Playing the hits It’s been only a relatively brief period but the COVID era has nonetheless produced a few tried and true story formats, one of which arced up at the weekend.
Step one: finding a group of people who are breaking no rules but have the temerity to not be breaking those rules in a pleasant public space. Step two: chuck a telephoto lens on your camera. Step three: profit (if we define profit as the wife of a former prime minister calling for people who’ve committed no crime to be arrested)!
The irony is — as is often the case with confected outrages — that there very much is a story represented by the images of beachgoers, and it’s not the one everyone’s banging on about.
Kids in poorer and more diverse south-west Sydney suburbs, already subjected to some of the lowest access to green space in the city, are having the basketball hoops removed in their parks. There is a legitimate debate to be had about inequality of freedom and how that is decided, one that’s being absolutely overshadowed by hand-wringing over people attempting to glean a little joy from miserable circumstances within the current COVID rules and risk profile.
The final word The Australian cannot, it will surprise no one to hear, allow the ABC the final word, even concerning an embarrassment most publications would like to put behind them.
Last week the Oz attempted to argue that, far from being relentless and petty in its coverage of the ABC, it was actually the public broadcaster that’s obsessed with it. The paper got some “research” to that effect from the Institute of Public Affairs, giving it to rising culture warrior Sophie Elsworth, who duly gave it the old Ctrl V Ctrl C treatment. The findings were incredible: Aunty had mentioned Murdoch and News Corp 1700 times in just 30 days. Except of course it hadn’t, because of course it hadn’t.
The ABC is always keen to correct the records when it feels it’s been wronged by another publication, but what followed was particularly sharp. “There were nowhere near 1700 unique relevant mentions of ‘News Corp’ or ‘Murdoch’ on ABC platforms during the 30 days” goes the response on the “correcting the record” section of its website. It assails the research on two fronts — it counts a single mention on syndicated material as many instances, and doesn’t differentiate between mentions of Rupert Murdoch, Murdoch Uni, any number of Murdoch streets, Lauren Murdoch or (we assume) Howling Mad Murdock. We’re sure ABC spinner Sally Jackson was particular pleased with the final note:
The Australian’s story is false, misleading and frankly ridiculous. The ABC has sought a correction from The Australian. And drivers should be careful of traffic conditions in Murdoch St, Cremorne, and Murdoch Road, South Morang.
The Australian published another story concerning the matter, conceding there were some “flaws” in the research (almost like the Oz and the IPA had some kind of shared interest in not checking too closely?) but, and this is pretty impressive, using the ABC’s response as evidence that the crux of the original story was accurate (bear in mind the following does not come from an opinion piece):
An ABC press release giving its account of the IPA data inspired a typically feverish social media pile on from ABC staff, its cheerleaders at Guardian Australia and, of course, Media Watch.
Responding angrily to our wildly inaccurate reporting about you? Um, why are you so obsessed with us? A further point to note is that the IPA only concedes it over-counted by fewer than 200 instances, putting the updated figure at 1525. Which still sounds very high, and is far in excess of the ABC’s estimation that the true number was “probably less than 10%” of the 1700 figure. It will be interesting if another “correcting the record” is on its way.
Okay Mod, how about
““IPA research” : now there’s an ox*ymo*ron plough team.”?
“Oxy-bloody-mo*ron” trips the rad flag???
Sounds unlikely. Maybe don’t comment on the quality off the India pale ale?
No it’s that “oxy-word” – the only change from the original post, that let it through second time.
… And isn’t that “Insipid Pale Ail”?
It’s bizarre that grammatical terms, words used in headlines, the first 5 naughty letters for the coin of which 20 made up a pound, and a host of other normal expressions trip the ModBot – the soft machines supposedly overseeing it aren’t too bright either.
My post yesterday on vaccine supply was held up all day then released, unaltered but WHY?
Crikey mod algorithms need overhauling.
I guess the real question is whether uncle Rupert will outlive the ABC or vice versa. My money’s on auntie, which will hopefully be able to recover after uncle’s gone off to meet old Nick.
After Rupes shuffles off this mortal coil we’ll still be stuck with a Murdoch, namely Lachlan, who by and large is even more conservative than Rupes. I imagine he will continue in the same vein of distorting facts to telling complete and utter lies (allegedly). There will still be negative press for women, Unions, refugees and Labor whilst mediocre CONServative men with questionable ethics will continue to receive protection no matter how outrageous their behaviour.
Yes, but let’s hope he, like Warwick Fairfax, hasn’t inherited his old man’s business nous.
Our best hope lies in the fact that he’s a different generation and probably doesn’t have the same priorities as his dad. Traditional mass media is all but dead, anyway. Modern mass media is much more difficult to dominate than newspapers were – and uncle Rupert blew his chances of getting a foot in that door (myspace, anybody? And fighting the NBN, rather than seeing it as an opportunity)
Imagine if Packer fils hadn’t seen his true calling in casinos and retained control of the SMH!
Should we be thankful for such meagre mercies?
aagh..
SMH– TCN9 and Consolidated Press, the only nonMoloch prints read by the masses.Packer pere tried to control SMH for decades but was called away before he could do so.
Didn’t Lachlan almost bankrupt channel TEN? Then there was the One.Tel debacle. You may be right, he may not have his old man’s business acumen. I hope he destroys the business.
The only reason he still infests this earth is that Hell doesn’t want him contaminating the place.
Satan doesn’t want the competition, you reckon?
Better to Rule in Hell than Serve in Heaven – Lucifer has standards which the Mudorc could not reach if he were atop Mt Everest.
Get the spelling right It’s MerdeOK
The IPA might want to check its stats, but then probably not. On Monday 13 September MediaWatch pointed out that the ABC has 50 radio stations (54 according to Wikipedia) throughout the country so every mention of say News Corp shares or an article in the Australian newspaper is counted 50 times. So to say there were only 200 instances of items being over counted for the month is delusional but then that’s standard for the IPA.
“IPA research” : now there’s an oxymoron plough team.