You Don't Commission A Poll When You Don't Want To Hear The Results

Rupert Murdoch's The Australian newspaper couldn't commission Newspolls fast enough when Tony Abbott and the Liberal/Nationals coalition were riding high. Once a fortnight was standard. But when they got really excited, it was every week, sometimes twice a week.

But as the reality of Tony Abbott as prime minister settles over Australia, and unsettles Australians, The Australian newspaper has decided it really don't want to know what Australians think, anymore.

Below is the last Newspoll commissioned by The Australian newspaper, eight whole whole weeks ago. Since then nothing. Did The Australian's editor Chris Mitchell see something in the last Newspoll results he didn't like? Let's take a look:

Oh. The Australian Labor Party was leading the Abbott government by a healthy 2PP margin.

Oh.

And here's a snapshot of how the Abbott government has delivered for Australian families, after just five months of government. Image via @GeeksRulz

PM Abbott's 'Promises Delivered' Video Banned By YouTube For "Deceptive Content", His Channel Suspended

By Darryl Mason

In the world of Social Media Fails, and in politics there has been plenty, it's pretty hard to top this.

Here's what happened.

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, posts a video to YouTube boasting of how "we've delivered on our promises" and spends a lot of the time pretty much calm-ranting about "illegal" asylum seekers.

YouTube decides the video is "deceptive content" and blocks anyone from viewing it. For hours, the boast about 'promises delivered' and YouTube's denial sits there on the linked video right on PM Abbott's Twitter feed, while the below image is tweeted and Facebooked across the planet, to much amusement and mockery.

Is YouTube calling PM Abbott a liar for claiming he's delivered on his promises, or did they can the vid because in the vid he called aslyum seekers "illegals" when international law decrees they are most certainly not?

This screengrab originally posted on Twitter by @Mumbrella

The above tweet is then deleted from PM Tony Abbott's Twitter feed. Meanwhile, YouTube suspends Tony Abbott's entire YouTube channel.

Screengrab via Reddit

That's right. The Australian prime minister has had his YouTube channel removed, after a review by YouTube.

And it's not like YouTube does such things on a whim, anymore. They're very clear in guidelines about why they would take such drastic action:

"When a video gets flagged as inappropriate, we review the video to determine whether it violates our Terms of Use—flagged videos are not automatically taken down by the system. If we remove your video after reviewing it, you can assume that we removed it purposefully, and you should take our warning notification seriously."

Someone, or presumably more than one person, at YouTube looked at Tony Abbott's 'Achievements' video, decided it was "deceptive" and made a decision to have it removed and the prime minister's account suspended.

Remarkable.

Keep up the "good work", Tony.


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The Australian editor Chris Mitchell: 'I Love The Sydney Morning Herald'

The Daily Telegraph's editor Paul Whittaker, Rupert Murdoch and The Australian's editor Chris Mitchell (right)

Well this was unexpected. The Australian's editor Chris Mitchell, that is the newspaper that regularly feasts upon the alleged fetid "Leftism" of Fairfax media actually believes The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald are fantastic newspapers.

Via Mumbrella:

Chris Mitchell: "...the Saturday Age and SMH...remain very strong products with breaking news, a colour magazine, good arts and sport coverage, very strong business sections and lots of heavyweight opinion from people who really move national debate."

Eh? What could have motivated Mitchell to sing the praises of The Australian's key rival in this age of rapidly declining newspaper circulations?

The arrival of a third Saturday newspaper, called The Saturday Paper.

So incensed are Mitchell and Fairfax's Gary Linnell they have supplied some absolutely choice quotes to Mumbrella, desperately trying to hose down any interest The Saturday Paper might be generating.

This quote from Linnell is pure gold, and pretty much sums up far too much commentary content in Murdoch and Fairfax newspapers, beautifully so:

 "I desperately hope it doesn’t end up being a boring collection of opinion writers sifting through each others’ navel lint..."

Mumbrella has the full story here.


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