"News Corp's army of apologists defend 'Mother of Invention' attack on Bill Shorten"
"Toxic Speech Floods Australian Campaign. Here’s Why Some See Signs of Hope."
Meet Murdoch's right-wing press in Sydney, Australia. Also see (at bottom) an Australian conservative lie, as one would expect from American anti-abortion/Trump/GOP people.
News Corp's army of apologists defend 'Mother of Invention' attack on Bill Shorten
Amanda Meade
Tim Blair, Miranda Devine and Ray Hadley jump to Telegraph’s defence. Plus: Nine winds back clock at former Fairfax mastheads
Bill Shorten speaks to the media about his late mother and the Daily Telegraph in Nowra, NSW. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Wednesday’s front page of The Daily Telegraph @annacaldwell @dailytelegraph @mirandadevine 131 10:24 PM - May 7, 2019 Twitter
The front-page sledge “backfired”, according to veteran political commentator Michelle Grattan, “handing the opposition leader the opportunity of a powerful moment on the campaign trail and drawing criticism even within the media group”.
But, according to Murdoch’s Sydney tabloid itself, the Anna Caldwell story was “a laudatory profile of a politician’s mother” and nothing to be ashamed of.
For the past two days the Telegraph has not resiled from its story, instead attempting to reframe the “Mother of Invention” front page as a celebration of Ann Shorten’s career.
“This is why the Daily Telegraph yesterday published a front-page story covering the full background of Ann Shorten’s justifiably celebrated career,” Tele commentator Tim Blair wrote.
“Curiously, some critics of the Daily Telegraph’s story damned us for ‘attacking Bill Shorten’s deceased mum’ and of digging up ‘dirt’ on her.”
Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine took to Sky News to defend the story and wrote that “far from being a gotcha, the missing element we supplied of his mother’s life was one of significant achievement”.
On Friday Ray Hadley added to the chorus of apologists. “I’m still trying to figure out on how this newspaper’s story about Bill Shorten’s omission about his mum fulfilling her ambitions was an attack on his late mother,” Hadley, a 2GB shock jock, wrote in his weekly column, which is literally a series of numbered talking points.
“It was certainly an attack on the opposition leader and deservedly so. I didn’t know about his mum’s battle to do a law degree and I had no knowledge that late in life, to her great credit, she was admitted to the bar after completing her law degree with honours.”
Whether the story was placed by the government or dreamt up by the editors, it did reveal a difference in editing styles between the Tele’s Ben English and the Herald Sun’s Damon Johnston, who chose to ignore the story while the Brisbane tabloid the Courier-Mail followed the Tele.
Sources told Beast the fact that Ann Shorten was a barrister was well known in Victoria and the story simply didn’t hold up for the Hun.
Johnston also famously declined to run the Geoffrey Rush front page that was the subject of defamation action. According to Media Watch .. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/the-rush-to-convict-geoffrey-rush/9972392 , an email from Herald Sun deputy editor Chris Tinkler warned his journos to steer well clear of the Rush story after it was published back in 2017: “Do not retweet or post any articles regarding GEOFFREY RUSH”.
In response to the chorus of disdain for News Corp this week following the Shorten front page, those wags at the Chaser have launched a free public service, offering to cancel readers’ Murdoch subscriptions for free.
The Chaser @chaser
Want to cancel your News Corp subscriptions but don't want to sit on the phone for an hour? We'll do it for you: https://chaser.com.au/cancel-your-news-corp-subscription/ … 1,971 11:18 PM - May 8, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy Cancel your News Corp subscription online
While everyone was expecting Nine’s takeover of Fairfax would spell doom for the quality mastheads, the new owners have surprised by reversing a decision to get rid of subeditors, which has been a source of great criticism over the years.
According to reports, 24 subeditors will be recruited to work in the newsrooms of Nine’s three major metropolitan mastheads the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.
“This is great news that reflects the importance of the Age and the Herald’s journalism as well as the mastheads’ strong financial position,” Herald and Age executive editor James Chessell said.
“Subscribers expect quality and having our production resources as part of the same team will improve our ability to edit and present our journalism.”
‘Baseless lies’
The Herald Sun website is running disturbing ads on its homepage from the Cherish Life campaign claiming “more babies would die under a Bill Shorten Labor government”. The pro-life campaign accuses Labor of an “extreme late-term abortion agenda”.
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