Murdoch Media Helps 'Al Qaeda' Spread Fear And Terror

The Australian Uses Online Game Art As 'Al Qaeda' Post-Nuclear Apocalyptic Imagery

By Darryl Mason

UPDATE : The Australian newspaper has been busted using artwork from an online game to illustrate a 'Al Qaeda Wants WMDs To Blow Away Washington DC' piece of war propaganda.

Go Here For More On That

Thanks to reader NikC who revealed the 'nuked Washington' image The Australian said was from Al Qaeda actually came from a videogame.


A private American intelligence agency, which turns considerable profit off distributing 'Al Qaeda' propaganda videos and Bin Laden speeches, has been hyping a new 'quasi-documentary' where some nobody on a message board says, basically, "Hey, you know what would kill lots of infidels? WMDs. We should try and get some of those."

The 'documentary' has been discredited by the FBI, and widely mocked for days across alternative and independent news sites.

So why is The Australian and News.com.au giving this piece of crap fluff prime placement coverage today, under the headline 'Al Qaeda Urges Use Of WMD'?

A few seconds of Google searching would have revealed that nobody, not even the American agency that releases old Bin Laden videos cobbled together to appear as though they are new speeches, gives any credibility at all to this bullshit video.

The video was roundly dismissed as being called 'fan-made.' That's right. Somebody, somewhere in the world, cut together a whole heap of old Al Qaeda propaganda videos and dumped it onto a website, and now Murdoch media is giving it the star treatment.

Why?

Why is The Australian, of all newspapers, helping to distribute and give exposure to this crap, days after it was dismissed as ridiculous fluff by American and international intelligence agencies?

Anyone got an answer?

UPDATE : As reader NikC points out, The Australian is using artwork not from 'Al Qaeda' but from a video game website to try and ramp up The Fear for its pissweak and thoroughly discredited piece of war propaganda.

Go Here To See The Video Game Art Being Passed Off As Apocalyptic Al Qaeda Imagery By Murdoch Media

The 'Government Gazette' Becomes The 'Opposition Oracle'

We keep hearing how the new Liberal/National Opposition government is lost. They don't have a clue. They are "Me Tooing" the Rudd government, with their acceptance of the reality of climate change, the need to ratify Kyoto and that WorkChoices is about as popular as a rusty razor to the nipple being just a few of their "We're With You Guys!" whiplash-inducing policy turnarounds.

But before the Libs go out and blow much needed money hiring policy experts and advisors to shape their party platforms, they should just turn to the main op-ed page of The Australian today, where the editor is, once again, telling the Libs exactly what they need to do to win back the public support.

When the Libs were in government, The Australian was known in the blogstream as the 'Government Gazette' for its near ceaseless support of the Howard government and its constant hyping of utterly abysmal poll results for Howard & Friends. 'Howard Stages A Comeback' and all that.

Seeing as The Australian already looks like it will stick to helping the Liberal Party in every way that it can, it's time for a rebranding of the newspaper that "keeps the nation (and the Libs) informed". Forget the 'Government Gazette'. It's now the 'Opposition Oracle'.

As long as Nelson and the Libs do what they're told by the editor of Opposition Oracle, and its conservative-heavy op-ed writers, they can expect plenty of good press this year.

But only if they do what they're told.

So listen up Mr Nelson, the Opposition Oracle is speaking. Get out your highlighter pen and mark up Your Brand New Policy Platform For 2008-2010 :

In charting a course back to government, the Coalition leadership needs to...learn the lessons of recent history. They will not win power by fighting the centralist Rudd Government from the rigid Right, any more than the Labour Party in Britain was going to beat the Thatcher/Major Conservatives fighting from the rigid Left.

Rather than trapping itself in a time warp, the Opposition's job is to exploit the weaknesses in the Rudd Government's IR policies. Later in the election cycle, when the impact of the Government's changes are clearer, the Coalition should refine andrebadge its alternative and sell it positively as the way of the future.

Just as the genesis of New Labour's victory in Britain was the pragmatic dumping of sacred "white elephants" such as socialism and nationalisation of the means of production, Australia's Coalition needs to review some of its positions. Welfare reform is now long-standing and was central to theHawke/Keating governments as well as to the Coalition. It is no coincidence that single mothers were heavily over-represented in eight of the 10 seats in which the Coalition suffered its heaviest losses. This suggests that too many felt antagonised at being forced off welfare and into the workforce.

To be competitive, the Coalition must learn how to soften its sales pitch, using more encouragement and less of the big stick. And while the culture wars are of no interest to many in marginal seats, the Coalition could make ground by focusing on issues such as what is taught at school.

So the advice is : keep sticking it to single mothers and the poor, but don't be so obvious about it. You've got to find yourself some new punching bags, preferably ones that don't have a lot of voting power.

Labor campaigned cleverly on interest rates and petrol and grocery prices, which are largely beyond the control of any government.

But if the Rudd Government fails to meet voters' expectations in a worsening economic climate, the Coalition could argue that they were indeed more competent at steering Australia through challenging times, such as the Asian economic crisis.

In 1996, John Howard won by promising not a conservative revolution but to govern "for all of us" and to make Australians feel "relaxed and comfortable". He wooed the battlers by lifting their aspirations, just as Kevin Rudd did 11 years later. Such a strategy should also mean uniting disparate groups in the national interest, rather than playing the politics of division.

Translation : The Liberals should stop basing their policies on the hysterical opinions of Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman (eg - Global Warming is an evil Green conspiracy), and realise that all the bitterness hacked up from their religiously committed commenters only represent the nuttier fringes of conservative Australia.

While playing the competing interests of one group off against another can appeal to particular constituencies in the short term, punters wise up over time and tend to reject such cynical politics.

Punters know that self-appointed extremist spokespeople-provocateurs for Australian conservatives, like Bolt (who regards Pinochet as a hero), are crazier than a burning cat dumped dumped into a bucket of ice water.

In its new role, the Coalition should understand why fighting on the fringes is no place for an alternative government.

Translation : The so-called 'Culture Wars' are a mind-numbingly tedious bust for most Australians, those that have actually heard of them, and nobody reads Quadrant, but the few that do are hardly representative of the Australian people as a whole, or even a broad slice of Australian conservatives.

Maybe the New Liberals could adopt an anti-globalisation platform, considering the globalised economy is one of the key reasons why our economy is getting hammered right now by the financial meltdown in the United States. Or fight with the unions against Labor as it stalls the winding back of WorkChoices. Or start demanding that Labor do more to embrace alternative energy. Now that would be interesting.

Liberals Defy The Australian, Nelson Pays The Price

Curse Of The Newspoll To Badmouth Libs Until Turnbull Takes Over

More Coalition Supporters Prefer Rudd As PM Than Nelson And Abbott Combined

By Darryl Mason

The Australian newspaper's editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, told the election defeat-shocked Liberals that Malcolm Turnbull was their man, and the only person who could lead the party out of the swamp of Howard-era policy failures, "we don't say sorry" stupidity and climate change ignorance.

But the Liberals dared to ignore Kelly, and the Murdoch media's cheerleading for Turnbull, and chose Brendan "I've Never Voted Liberal In My Life!" Nelson to lead the party instead.

So now it's time for the New Liberals to pay the price for such insolence :

The Liberal Party may have chosen the wrong man as its new leader, with Brendan Nelson only half as popular as beaten rival Malcolm Turnbull among voters.

Brendan Nelson had only given his first interview as the New Liberals leader mere hours before the poll was taken. He hadn't even been leader for 48 hours!

A Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian at the weekend also found 61 per cent of voters named Kevin Rudd as their preferred prime minister, with Dr Nelson rating only 14 per cent.

The poll showed almost as many Coalition voters believed Mr Rudd would make a better prime minister as Dr Nelson.

...the Newspoll - the first since polling day - found Mr Turnbull was the most favoured Liberal Party figure.

But of course!

Thirty-four per cent of the 1125 respondents named the millionaire former banker and environment minister as the best person to lead the Liberals. Dr Nelson scored 18 per cent. West Australian Julie Bishop, who was elected as Dr Nelson's deputy last Thursday, scored 14 per cent.

Former health minister and Howard loyalist Tony Abbott won the support of 9 per cent of respondents...

Tony "Reasonable People Skills" Abbott only scored the tick of 1 in 10 people?

How can that be? The poll must be rigged. Even on pure entertainment value alone, Tony "Too Honest" Abbott would have to score higher than Nelson.

The Newspoll found that Mr Rudd, now Prime Minister, held a commanding lead over Dr Nelson in the preferred leader stakes.

You can say that again. 61% to 14%

But with Nelson in charge, the Newspoll humour continues regardless :

...in further bad news for the Liberals, Mr Rudd was also the preferred prime minister among 27 per cent of Coalition voters.

More Coalition voters think that Ruddley Do Right makes a more preferable PM than Nelson and Abbott combined. And Rudd hadn't even been sworn in as PM when the poll was taken!

Fantastic!

The rest of the 'Nelson Really Sucks' story from The Australian guts the Liberal leader like a pig and throws his entrails around the room, churning through the embarrassment of Nelson getting teary in his 'victory speech' to shellshocked Liberals and copping a "verbal bollocking" from Turnbull for giving a speech that was as exciting and inspiring as any you might hear at a funeral.

Not surprisingly, Brendan Nelson is not so happy at the continuing 'Let's Make Front Page Stories Out Of Our Polls' paradigm in force at The Australian, which scatters it's 'Liberals Are Really Shit Now' headlines and data across the entire sprawl of Australia's Murdoch newspapers, which grabs a market share of more than 70% of all the newspapers published in Australia, and in turn creates news stories for the wire services, all the network and cable channel news programs and virtually all the ABC News broadcasts.

Oh yes, Turnbull will be leader of the Liberals. Sooner than Nelson thinks.

Here's Nelson going nuts about the Newspoll assassination attempt. Sorry, did we say going nuts? Of course we meant "laughing off" :

"It's day five, I mean, gimme a break," Dr Nelson said.

"I think the average Australian out there is saying `I might see if I can get to know this guy'.

"I think again the average Australian will say `look, fair go, let's just find out what the bloke's on about first and then make your own judgment'."

This is Nelson going nuts :




UPDATE : The Australian knife job story on Nelson appears to have been hastily rewritten, with this introduction now disappeared into the void :

The Liberal Party may have chosen the wrong man as its new leader, with Brendan Nelson only half as popular as beaten rival Malcolm Turnbull among voters.

The intro still shows up in Google Search for a Courier Mail listing, but a click only leads you to the story where Nelson "laughs off" the Newspoll results.

Fortunately, we saved an image of the knifing from news.com.au. The photo of Nelson was not chosen in his favour :



I particularly like the readers poll. Forget who the Liberals chose to lead the party. Who do you think should be leader? Vote now, and we'll turn the results into yet another story tomorrow saying news.com.au readers "overwhelmingly" prefer Turnbull to Nelson.

Your free media and democracy in action.

"Listen Up, Turnbull, This Is How It's Going To Be"

Esteemed Journo Offers Broken, Desperate Liberal Party A Helping Hand


The announcement will come within hours that Malcolm Turnbull has 'won' the leadership 'battle' to apply the jumper cables to the barely flailing corpse that is the Australian Liberals.

The Liberals are in big trouble, as every columnist in the country is telling you. These are desperate times for Australian conservatives. Not only will they have to publicly acknowledge that Al Gore was right on global warming, they will have to shut the hell up about "Evil Lefties", lest the Australian public think they are the party of John "That Stubborn Old Bastard!" Howard.

If Malcolm Turnbull hadn't launched his leadership coup, Brendan Nelson would be in charge tonight. Now while that would make for some spectacularly hilarious entertainment, it's not good for Australian democracy.

There has to be the illusion, at least, that the Labor Party will not rule the land for one or two generations to come and that we have, at the minimum, a viable two-party democracy.

Turnbull will be the new Liberal Party leader, as so many in the Australian media have already made clear. The Liberals don't have a say in this. The media decided it. It's Turnbull, or it's pitiless mockery from the front pages, opinion pages and probably the sports pages as well until the London Olympics.

But even choosing the new leader for the Liberals is not enough for the media. So thoroughly shipwrecked is the party of Australian conservatives that the big players in Australia's media are even writing talking points for the very first speech of the new leader who is, on early Thursday morning, still yet to be elected.

This from Paul Kelly, esteemed Editor At Large for The Australian, funneling new policy directly into the brain of Malcolm Turnbull, who is no doubt listening carefully :

Now is the time for the Liberals to be politically and intellectually ruthless. The new leader must burn the dead wood so furiously and symbolically that a new Liberal era is signalled. Nothing else will suffice.

"The Liberal Party accepts the new industrial relations settlement as voted by the people at this election." This should be Turnbull's pledge at his first press conference.

It will be a difficult retreat, but this is democracy.

A democracy where journalists write speeches in a national newspaper for political party leaders not yet elected? Yes.

"The Liberal Party believes in Kyoto ratification and a post-2012 system that binds developing nations into the compact." This needs to be Turnbull's second pledge at his media conference.

Whatever you say, boss!

Can anybody have a go at this? My turn :

"The Liberal Party believes in free video games and cannabis for old people who won't eat and are bored mindless, and will better the Labor Party in their planned national 'Sorry' to the Aboriginal people by saying 'We're Really, Really, Really, Really Sorry'."

We'll come back later today to see if Turnbull has delivered what his political masters in the media have demanded of him.

Two Major Journalists Required To Cope With Sheer Weight Of Howard's Final Week "I Shit You Not" Fear Mongering Pitch

When I worked as the editor of a city newspaper, many years ago, the newspaper's owner would walk into the office with a local MP's wordy press release in hand, plonk it down on the desk and say "Just run it."

After I'd scanned through the mind-numbing mass, or mess, of information, the conversation would usually go like this :

"I need to check the claims he's making here...some of this is way over the top."

"Just run it."

"I need to give the opposition a chance to react to these claims. They deserve the right of the reply."

"Just run it."

"People are going to laugh at this. They're going to pick up the paper next week and think we're just a local government mouthpiece."

"Just run it."

"Why do you need journalists? You could just get the secretary to type all this shit up..."

"Just run it...Actually, run it on the front page."

The editorship didn't last long.

I flashbacked to those days when I looked at The Australian today and saw this story, where John Howard summons up his most doom-laden verbiage to try one last Big Scare. It's the last minute of the final quarter, the clock is ticking, Australians need to be told they should be trembling as they hover that pencil on Saturday near boxes marked Labor or The Greens.

After weeks of desperate electoral tactical meetings and long lectures from supposed masters of political campaigning and 'damage control', John Howard is finally ready to unveil the New Horror.

The Labor-Green 'Axis'! Lookout! Booga! Beware!

Howard uncorks so much spin, froth and horror-heavy twaddle that The Australian needed two of its biggest hitters - Dennis Shanahan and Paul Kelly - to transcribe it all.

Because that's all this excretible excuse for a news story, from the newspaper that proudly boasts it "keeps the nation informed" really is, in the end. One long Howard rant, with barely a few hundred words from Kelly and Shanahan, but they're only writing what John Howard is saying, instead of just having Howard say it. They typed in a handful of their own words to break up the full stream of direct Howard quotes.

Back at my small city newspaper all those years ago, we only needed one person to transcribe the politician's press release and turn it into a front page story. The Australian needs two senior journalists to do the same thing.

Unless, of course, the editor of The Australiian thinks that having the names of Dennis Shanahan and Paul Kelly in the byline will give this gormless guff some weighty credibility. You know the kind of thing : it must be true what Howard is saying because, look, it's got Kelly and Shanahan bylines on it.

A double team effort! Whoa!

Because Paul Kelly and Dennis Shanahan are merely transcribing what Howard had to say, we're providing a handy translation. The Kelly/Shanahan 'interview' transcript is in italics.

John Howard has warned Australians they risk electing a Labor-Greens alliance that would impose a new national direction and conduct radical experiments with their values and institutions.

In a final-week interview with The Australian, the Prime Minister said the nation faced a "watershed election", where the real issues had been disguised by the me-tooism of Kevin Rudd and in which the workplace reforms of his Government would be lost forever if Labor were elected.

Most Australians clearly want the the workplace reforms to be lost. That's why they're voting Howard out.

Convinced his hopes of a Coalition win at the weekend are not yet extinguished, Mr Howard said: "Part of my mission this week is to drive home the risk. My every waking hour and every available minute will be to drive home the risk of Labor."

Howard is going to rant doom around the clock like a drunk evangelist on a street corner wearing a 'The End Is Nigh' sandwich board.

He said a Labor government would mean higher unemployment, higher inflation and a rollback of industrial reforms that would terminate forever hopes of a freer labour market.

Complete and utter speculation from Howard. This is what he thinks may happen, but he has no proof, and most economists don't back up his claims. Kelly and Shanahan don't bother to even note that Howard could well be proven totally wrong.

Mr Howard warned that a Labor victory would mean a Labor-Greens Senate majority and an era of social re-engineering, with policy changes on drugs, education, social issues and political correctness in conflict with his social conservatism.

"There will be a return of political correctness. There will be a softening in relation to things like drugs. You will get a less socially conservative country at the very least.

Shocking. Rudd may actually wind back some of Howard's welfare for the rich, follow the nation's will and offer a Sorry to Aboriginals, and stop treating 19 year old pot smokers like psychotic hardened criminals.

"I think the country's mood is that people want economic progress but they don't want experiments with our basic values and institutions. Imagine if you are depending on the Greens to get a measure through the Senate on education. Imagine what they would extract."

Imagine if the Greens, who will likely claim 12% or more of the national vote, were actually able to represent the will and desires of their voters instead of having to suffer through the Coalition getting almost 100% of their bills and ammendments passed through the Senate? The horror!

Howard believes his values are what's best for all Australians, not apparently realising the 1950s were five long decades ago.

Asked about the future under the Coalition, Mr Howard said Peter Costello "will be elected unopposed" as his successor. In a warning to leadership aspirants, Mr Howard pledged to the Treasurer, saying this would be "the right thing" for the Liberal Party and for Australia.

Howard is dreaming.

By the time Howard finally hands the Kirribilli House keys back to Australia, if he's actually re-elected as PM, Malcolm Turnbull will have carved a deep trench through the Liberal Party on his way to the top job.

If the Coalition loses government, the old order will torn to shreds in months of bitter infighting about who lost the election, and all those golden Liberal seats. Peter Costello has about as much chance of becoming the next PM, or leader of the Liberals, as Peter Garrett has of taking control of BHP. Costello's poll ratings with the Australian public are absolutely abysmal, he's about as popular as a kick in the nuts with no $500 cheque from Australia's Funniest Home Video to ease the pain.

The Liberals are bitter, yet happy enough, to let Howard spin his little fantasy about Peter Costello taking over, but only until the New Year. Then the real fight inside the Liberal Party begins.

Mr Howard defended his policy of tax breaks to empower choice. He rejected the criticism it was middle-class welfare.

Of course it's middle-class welfare. Why does he think so much of the middle-class voted for him in 2004?

"It's not dependency to give a tax break to people for doing certain things," he said. "I find this blurring of the distinction between expenditure and tax incentives as ridiculous. We encourage people to make choices about their children's education through tax breaks ... We support people who have children by giving them tax breaks. That's authentic Liberal orthodoxy.

What Howard's true masters want, they get. Liberal orthodoxy under Howard is welfare for the middle class and fat tax cuts for the rich. The rest get less money spent on hospitals and education and an extra milkshake and a sandwich as a reward for not trying to storm Parliament House with flaming torches in hand.

It's no mystery why Shanahan would let his name go on such a rag bag of predictions, baseless projections and scare-mongering speculation. But why would Paul Kelly let his name anywhere near such tripe?

Does he no longer care at all? Is he about to retire?

Four more days to go...

Murdoch Mouthpiece Barks : Pro-Peace Aussies Hate News That Less Iraqis Are Being Slaughtered

A gruesome example of absurdity from the editor of The Australian newspaper, Chris Mitchell :

The sad fact is that for most of the anti-war Left, the only thing that matters is delivering a defeat to the Bush administration, and in achieving that end the Iraqi people are expendable.

The anti-war, anti-American Left should be ashamed, but precisely for this reason they continue to look away when Iraq doesn't fail in the way they wish.

What absolute twaddle.

Mitchell clearly still believes in the fantasy that only 'The Left' are opposed to war on defenceless people. That means something like 70% of Australians, and even a greater number of Americans, must be 'Lefties'.

This is yet more garbage about the fictional Left/Right paradigm so favoured by those who want to divide the populace into pro-this and anti-that, honing in on what supposedly divides the minority instead of focusing on what unites the vast majority.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians didn't march in the streets of towns and cities across the nation in early 2003 because they wanted the United States to be defeated in Iraq. They marched because they didn't want Iraqis to be slaughtered in an illegal war. They knew they were being conned, by media like The Australian, and they knew that the War On Iraq would lead to massive civilian death tolls and untold suffering.

The 'pro-peace' movement so despised by an ever depleting slice of Australian and American 'conservatives' are now supposed to be furious that the death rate of Iraqis is dropping?

This is maniacal spin of the most chilling kind.

The editor of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, is deploying his version of the fabled "six more months" argument rolled out by so many talking heads on American news shows through the past four years. If we stay "six more months" everything will be just wonderful and dreamy.

To try and now claim that the pro-peace movement is disappointed by the very recent reduction in Iraqi civilian deaths is just plain bizarre, and incredibly insulting to every Australian war veteran (thousands of them) who protested the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq because they knew, from experience, that war simply doesn't work when it comes to solving a problem like that posed by Saddam Hussein and his alleged arsenal of WMDs. The very same veterans who shook their heads in disgust when newspapers like The Australian enthusiastically pumped the fable that the Iraq War would have only a small number of civilian deaths.

It's not the pro-peace movement who have to rethink their positions on the War On Iraq. Their concerns and fears were proven right by the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed or maimed, the appalling insurgency, the horrific humanitarian crisis, the millions more who were forced to flee their homes and their country and the continuing destruction of the nation's infrastructure.

It is the pro-war mob who have to admit that they were wrong to back an illegal war against a mostly defenceless country, in the face of untold warnings about NeoCon lies on WMDs, and of the tribal and ethnic massacres and guerilla warfare that would inevitably follow the invasion.

Chris Mitchell also writes :

It is far too early to declare victory...

Declare victory? Nobody, except Murdoch mouthpieces like Chris Mitchell, is ever going to officially declare 'Victory' in the War On Iraq.

Not even President Bush mentions the 'V' word much any more.

War was not the right answer when it came to Iraq, no matter how much those who were so very involved in dispensing and pumping the BushCo. propaganda campaign in this country, like Chris Mitchell, to try and dupe Australians into backing the Iraq War fiasco, want to believe it all worked out for the best.

Chris Mitchell and the massed ranks Murdoch propagandists failed to get even one-third of the country on side back in early 2003 to support the illegal invasion, and they fail still in their gruesome efforts to find diamonds amongst all the death and destruction unleashed upon Iraq.

Mitchell should be ashamed of himself.


The Suicide Soldier Epidemic : 6000 'War On Terror' Veterans Killed Themselves In 2005

Journalist Claims Her Controversial 'Interference' In Prime Liberal Election Seat Contest "Just A Joke"

Caroline Overington Downgraded By Editor From Walkley Award Winning Senior Journalist To "Colour Writer"

It's the sort of story that a journalist like Caroline Overington should never have become caught up in, regardless of how she is now trying to explain away the controversy :

From The Australian :

An independent candidate for the marginal Sydney seat of Wentworth will make a formal complaint to the Australian Electoral Commission after accusing a reporter from The Australian of trying to influence the outcome of the election.

Danielle Ecuyer, who is standing against Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor's George Newhouse, last night told The Australian she thought an email communication had been "inappropriate".

Ms Ecuyer plans to make a formal complaint as early as today to the Electoral Commission alleging an inducement was offered - a front-page article - in return for making a decision on her preferences.

Writing in The Australian newspaper today, Caroline Overington says :

I'd been at Ms Ecuyer's house a week or so earlier. We'd joked about her failed relationship with Labor's candidate for Wentworth, George Newhouse. She was loving the publicity, and the fact it described her as glamorous.

I asked whether she'd direct her preferences away from George and she laughed, and said she wouldn't preference anyone who supported Tasmania's pulp mill.

The idea that she would instead give her preferences to Turnbull to spite George was also raised. It was so absurd, I kept the joke up in emails to her a few days later.

In the email, I give her a wink, to show her I am joking when I say she should give her preferences to Turnbull.

Now she says I was serious, which is too hilarious, and so obviously a pitch for more publicity from a woman who just loves attention.

The emails, which I'm happy to provide to anyone, are obviously happy, lighthearted banter.

Danielle Ecuyer is an independent candidate for a prime seat that may help to decide whether or not John Howard returns to power. Malcolm Turnbull has a close relationship with a number of key journalists and opinionists for The Australian.

Danielle Ecuyer is battling both the Labor and Liberal parties massive publicity machinery. Of course she's going to love any attention, or headlines, she can get. Overington knows this.

MediaWatch claims :

Ms Ecuyer tells us she never discussed who she would be preferencing with Caroline Overington.

Despite Overington's attempts to downplay the content of the e-mails, the key e-mail cited doesn't sound like a big joke, at least not in isolation. It sounds exactly like what Ecuyer is now claiming. Overington says she is "happy" to provide the e-mails to anyone, but doesn't quote from them in her column to back up her claims. Why? Here's the key e-mail that sparked the controversy :

"Please preference Malcolm (Turnbull). It would be such a good front-page story. Also, he'd be a loss to the parliament and George (Newhouse) - forgive me - would be no gain."

Not a laugh to be seen.

When MediaWatch asked Caroline Overington why she asked Danielle Ecuyer to "please prefence Malcolm", the journalist responded :

"I would say journalists use a range of different ways to get their stories."

"I would say I didn’t ask her to send her preferences to any candidate."

When asked what the words "please preference Malcolm" meant, she replied :

"It could be a way of getting a story from her."

Or a way of gettting Ecuyer to preference Malcolm Turnbull, who desperately needs preferences from independents like Ecuyer to win.

Despite all that, Overington should be more concerned with how her editor at The Australian describes her :

"Ms Overington is a colour writer."

Overington is not a "colour" writer. Here's how The Australian newspaper proudly describes her :

Caroline Overington is a senior writer and columnist with The Australian. She is a two-time winner of the Walkley Award for investigative jouralism (2004 and 2006) and last year received the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Excellence in Journalism...

Overington also wrote an excellent, comprehensive and highly praised book on the AWB scandal. She has become caught up in this low-level scandal because she was pursuing a story, one that she believed would have made the front page of The Australian.

Faced with embarrassing headlines and growing controversy, The Australian's editor does not leap to Overington's defence, he writes her off as something much less than a serious investigative journalist.

Her editor's flippant dismissal of her talents, in the end, will probably be more damaging to Overington's reputation than the "joke" e-mails that started the controversy.

The Australian's senior editors were furious earlier in the year when bloggers referred to the newspaper as the 'Government Gazette'. Controversies like this don't help much to dispel that reputation of Rupert Murdoch's national newspaper working hard, in print and behind the scenes, to ensure the Coalition government wins the coming federal election.

Nor do front page stories like this one, from Dennis Shanahan, where he manages to bury the lead, at least three times, when he all but totally dismisses the devastating news that John Howard's government is going backwards, once again, in the latest Newspoll, less than two weeks out from election day.

Overington Slams Peter Garrett For Claiming He Was "Only Joking" When His "We'll Change It All" Quote Hit The Headlines

Howard-Hugging Columnist Warned Prime Minister Of Her 'Time To Go' Op-Ed Before She Even Finished Writing It

By Darryl Mason

A columnist for The Australian newspaper - the supposedly "balanced" and "not biased at all" flagship of the Australian Murdoch media empire - has been outed as not only a rabid supporter of prime minister John Howard, but also one that lets the prime minister know, days in advance, when she is writing an op-ed that may reflect badly on him.

Who's doing what now?

Yes. Janet Albrechtsen, a columnist for The Australian, rang John Howard's office before she had even written her column about why it was time for him to step down, to let him know what she was planning to write.

She called other ministers as well, allowing them the opportunity to try and talk her out of writing the 'Howard Must Go' column that supposedly "rocked the Howard government" when it appeared in The Australian on September 7.

How do we know all this? Because it's right there in the pages of The Australian newspaper today :

Albrechtsen is an unashamed and long-term Howard supporter who decided to write a special column for Friday's newspaper urging Howard to go.

On Wednesday and Thursday the columnist - a strong supporter of Turnbull, and whose husband, John O'Sullivan, campaigns for the Environment Minister in his Sydney electorate of Wentworth - told Turnbull, as well as Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin and Downer, of her plans.

She also told the Prime Minister's office. She said yesterday she talked to the ministers "as a courtesy".

Turnbull says he urged her not to write it, as did Abbott and Howard's office.

Any sliver of credibility that Janet Albrechtsen may have had is now completely gone.

She's not an independent columnist, with scant regard for the impact of her opinion, as a truly fearless and uncompromising columnist must be. She is a propaganda outlet for John Howard, and has been a key player in the current game of "Howard Must Quit"/"Howard Must Stay" that has dominated political media coverage for the past eight days. The Game that is meant to show just how tough and resilient Howard can be, and how ready he is for the Big Fight in the coming election. And it all took place just when Howard needed it the most, when he is absolutely tanking in the polls.

You can see it all for yourself in Albrechtsen's original 'Howard Must Go' column, that was supposed to have earthquaked the Howard government. We know now it did nothing of the sort. They all knew it was coming. Not only did they know it was coming, they knew what the column was going to be about before she had even finished writing it.

In the column, Albrechtsen first devotes hundreds of words to reminding readers just how brilliant a prime minister John Howard has been, and how we'd all be eating dirt and back on chain gangs cracking sandstone slabs if he hadn't graced us with his leadership.

She immediately follows all this with one of the most gag-inducing paragraphs I've seen in any newspaper all year :

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound...

Bring me another bucket.

When she supposedly unleashed on Howard, it was with a feather :

But now he must go. The Howard factor is there. Where once it meant success, now it presages defeat.

Hmm, tell us something we don't know, Janet.

Do you ever get the feeling that you're being conned?


Of course, Albrechtsen's column came at a very opportune time for The Australian newspaper as well.

Murdoch's national broadsheet is widely mocked and ridiculed across the Australian media, the public and within political circles for being the 'Government Gazette'. There was a joke that went around last year for a few days : Why don't you ever see John Howard reading The Australian newspaper? Because he already knows what it will say about him.

Albrechtsen has proved the joke is actually reality.

Her column advising Howard to pack it in and hand over the leadership to Peter Costello was seen as proof that The Australian was not staffed by Howard-huggers and federal government propagandists.

And the timing was perfect. On the brink of an election, when The Australian most surely needs to regain its credibility and give the appearance of being unbiased, up pops Albrechtsen, the "unashamed...long-time Howard supporter", demanding he step aside. Well, not demanding. Suggesting he step aside would be more accurate.

But of course, we know now Albrechtsen didn't just write and publish this column, one of the few she's ever written that even dared to slightly criticise Howard. She actually got on the blower
and called the PM's office, before the column was published, to let Howard know what was coming. She called other ministers and gave them the opportunity to talk her out of it, or perhaps more importantly, convince her to tone it down.

Why would she do this?

Why would a columnist for a newspaper even contemplate doing such a thing, let alone making the calls?

Remember, Albrechtsen said herself in The Australian newspaper today that she called the prime minister, and at least two other Howard government ministers, "as a courtesy."

That is, she called to give them notice and to allow them all to fully prepare for the negative fallout that they knew would surely follow the column's appearance in The Australian, to craft their answers and reactions to media questions days in advance.

Albrechtsen didn't voice her opinion, boldly, honestly, and without regard for who may be offended by her thoughts, she actually tipped off the key players in the Howard government, and Howard himself, before she 'dared' to say it was time for him to go. Before she even typed the words.

Incredible.

Just remember what Janet did every time you see her column, or any column, in The Australian that is allegedly critical of the Howard government, or any of its key ministers.

You may well begin to wonder, as you probably should if Albrechtsen is any example to go by, 'Did they tell Howard what they were writing about?' 'Did they warn Alexander Downer they were going to criticise him today?' 'Did Howard government ministers try and talk this columnist out of writing this piece?' 'Was this column different before the columnist discussed what he/she had written with some Howard government minister?'

Janet Albrechtsen is utterly compromised, even when she is critical of John Howard, because she dwells in a compromised world where she cannot write nor say what she wants, when she wants, and to hell with the consequences.

So why does she get column space in the newspaper, and prominent positioning on The Australian's website?

Well, why do you think?


Shock! Murdoch Journalist Denies Murdoch Media Conspiracy

Murdoch Conservatives Cut Off Howard's Head - Albretchsen And Bolt Lead The Chant : "Howard Must Go"

From Minor Scuffles To A Mainstream Death Match...

'The Australian' Vs The Blogstream War Has Begun

The shift from back-alley sniper and tripwire insurgency to full blown street fighting in the war between 'The Australian' newspaper online and the thin ranks of the local political blogstream began yesterday with this post from Peter Brent at Mumble, talking about a call he got from The Australian newspaper :

A courtesy call from Editor-in-Chief Chris Mitchell this morning informed me that the paper is going to “go” Charles Richardson (from Crikey) and me tomorrow. Chris said by all means criticise the paper, but my “personal” attacks on Dennis had gone too far, and the paper will now go me “personally”.

No, I’m not making this up.

All very strange. And - I’d be lying if I didn’t admit - a little stomach-churning.

Why would Christ Mitchell choose to "go" Peter Brent "personally", along with Richardson from Crikey?

Because Brent and Richardson, and Crikey in general, dared to critique the way the editorial team of The Australian newspaper interprets the results of Newspoll, and last Monday's Newspoll in particular:

The latest Newspoll shows Mr Howard has closed the gap on Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, who is now ahead by just one point, 43 per cent to 42, as preferred prime minister.

However, the opposition leader still holds a greater satisfaction rating, 60 per cent to Mr Howard's 46 per cent, and Labor retains an election-winning lead.

A fleet of opinionists from The Australian openly cheered the polls as showing Howard firmly on the comeback trail, whereas the real truth is that he is still flat-lining. The majority of .Australians don't trust Howard, and they don't want to vote for him or his government again. The Australian newspaper did not reflect, or headline, those very simple facts.

There was the usual barrage of blog posts bagging The Australian. Nothing unusual about that kind of criticism from the political blogstream.

Here was Crikey's take on July 10 :

The front page of today's Australian newspaper and its reporting of the latest Newspoll has prompted a range of reactions, from shock at the sheer mendacity of its main headline ''Howard checks Rudd's march'' to muffled awe at the paper's continuing ability to pluck some shred of glass-half-full optimism from the ongoing cataclysm of the Liberal Party's federal polling. All of which is no more or less than one might expect from the country's unofficial conservative organ.

The Australian shows a clear and undeniable bias towards the Howard government in the opinions, but most particularly in the headlines, which is what most people see and read. Most in the Australian political blogstream accept this. No big deal. Another Newspoll, another bad result for Howard Corp. polished to a dull glow of hope by The Australian's front page and headline writers. Life goes on.

But Chris Mitchell thought the wave of criticism was a very big deal indeed.

This time, for reasons still unclear, the editor in chief of 'The Australian' decided to try a shock and awe attack, decapitation strike on the still-below-the-mainstream-radar political blogstream.

Peter Brent, from Mumble, is a respected commenter of political polling for most political bloggers and dozens of poll addicts, and it is hard to see why Mitchell would see him as some kind of threat worthy of such a response, where at best Brent might be seen as a mild stainer of the newspaper's credibility. Brent's readership online is small, less than a thousand per day.

Well, Brent's readership was small, until Chris Mitchell went into meltdown mode :

Online prejudice no substitute for real work

THE measure of good journalism is objectivity and a fearless regard for truth. Bias, nonetheless, is in the eye of the beholder and some people will always see conspiracy when the facts don't suit their view of the world. This is the affliction that has gripped, to a large measure, Australia's online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people's work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society's pool of knowledge.

Stunning, and hilarious. Welcome to the blogstream, Mr Mitchell.

Mitchell stayed true to his 'threat' over the phone to Brent. His editorial did get personal :

"woolly-headed critics", "the one-eyed anti-Howard cheer squad", "masquerading as serious online political commentary" "smug" "self-assured" "delusional swagger".

No bias, and clearly cooler heads at The Australian, right?

Well, what about this :

As a newspaper we don't know who we will support at the federal election.

Why, if you are an unbiased newspaper, are you going to support either party? Or any politician, for that matter, running for a seat, or the big seat?

Of course, this editorial is in The Australian, and Mitchell, like so many other opionists in The Australian are still fighting the sort of 'Left Vs Right' battles most adults dispensed with once university was over.

Mitchell can't seem to comprehend that the vast majority of Australians now live in a world where they will vote, and voice their support, for the political party that most often voices their concerns and most actively appears to be looking after their future, and the future of Australia for their children. Labor and Liberal generational votes are all but dead. Left Vs Right? Irrelevant today, as it has been for good decade.

Mitchell should have just called his editorial "Those Bloody Lefties!"

The self appointed experts online come instead from the extreme Left, populated as many sites are by sheltered academics and failed journalists who would not get a job on a real newspaper. We fully expect that if anything goes wrong for Mr Rudd in the campaign this year we will be blamed for Labor's misfortune.

It reflects how out of touch with ordinary views so many on-line commentators are.

...they should not kid themselves they are engaged in proper journalism and real reporting.

That is probably the strangest comment of all. How many bloggers in Australian regard themselves as "proper" journalists anyway? Not many, I would presume.

Most bloggers don't have the time or resources to practice journalism, by whatever standard Mitchell thinks applies here. He misses one of the key missions, and American success stories, of independent political and news blogging - to keep a check on the mainstream media, and to inform the readers of the news they might have missed, or issues they believe their readers should be aware of. It's not complicated, and it's certainly not the big conspiracy that Mitchell appears to believe it is.

Here's Mitchell again :

On almost every issue it is difficult not to conclude that most of the electronic offerings that feed off the work of The Australian to create their own content are a waste of time.

So why go on and on about them, then? Because he's worried.

Why does Mitchell feel so threatened? And if he's right about them being such a waste of time, why are so many of the "electronic offerings" experiencing signs of real growth in readership?

Because Australians, like Americans last year, are bored with the mainstream media and no longer believe that most of what they read in the newspapers is truth. The blogstream allows news followers to see other sides to dominant opinion threads, like those so often found in The Australian, and to pick up links to other news resources, or other blogs, that will expand their knowledge on the issues that interest them.

Plus, bloggers can cut loose in ways that still seem unacceptable or too over-the-top for staid, tired newspapers.

Not to forget, of course, that the blogstream allows readers to instantly voice their own views on a subject, or news story, and to engage in exchange with other readers of the blogs they visit.

Mitchell must have known that by devoting his entire lead editorial to trying to bitchslap the blogstream into behaving itself that he would instead give it new life, new readership, new focus and fresh attention from the mainstream of Australia.

You've got to love the irony, too, of Mitchell complaining about the blogstream calling The Australian a biased media institution. His own newspaper has devoted literally hundreds of editorials in the past seven or eight years to endless whining about the 'bias' on show at the ABC.

Of course, when The Australian is accused of letting its bias towards the conservative government show far too often, Mitchell goes fullcore berko.


But it's all a bit too late for Mitchell to start claiming The Australian does not have a politically-motivated bias towards the Howard government.

John Howard clearly thinks The Australian is biased in favour of his government and its generally unpopular policies. Here's Howard on the ABC in March, 2006 :

"I think back over the last 10 years that this government has been in office and I think of the positions taken by The Australian newspaper. It has been broadly supportive, generously so, of the government's economic reform agenda. And it has been a strong supporter, consistently... of industrial relations reform. Its only criticism of the government is that it might not have gone far enough."

And here's Chris Mitchell himself keelhauling his own 'We're Not Biased' editorial on The Media Report :

I think editorially and on the Op Ed page, we are right-of-centre. I don't think it's particularly far right, I think some people say that, but I think on a world kind of view you'd say we're probably pretty much where The Wall Street Journal, or The Telegraph in London are. So, you know, centre-right. I think that's a good position for us to be....

Well, not if you want to write editorials claiming to be unbiased.


A lot of the anger and venting in the blogstream over The Australian's twisting and reframing of the Newspoll results was stirred up by this column from Dennis O'Shanahan in the The Australian yesterday.

Somebody didn't like the scale of the comments that post attracted, because it was closed down yesterday, by 11.32am, with this abrupt message :

Commenting for this article is no longer available, try one of the articles below for more from the Dennis Shanahan blog.

16 comments appeared on the blog in less than one hour. Most were negative, hammering Shanahan for spinning the Newspoll results to create the impression that Howard and his government were making a comeback.

Today's 'shock and awe' editorial from Mitchell was trailered yesterday in Shanahan's column :

Academics at arm’s length from the political and journalistic worlds can huff and puff about polls and poll reporting but they can’t deny the real world influence of those polls and the real interest politicians take in them.

Journalistic worlds? What does that mean? That journalists from The Australian dwell in a world, a reality, that is removed from the everyday Australian world they are supposed to be reporting on? His defence became his own indictment.

More Shanahan self-defence :

The Australian and Newspoll (and I) have been right about election result after election result. It’s all the vindication we need. Just spare us the amateur and jaundiced analysis that can’t accept the numbers going in the opposite direction.

He ended his column with this :

Cheers to all those who engage in the great, democratic and political exercise of freedom of speech.

Ironic indeed considering they only took 55 minutes worth of comments and then pulled the plug on Shanahan's 'blog'.

You have to wonder why they chose to shut it down.

Too much freedom of speech from the punters?


When Mitchell's badly aimed firebombing of the local blogstream hit online this morning, Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy was one of the first out of the gate :

They defend themselves in the strongest possible terms and attack, specifically and generally, just about anyone who disagrees with them, particularly “Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.”

Dunlop blogs via news.com.au, the corporate homeland for 'The Australian'. For reasons unexplained so far, Dunlop's critique of fellow Murdochians at The Australian disappeared from the net early this morning. It briefly reappeared and has now disappeared completely. So much for freedom of speech, and The Australian being ready to accept criticism.

AB at The Road To Surfdom manned the mortars a short time after Dunlop :

Do these guys at News think their reading public has had a collective frontal lobotomy? Do they expect their customers to just swallow their biased, looney manipulations whole, without even chewing? Do they really despise their blog contributors as much as Shanahan makes out? Are they really so afraid of criticism that they’re prepared to “go” the humble Mumble?

The answer, it seems, is sadly “Yes”. What a pathetic bunch of losers. Their condescending and now outright feral attitude is the best evidence yet that their pet government is going out big time next election. Shanahan should be especially fearful, as it was him who took the credit for getting rid of Beazley and having Rudd installed as leader. That one’s come back to bite you on the arse, hasn’t it Dennis?

The Poll Bludger, one of the blogs that appears to be getting under the skin of Chris Mitchell, built an IED and buried it by the roadside, asking one of the most relevant, potent questions of the day :

The Australian – sober and experienced voice of reason, or craven mouthpiece of the crony capitalist military-industrial complex?

The comments from Poll Bludger's readers on Mitchell's shitfit are well worth a look.

Bryan at Oz Politics asks : "Is it just me, or does this seem just a touch too precious?"

Simon Jackman, another poll analyst and political scientist, comments : "Frankly, I’m surprised that the mainstream media are paying that much attention."

Exactly.

With Crikey, Mumble, Blogocracy, and a dozen other blogs putting in the boot since the beginning of the week, Chris Mitchell must have felt besieged. He was clearly rattled. He didn't write that editorial today for fun. He was trying to undermine any credibility given to the political blogstream, before too many people started paying attention. Like we said, it has already backfired, and badly.


Larvatus Prodeo went for a grind on The Australian's editorial interpretations of Newspoll results yesterday.

LP has been busy popularising the moniker 'Government Gazzette' for 'The Australian,' which is now being used by Crikey as well. That sort of branding clearly annoys Chris Mitchell.

LP commenter Youie noticed an interesting bleed of government spin and editorial echo at The Australian earlier this week :

I couldn’t help but note this remarkable coincidence. Alexander Downer’s opinion piece in yesterday’s [Monday’s] Australian said of Rudd: “He used his trip merely as a media opportunity - all sizzle, no sausage.”

Today [Tuesday], three sentences into his piece, Shanahan says: “But voters drawn to the Rudd barbecue by the sizzle and smell of onions may now be looking for the sausage.”

The howls of 'Government Gazette' only increased after that effort.

For Mitchell, that should have been beyond embarrassing. Perhaps that echo chambering of government ministers also inspired his attack today.


Chris Mitchell made a serious tactical error, by running his rant as the main editorial. American newspaper editors learned all too late never to show your throat to the political blogstream. Now we now how rattled he is, we're not going to forget it.

Through the hundreds of comments up at various Aussie blogs today, it's clear the blog readers believe some serious blows have been landed in recent months against the credibility of how The Australian's editorial team interprets and billboards Newspoll results. Mitchell's throbbing forehead reaction proves it.

But, as pointed out above, there is an underlying theme to the comments : Why does Chris Mitchell give a shit what Mumble or Crikey or LP contributors think about how The Australian interprets the polls? The collective daily online readership of all the main political blogs, including Crikey, would barely crack 40,000. But those numbers are rising every week.

Has Mitchell seen the writing on the wall? That more and more Australians are turning to non-newspaper blogs to get some perspective, or 'alternative views'?

The Australian readerships of Australian blogs are rising, with Crikey and LP probably doing better than most, and it's likely Australian blog readership will blossom during the coming federal election, when the mainstream media begin seriously hyping the power of blogs and the internet to impact on the outcome of the elections. It remains to be seen whether the blogstream will have an impact on the elections, but the media is going to run with this story anyway. It's now part of the election coverage cycle, as set down by the American news channels.

Mitchell gave the rest of the media its starting point today. Is the Australian political blogstream worth being listened to, or not? Mitchell did the blogstream a huge favour by claiming that, for the most part, they're not worthy of your attention. When people read such warnings, the usual response is to think 'Well, why aren't they? Why is this guy telling me not to pay attention them? Am I missing out on something?'


As a multitude of blog comments, on the various blogs linked above, point out, Mitchell allowed himself to come over as "wussy", "petty", sensitive", "sooky" and so on. It was one of the weaker editorials from Mitchell, who can usually frame his arguments with clarity and perspective. He raised an argument against the political blogstream in Australia and failed to make enough relevant points to impact negatively.

He panicked and went on the defensive, and on the attack. And he failed mightily on both fronts.

Again, why does Mitchell even care about a bunch of blogs pulling a few thousand readers a day?


Mitchell not only showed his paranoia and his fears about how the Australian media landscape will be impacted by the political blogstream, he exposed his throat and he sparked a debate he has all but no chance of winning, and in turn, he's given some truth to the widespread belief that the editorial team of The Australian (with the except of Matt Price) simply do not like blogs. More so, they don't like the fact that Rupert Murdoch forced them to shift most of the daily editorials and opinion pieces into a blog format, from which Murdoch knows he will see increased online ad revenue. The more people who comment, the more fiery the arguments and debates under the columns get, the more ad revenue hitting the News Limited bank accounts.

In the past few months, with some of The Australian's columns and editorials ratcheting up 300 and 400+ comments, the actual opinions of the columnist tend to take a backseat to what the commenters are saying to each other. Matt Price gets involved in the ruckus below his own words more than anyone else from The Australian editorial team, and appears to enjoy the exchanges. But most of the rest don't return get involved at all, letting the commenters rock around in a free-for-all.

Digital democracy has come hard and fast to The Australian, and they don't like the fact that on an average Newspoll day more than 80% (my rough estimate) of the comments aired on the boards portray a highly opinionated, often venomous, sprawl of Australian readers who simply do not agree with the way The Australian editorial team interprets the Newspoll results, and regularly claim that the writers are spinning for Howard Corp.

It'll be interesting to watch the mainstream media and blogstream reactions to all this in the next few days.

One thing is now certain.

The Blogstream Vs The Mainstream Media wars in Australia have begun.