The criticism of the ABC returns to The Australian and Gerard has a shot at Crikey

The hostilities have resumed. The Oz returned to attacking the ABC with this editorial comment on Friday:
2014-02-21_hardline
Fair enough to point out that Ms Bolkan’s was not giving an eye-witness account but more likely that she actually spoke to an eye-witness than did the anonymous author of the editorial.
This morning it was Gerard Henderson’s turn as he returned to a favourite theme.
22-02-2014 gerardJust for the record here are some recent examples, courtesy of Media Matters for America, of Fox’s plurality of views.
22-02-2014 erickerickson8_205
Fox’s Erickson: Businesses Serving Gay Couples Are “Aiding And Abetting” Sin
22-02-2014 seanhannity45
Hannity’s Financial Ties To Tea Party Worse Than You Think
22-02-2014 girlscouts
Bill O’Reilly Is Worried About “Homosexual Overtones” In The Girl Scouts
22-02-2014 RyanMauro
Meet Fox’s New Anti-Muslim “National Security Analyst”
22-02-2014 usasukraine
Fox Guest Warns That U.S. Could Become Ukraine Without Social Security Cuts
I’ll leave it to Gerard to give some examples of Fox’s left wing commentary in his Media Watch Dog blognext Friday.
In the meantime the current issue is worth a glance as a reminder of what an entertaining writer P.P.McGuiness used to be. The Media Watch Dog has resurrected one of Paddy’s columns from 2006 about the appointment of Mark Scott to run the ABC. Gerard summarises it thus but an abbreviation does not do it justice.
Paddy McGuinness’ 2006 piece was remarkably perceptive. He looked back at Mark Scott’s career at Fairfax Media where he had protected John Howard haters in the Sydney Morning Herald and presided over a situation where The Age became “The-Guardian-on-the-Yarra”. And P.P. McGuinness predicted that Nice Mr Scott would allow the various leftist cliques embedded in the ABC to continue to run the organisation. This has led to a situation where the taxpayer funded public broadcaster has not one conservative presenter or producer or editor for any of its prominent television or radio or online outlets some eight years after Nice Mr Scott’s appointment. Not one.
P.P. McGuinness also predicted that Mark Scott would push the ABC into growth for the sake of growth into numerous new television and radio and online outlets while failing to run the organisation as an editor-in-chief should.
The late P.P. McGuinness – Five Paws – plus a belated Perpetual Indulgence.
[Let’s hope it’s redeemable for atheists/agnostics. – Ed]
And whatever your view might be of Gerard Henderson you would surely agree he has a way of spotting pretentious nonsense as in this commentary on one of the women columnists who the editor chose to replace me with at Crikey:
JANE CARO’S CLEVER – A “SELFIE” EVALUATION
MWD just loves the angst of Jane Caro – the leading female public intellectual of the left-wing Crikey newsletter. Ms Caro describes herself as a “novelist, author and social commentator”. She used to work in advertising.
Jane Caro’s Crikey column, titled “Caro’s Flotsam & Jetsam”, is a must read in Nancy’s kennel every week – since it gives a wonderful insight into the leftist mindset. Last Wednesday, for example, Jane Caro told her readers that they should not worry too much about the apparent resurgence of right-of-centre parties the world over – since lefties like her were more intelligent than their political opponents. How frightfully reassuring, in a morally superior kind of way.
This is what Crikey’s leading female public intellectual had to say, under the title “The left and the stupid”:
It’s a bit of a dark time for those on the Left of politics these days, and given how far the rest of the world has moved to the Right, being even slightly Left of centre has never been easier. Anyway, those of us on the distaff side of things have to take our comfort where we can find it, particularly in the face of an apparent recovery by the federal government in the polls.
To my astonishment, I found my bit of comfort this week in the Daily Mail of all unlikely places, with this rather delightful bit of research concluding that left-wingers are smarter than those on the Right. Whether it’s better than most of the junk research we see in the media nowadays, I have no idea, but hey, it made me feel a little better for a nanosecond or two. As did this tweet from Salon.com editor-in-chief Joan Walsh:
22-02-2014 joanwalsh
It’s a phenomenon I have noticed myself, and if the Daily Mail story is anything to go by, perhaps it is genetic.
So there you have it. Jane Caro reckons that she and her leftist mates are “smarter than those on the right”. And she has joined forces with Joan Walsh, editor-in-chief of the leftist Salon online magazine, in maintaining that right-of-centre types confuse “you’re” and “your”. [Your kidding. What a brilliant insight from you’re Crikey female public intellectual – Ed].
So, according to Jane Caro, there is a genetic link between bad spelling and right-wing political beliefs – a phenomenon identified by their left-wing opponents. Can you bear it? [Perhaps you should have written – “Can you bare it?” - Ed].

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