It’s been interesting watching the looming battle between News Limited mouthpieces Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair and Crikey’s new blog Pure Poison
I was always a big fan of Boltwatch because Andrew Bolt’s free reign of deceptions is something that should be challenged. SoI’ve been following their new blog from the very beginning. It started off well with a few keen insights into why people like Bolt and Piers Akerman are often guilty of the very misinformation they often criticise the Left for. However, once Bolt began subtley (I say subtle because he refused to link to the blog) accusing Pure Poison of writing outright racist comments on his blog in an attempt to vilify him, it went a bit downhill from there. It has become a bit of a “he said she said” game over the blogs.
I see that Pure Poison have made a couple of posts since sticking to the original aim of the blog, I hope they keep this up and it doesn’t dissolve into just petty in-fighting. As much as I think Andrew would like it, I hope you guys don’t stoop to it.
In the mean time, I , like a growing number of people I know, consider Google Reader an essential part of my day. And it has a permanent slot in my Firefox tabs. So if you have any interesting media related blogs you think I should be reading, please comment and let me know, I’ll look into them and link to them from this site too, if they take my fancy.
Josh, February 25th 2009 |
Tags: Andrew Bolt, Blogs
Posted in A Current AFail., Blog, Editorial, News
In the past few days, we’ve also seen a number of the commentators using the fires to get a free kick in for their ideological positions. Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt have used this both as a time to paint the environmentally friendly and those who do believe in climate change, which is frankly, most of us, as uncaring bastards trying to gain attention at a time of national tragedy while at the same time claiming it is green policies that lead to the fires.
They’re happy to put the foot in when it suits them but if anyone argues differently, ‘it’s not the time’ to argue about this.
Not to mention 2GB’s Chris Smith, 2SM’s Grant Goldman and Fox News, among others, have all tried to blame the fires on Islamic terrorists.
In the meantime, the police today have arrested two people in relation to some of these fires. Lets hope the media, desperate for someone to blame, will remember the rule that they are ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
Josh, February 12th 2009 |
Tags: Bush Fires, Journalism
Posted in A Current AFail., Blog, Editorial
The bush fires in Victoria last weekend that have killed a confirmed 181 people with that number expected to rise is our worst ever natural disaster. For the most part, the media up to now have been top notch in their coverage of the fires.
But when does it stop being genuine coverage of grief and become exploitation media?
Read more…
Josh, February 12th 2009 |
Tags: Bush Fires, Journalism
Posted in Editorial
Activists descended on Canberra to protest the ongoing Northern Territory intervention. The Sydney Morning Herald via AAP writes:
The protest was over the federal government intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in response to harrowing claims of widespread child sex abuse.
My issue here is the encroachment of editorial comment into news reporting. It may just be me, but I feel the use of ‘harrowing’ betrays the authors own views – something journalists are supposed to steer clear of when presenting news. Read more…
Adam, February 4th 2009 |
Tags: Bias, Journalism, media, politics, Sydney Morning Herald
Posted in Blog, Editorial
