Seven for Thursday night), but to Tuesday night. This moves it away from the now usual head-to-head clash with Seven’s The Front Bar.
It was an admission that the AFL Footy Show is dying on its knees and the ratings reflected that — just 249,000 viewers (in Melbourne 134,000) nationally. That meant that The Front Bar had the night to itself and gathered 504,000 viewers nationally, including 285,000 in Melbourne which made it the third most watched program in the market and nationally.
Last night, Nine’s night as The Block (1.36 million) easily dominated viewing with the only challengers The Bachelor on Ten with 1.06 million and Anh’s Brush With Fame on the ABC with 1.03 million. In regional areas, Seven’s 6pm News had 555,000 viewers, Seven News/Today Tonight 514,000, The Chase Australia from 5.30pm had 387,000, The Block 385,000 and A Current Affair 369,000. Read the rest on the Crikey website.
mmm.. some “debate”(!); 1st paragraph. The quotation beneath the third paragraph is the last word(!) although the quality of writing and of analysis of The Economist has deteriorated in the new century.
“The future of open societies will not be secured by like-minded people speaking to each other in an echo chamber, but by subjecting ideas and individuals from all sides to rigorous questioning and debate. This will expose bigotry and prejudice, just as it will reaffirm and refresh liberalism. That is the premise The Economist was founded on.”
I’m already so sick of the echo chamber, silo, enclave and whatever argument.
The people being castigated by Serious Journalists this way are clearly not unaware of Steve Bannon or what Steve Bannon stands for, just as we are not unaware of Donald Trump, or Tony Abbott, or Gert Wilders or whichever far right figure du jure we are talking about.
Their “ideas” such as they are have already been subjected to rigorous questioning and debate. Do the Economist and other journalists naively think in this internet age that questioning and debate only happens in their publications, that these figures have not been questioned time and time again, that their bigotry and prejudice is not ALREADY exposed long before the Economist arrived on the scene and that the people criticising Four Corners, criticising the New Yorker and the Economist, have not seen any of this because they are in their echo chamber? It’s absurd. The echo chamber is among journalists, sagely telling each other they are the guardians of free speech while buying into the alt-right’s victimhood act at every turn and continuing to give them outsize platforms to publicise themselves and produce “respectable” material to publish into the real silos of low information voters.
When you have a Steve Bannon on, not only are you implying respect for him as a Serious Person TO Be Respected but you are also NOT giving that slot to somebody whose ideas may well not have been as well aired and discussed. Bannon is censored if you don’t give him the slot, but hypothetical progressive person A is not censored by not giving them the slot. How does THAT work, exactly?
How well it has gone over 20 years to continually give Pauline Hanson an outsize platform for her ramblings. She’s gone from the pollity has she? Oh, dear.
Maybe instead of being so dismissive of “lefties” trying to “censor” Mr Bannon, journalists could demonstrate some reflection and humility for their failures of their profession’s standard operating procedure in the modern era, ESPECIALLY smug white middle class journalists trying to tell people of colour that THEY are being intolerant for not wanting to listen to STEVE BANNON get more opportunities to spout his crap than they’ll ever get to tell their stories.
I accept that you have made an effort to assess the symbiotics of Bannon interviews, Writers’ festivals et al but with all due respect your comments (in general) eclipse some aspects of what might be termed as debate.
> Their “ideas” such as they are have already been subjected to rigorous questioning and debate.
In some cases : yes but in general : no. Besides not “everyone” has been so earnest as to inform themselves. Thirdly, the self-promoters seldom have a use-by-date and in the interests of free speech there is no limit to the number of interviews on a particular topic. Even if the assertion was true xyx publication is, nevertheless, entitled to interview Bannon or the most recent axe murderer.
“The echo chamber is among journalists, sagely telling each other they are the guardians of free speech while buying into the alt-right’s victimhood act”
There are more than a few writers for Crikey who “buy into” the “poor-bugger-me” (victim-hood) act”. As an aside the ONE aspect that distinguishes alt-Right is the repudiation of “victim-hood”. They perceive it as a “left-wing infantile disorder” – borrowing a phrase of some renown.
“When you have a Steve Bannon on, not only are you implying respect for him as a Serious Person TO Be Respected but you are also NOT giving that slot to somebody whose ideas may well not have been as well aired and discussed.”
Concerning the latter assertion there is always next week but no one has asked me to plan interviews for their radio or TV station (so we can’t confirm the substance of the assertion even it the assertion possesses some intuitive appeal. As to the former assertion there is NO such implication. The village idiot could be interviewed and it doesn’t imply that the person ought to be taken seriously; merely, under constructive conditions, an assessment can be made. Its about the capacity of the interviewer to construct an (1) environment and (2) a sequence of opportunities in which the interviewee can convey to the audience their (so called) true self. Ditto for a job interview. Riv went to some trouble to point this aspect out (5 Sept 14:23) when responding to Ms Razer’s article. Frankly, I’m surprised that you missed the point.
“Bannon is censored if you don’t give him the slot, but hypothetical progressive person A is not censored by not giving them the slot.”
A tautology upon the former assertion that has no obvious foundation. Neither assertion is true.
“How well it has gone over 20 years to continually give Pauline Hanson an outsize platform for her ramblings. She’s gone from the pollity has she? Oh, dear.”
Yep; she has between 1/5 and 1/4 of the raw vote. Lucky her. Its a reality but it does’t mean that she is right (in anything). Something like 22% of voters like her or 22% of voters are pissed off with the other offerings or any combo to 22%.
“Maybe instead of being so dismissive of “lefties” trying to “censor” Mr Bannon, journalists could demonstrate some reflection and humility for their failures of their profession’s standard operating procedure in the modern era, ESPECIALLY smug white middle class journalists trying to tell people of colour that THEY are being intolerant for not wanting to listen to STEVE BANNON get more opportunities to spout his crap than they’ll ever get to tell their stories.”
yeah – Bannon has a fixation or two here and there but what self-promoter isn’t so compromised? But with reference to the preceding paragraph, quoted, what you have written is not accurate or fair or constructive – or too general to be useful. In fact the paragraph is rather Bannon-ish. You ought to have beer with the guy should the opportunity present itself. Then you could both blog about the experience!