On Tuesday James Murdoch raised hopes his father’s media company might be about to pivot from its climate denialism. This morning, News Corp’s NT News responded on its front page. Below you’ll find the original, along with Crikey‘s attempt to decode it.
*Reverse ferret is a phrase used predominantly within the British media to describe a sudden reversal in an organisation’s editorial or political line on a certain issue. Generally, this will involve no acknowledgement of the previous position (Source: Wikipedia).
I ‘love’ the way the Right’s initial demand was that ‘now is not the time for ideology’ when critics pointed at climate change as an underlying contributor to the fires, while at the same time their instinctive immediate reaction was to try and score political points by smearing the Greens with a blatant lie about hazard reduction.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Murdoch … or Morrison, or … I dunno, depends which day of the week we’re talking about …
A first class presentation!
That’s the Murdoch m.o. :- Devote all your resources to rewriting history, wipe the slate/white-board clean to give the (Limited News Party) miscreants another go (to see what they can fuck up next time?) : except if those to blame are of the other side of politics of course.
“Moderation”? Well how about :-
“That’s the Murdoch m.o. :- Devote all your resources to rewriting history, wipe the slate/white-board clean to give the (Limited News Party) miscreants another go (to see what they can muck* up next time?) : except if those to blame are of the other side of politics of course.”
I have long stopped buying the NT News my local Murdoch rag for its juvenile reliance on croc stories and supposedly funny headlines (a cracker up my clacker) , so the front page, as displayed by Crikey and others, is all I was able to read but my first reaction was similar, though not as clever, as yours. “Let’s try to look like we are serious while absolutely ensuring NewsCorp isn’t held accountable for its disgraceful coverage of the bushfires causes and it’s sycophantic support of the Morrison mis- government”. Transparent nonsense.
Having liberated a few ferrets in rabbit burrows, the expression “reverse ferret” appeals as very apt; ferrets can indeed smoothly change direction in confined spaces.
The more serious question is whether the readership obediently performs the same reverse ferret and what is happening in their heads as they do so.