Guest post by Paul Walter, a longtime friend of No Place for Sheep
Fans of Media Watch will recall from twenty years ago an episode where Channel 7’s TDT got caught out on a profound fraud involving the pursuit of Christopher Skase in Spain.
Now, why am I bought to mind of this?
At the moment a big story has broken involving the arrest of a 60 minutes team in Beirut during an episode about a “recovery” of children held by their father who had failed to return them to their mother after a holiday.
Now, my sympathies are deeply for this woman, but my real interest in the event is a growing unease in my own mind about what on earth possessed Channel Nine to pursue a risky and violent stratagem in pursuit of a story. In fact I am inclined to wonder to what extent the woman was exploited and now risks jail for such a venture, let alone the crew and highly paid rescue team
Did Nine choose the story in the hope of hope impressing their public or was this a genuine interest and concern in the issue of custody battles involving kids in different countries?
I believe what changes the issue is the use of Muslims as a subject at a time when an election is due and emotions have been high concerning what some term “Islamophobia”, as well as a crass faux conservative feminist aspect (I did say earlier my sympathies are with the woman and I bear no grudge against feminism itself, the point is the pretence of feminism as a means for reinforcing political and ethnic tendencies in an audience, as well as providing a cognitive pay-off for the continued watching of such reports; no nuances, just heroes and villains brought to book by 60 Minutes heroes.)
Now, what further arouses my reawakening of scepticism about what happens behind the scene with this sort of television comes from the old issue of chequebook journalism and the lack of much information about how these events are constructed.
What local msm seem not to have reported is the huge sum paid a mercenary rescue crew to do the snatch whist conveniently watched by cameras for a bit of drama. But the violence of the snatch caused a nasty incident, not a heroic moment for 60 Minutes and jeopardised this woman’s chance of getting her kids back.
No doubt a huge campaign will be launched further valorising 60 Minutes and worsening our relationship with mid-easteners, perhaps also ramping up emotion with local Muslim youth as well…cultural sensibilities.
My opinion is that this sort of thing is reckless and dangerous and done for a whole bundle of poor reasons, yet the truth must “out” as to the reliability of media and press as sources of information, these days.
No Place For Sheep 
Perhaps because corruption on a grand scale was highlighted last Nov/Dec that 579 corporate Australians had paid ‘zero’ tax since 2013, and as yet the laws governing such things has not been changed to insert a floor of say 20% into the system regardless of how many ‘legal’ deductions a company has, they must pay a minimum of 20% income tax, like the rest of the country?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Diverted from it, by melodrama. Apart from making a buck, it’s exactly the reason shows like this exist rather than more 4 Corners, say.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you to No Place For Sheep for allowing me to present above. I am quite sure Dr Jennifer Wilson has been a finer friend to me than I know.
Media and press are a bug bear for me in a lot of ways. Such a powerful thing electronic media in particular is and could have been a big boon to civilisation if done the right way. Attenborough or 4 Corners, say, do it. But for this writer, too much of its concerned with destructive things.
You will see the piece is a rough cut, and it’s true I hadn’t seen Media Watch when I wrote it.
In fact , I’ve seen any number of articles questioning this antic, For instance ,this:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/60-minutes-put-entertainment-before-journalism-in-lebanon-professor-says-20160414-go6on5.html,
written by Kym Arlington of Fairfax, just out, involving considered comments from well know media figure Peter Manning… also a brief indirect comment from Amanda Meade at the (deteriorating) Guardian.
I found it dark on Wedneday with MW, discovering that Nine had failed to tell the whole truth about the long running custody battle or the couple themselves, not stereotypes but people like us.
I wonder at an internal tabloid sub-culture that allows people with no clue of real world life and politics beyond a Murdochist world view propaganda long since swallowed, to wreak much damage on others, guided by a spirit of entitlement.
I wonder where they got the idea that they could just barge into another country simply because they were white, elite and Australian, wasn’t colonialism’s hey day a century ago?
But I have said too much, far beyond a bit of an update.
More important for me to find if I am the right track, or missing the point and time for readers to have a go, if they have thoughts on this story.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve changed the fist link, PW cos it didn’t work.
Thanks for the SMH link btw.
I’m interested to see how this unfolds. Film rights? One or two books? Hero status for Tara whatshername?
LikeLike
Every so often something happens that shows the dark and controlling underbelly of tabloid msm subcuture.
Barcelona Tonight itself, Cash for Comments, now this. Yes, it floors me that a number of people who maybe don’t deserve it are going to get rich quick on the reinforcement of prejudices and exploitation of audience and subjects (eg the estranged husband and wife andinvolved families).
I think Nine is in trouble. It still thinks it is Packer times with huge captive audiences. This effort to regain its place on the pedestal has the old arrogance but no longe r the savvy- times have changed. It is possible that Tara, Grimshaw and others dinosaurs still think that trampling the rest is some sort of divine right. However, the Lebanon government has helped demonstrate that this may not be true out in the real world.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Your intuition is uncanny. ABC at his very moment, on the woman paid to ok the effort. Now we might contemplate on how much and whether this was a factor in the consideration to implement the stunt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
•Ruling allowed Australian police to get children back but Faulkner did not register it in Lebanon – and this is a very important point in the whole victim hood story. And the fact that she brought the kids to Australia claiming it was dangerous but then allowed them to go back. Why didn’t she register the court order in Lebanon, it’s not listed at all in the Family court orders so how do we know it’s even true?
Where is the sympathy in our media for the poor innocent grand ma thrown around like garbage and the nanny pushed away by mercenary thugs.
I feel great sympathy for the mother, I am a mother who relinquished a child because I couldn’t care for him, but to pay mercenaries in a foreign nation to snatch them by force in the street is fucking monstrous and makes the mother a whole lot worse than the father in this.
If this father had done this in Sydney the lynch mob would be baying for his blood because muslim you know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That high IQ of yours… just not sinkable. Yes, imho it is about maintaining a simulacra or fantasy world parallel to reality within which pathologies are manipulated. commodifiation happens and consent manufacture does its dirty work.
In reality, buried somewhere in a corner is a tale of another Nauru victim, a shuddersome tale and a million other things in the actual world, too… this is what comes of views blinkered by a type of conscious psychology and underlying vicious pathology. WASP, Fascist, Capitalist, Oligarchy, Patriarchy; use your own term, but its a beast nutured by reckless and unreflexive control freaks for dog whistling purposes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I honestly wouldn’t like to have to decide who is most at fault in this. I feel most for the children.
LikeLike
Me too, 100% of the time the kids have to be considered first, second and last but to treat them like possessions instead of humans has always maddened me.
What happens to the baby in Brisbane now if Sally can’t come home, does her ”desperation” justify the abuse of another child?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Shades white shoe brigade?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hubris and complacency and the arrogance of those who consider themselves somehow fit to play god with other people’ s lives. This stuff like many of its viewers, has begun the long march to Lethe and irrelevance.
LikeLiked by 3 people
What were they thinking?
The mother may well have “rights” to the children, both natural and through the Family Court judgement. But attempting to seize the children on a public street in a foreign country . . . mind boggling.
The Israelis abducted Eichmann from Argentina, causing an international incident; this event was in some ways similar, but spectacular only in its failure.
Channel 9 and Sixty Minutes are very much to blame, for bankrolling it for its sensationalist value and we may suspect very little from any humanitarian motive.
The attempt was so public and so open that it risked a serious breach of the peace, and Lebanon are right to take it very seriously.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I beleive it was public for publicity and audience bonding purposes, also preparing the way ready for a tabloid election campaign rather than one on issues closer to home, like tax dodging.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not everything has to do with party politics!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Never said this was the case. I am talking of politics in the sense of parcels commodified.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For what it is worth, another ‘Spanish connection:
Did someone involved in the planning of this intervention visit the Channel 9 archives, I wonder?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I some times ponder, Forrest Gump, who you are.. so often, you seem way ahead of the field.
Having woken in the middle of the night I am discovering that the story has not died but has acquired some sort of “mass” throughout the community, people are discovering anomalies at all sorts of different levels.
Jacqueline Maley, the Fairfax columnist, has contributed some interesting thoughts on what seem to be some intriguing factors and contradictions:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-60-minutes-kidnap-case-highlights-hypocrisy-over-child-welfare-20160414-go6fhj.html
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLike
LikeLike
Shit on this ..won’t translate..fantastic pic of a miserable Tara behind bars and caption, “Get me out of here, I’m a celebrity”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tara wotsaname now has to “please explain” herself. she is memorable to me for embarrassing her interview guest with that ‘zenophobic’ question, when along with most of her numbnut viewers Pauline Hanson did not have that one in her vocab [yes of course I did]
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yayyyyyyy!!
The wonderous AnnODyne…you are such a marvellous commenter, where have you been?
See what a rotten sub culture makes of a person who could have done broadsheet and missed the highest level by a cigarette paper.
There is always pressure from the system to sell out, so I hope to fall short of casting the first stone..I of all should know better, from experience.
I hope a little while in a cell has this person and her friends jolted out of the god complex and a little humbler and kinder, sadder and wiser for the experience, also for their own sakes.
You observed Jennifer’s wry observation concerning anticapated royalites from the book and docos down the track?
The likes of Tara are hard and tough and will survive, but what of the family at the centre of it, for a start?
And why, if something can be done broadsheet, is this sort of reckless emotive clogg manufactured? This question had me buzzing and gladly accepted JW’s invitation to post choosing to hold forth on the event andits implications.
It asks in the Good Book, “Who amongst you would feed your children poison?”
Why then does MSM feed us tripe when it could have done intelligent current affairs concerning marriage breakdowns and custody battles?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The msm feeds us tripe because their tripe plus religion is supposed to render us incapable of protest at our own exploitation
LikeLike
the MSM is able to feed us poison because they do not have any regard for us. however, past broadcasts of intelligent current affairs don’t seem to have been noticed by Sally Faulkner – or all those other sad Celtic women wailing “get my children back” from the now-departed Muslim I married thinking he was different. even the movie with Sally Field should have been noticed by non-readers. ffs.
The electorate is in the main, fairly stupid.
thank you and Dr Jennifer both for your kind comments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello AnnODyne, nice to see you again.
LikeLike
I saw it on Twitter a few days ago. It’s very good, I agree
LikeLike
There is some amazing teev on late at nght, when folk are asleep…eg Katharine Murphy hosting a Press Club luncheon involving Pat Dodson an dt5h econtinued hiden problems with indigenes.
I was going to let blogs go for the rest of tonight, but have just watched an horrific piece on Al Jazeera concerning Nauru and the over-egging of the authoritarian pudding again.
I haven’t noticed anything in local msm about this story, so must recall from memory, a man at the detention centre alone apart from his little daughter, who is separated from him. He protests, and is locked up in solitary for month. His ultimate response is to attempt suicide.
The response from the authorites has been to fine him $155 for attempting suicide.
I may be churlish, but I see something like 60 Minutes, offered a hypothetical choice on the two stories, always choosing the Faulkner story.
I admit I could be wrong, but what should I further think If my feeling is right?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course, why would they care about a nasty swarthy man traded by us to Nauru.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The headlines are so distastful.
I had hoped that the media might have been a little humbled,
maybe be prepared to concede that not all is not well within the cultural production industry
How can an entire industry be devoid of even the slightest skerrick of humility?http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=DTWEB_WRE170_a&mode=premium&dest=http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/when-is-mummy-coming-home-tara-browns-children-kept-in-the-dark-over-their-mums-prison-hell/news-story/759c414c332204c16c743e1e4d4547e5&memtype=anonymous
And this:http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/60-minutes-case-family-members-of-detained-channel-nine-team-release-joint-statement-20160417-go867r.html
Horseshit has such a foul taste..
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t read the Tele links cos I’m not bloody paying for that toilet paper.
I find it so difficult to understand how experienced journos like the 60 mins crew undertook this insane caper.
LikeLike
I thought I just replied to this what is happening
LikeLike
You aren’t wrong, I don’t think.
I heard that story on Twitter and it seems to have died a quick death. I don’t eve know what to say about it, PW. The horror is muting.
LikeLike
60 Minutes still in denial and yet another columnist calls “bullshit”.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/60-minutes-update-on-tara-brown-and-crew-in-beirut-shirks-tough-questions-20160417-go8jeh.html
LikeLike
yes ‘denial’ – “detained while filming a news story on a child custody battle”
whereas it has been reported that 60 Mins actually engineered the incident of multiple ex-police physically assaulting a grandmother and Nanny. That must have terrorised the children awfully.
Has FM Julie Bishop said anything yet?
[PM Gillard ignored Mr Assange through her tenure]
remember when our FM Gareth Evans let the Malaysian airport shut him in a room while their Prince whisked his snatched kids through? –
“Ms Pascarl met the Prince at Melbourne University, where he was studying architecture, in the late 70s and they were married in 1980.
Their two children were born in Malaysia. After Shahirah was born, the Prince took a second wife under Islamic law.
Ms Pascarl filed for divorce in the Family Court in 1985, and received custody of the children.
After Raja Bahrin spirited the children out of Australia by boat, the Australian Government and Federal Police intervened in what became one of the highest profile custody battles in Australian history.
The Keating Government sought the extradition of Raja Bahrin for taking the children in violation of a Family Court order.”
Sally Faulkner of Brisbane should read newspapers more.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve a sneaking suspicion this one dragged on for a bit, there was legitimate alarm on the part of Ms Pascarl as to the possibility of the girl being circumcised..puts it on a different level to this- unless this fellow is of that persuasion.
Btw, have folk caught the story og the GG’s snubbing of Tanya Plibersek?
https://www.facebook.com/paul.walter.7982
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bugga! It hasn’t done what I want it to do, you will have to scroll down a couple of spots on my FB page, which will be a bit untidy.
Never mind, all for the greater cause..maybe Jennife might consider removing this later for the sakeof privacy, but not straight way because it is a remarkable clip.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t see it as I don’t do FB. What privacy do you mean PW?
LikeLike
Hmm, it goes straight to my FB page rather than the flim clip. When I pushed the button after posting this I was back to my page and the item exactly as it looks on that page. Pushing that after scrolling down, up came the clip.
Computers are weird things and all this copy right stuff is only gpoing to make it harder.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YogozvXat_8
LikeLike
Apparently all in order:
“Protocol says Sir Peter has to shake the hands of the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, Speaker, Tony Smith, and Opposition Leader, Mr Shorten.
Mr Joyce was too quick for the Governor-General to ignore.”
Typical.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The evidence of the film clip says different.
I can’t recall such a surly display of arrogance and ignorance in this sort of situation.
Plibersek is one of our brighter politicians and one of the most well-mannered, Cosgrove a half-shot pig.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perhaps, but he’s a prisoner of protocol. He is a relic of Abbott’s love affair with the military and things military.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just saw that on the news. I think he was totally flustered & wanted to get out before Conroy started in on him
LikeLike
It’s incomprehensible that people use their children in these ways.
LikeLike
Followingon from that, this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/father-of-sally-faulkners-children-does-not-intend-to-drop-charges
He must be hopping mad and intent on really paying 60 Minutes and Faulkner out, revenge being a dish best served cold.
Where was the fault?
No Plan B.
LikeLike
“No Plan B.” Rests upon the assumption that what we are being shown and its outworking is not itself Plan A.
I feel it constructive to ponder what entities that might consider themselves to be ‘above (at least Australian) politics’ may have been involved in the orchestration of these reported events.
What is staggering are the seeming omissions from information supplied to the public in relation to these events. Like as to in which country the children were born, the status of each parent with respect to Australian citizenship or residence at all relevant times, and so forth.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Never let the truth interfere wth a good story”
I never get past the ignorant arrogance and myopia of media. The example five minutes ago was ABC morning and a poinsonous tale about Palestinians setting fire to an empty Isreali bus, after being so silent so long on affairs in that nasty little corner of the world.
No context as to what might have brought this about, no reports on the Israeli violence that usually provokes these retaliations…fits the meme.
It’s not unthinking, it is political and one day we may yet be sorry for it…just because it’s dark where ahead is shoved, doesn’t mean it is safe
LikeLiked by 1 person
They can’t spoil good click bait with background
LikeLike
Well, maybe he could have decided not to abduct the children in the first place. Everyone seems to have forgotten he did that.
LikeLike
The MW partly covers that. Hope the linx work this time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember the long acting poison
as a kid.. personal level.
But I don’t judge my parents anymore, havingnow been around enough to have made my sequence of stuff ups.
Lennonist theology has it that life is what happens when you are planning other things.
For various sorts of opaque reasons they were together then alienated from each other. Mum “won”, if you like, eventually and imho that was good, but dad did accept the decision enough to move out and never shirked maintainence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Melly Smuff, nice to have others up in the wee small’s- are you doing insomnia too?
Just back to put up this week’s MW, which has more on 60 Adverts, but also a sick story involving the Murdoch Press and a little boy.
Given the nature of your comment, you will find some of this helpful:
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/media-watch/FA1535H012S00
LikeLike
http://www.theage.com.au/world/60-minutes-ali-elamine-says-if-tables-were-turned-hed-be-called-a-terrorist-and-shot-on-the-spot-20160418-go9jdd.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
But he did, in a manner of speaking, by claimed deception in his own first abduction of the children, and he wasn’t called a terrorist.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmmm…let me chew on it for a mo.
It is a slightly ambiguous post. Can you expand a little?
If you are saying both have been deceptive and “fought dirty”, isn’t it usually the case?
At this personal level, I just see Kramer V Kramer and Wars of the Roses. How relationships sour and disintegrate with black consequences for theparties is a universe in itself and Ive no doubt he’s as much to blame as her.
To me it thus removes to the grubby exploitation of the misery of two people in conflict..gaahh!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think by peculiar stroke of fortune, despite itself, 60 Minutes has succeeded in producing a relevant episode of current affairs despite itself, with itself as unwitting participant, even subject, midwifing something rather different than expected, yet offering unexpected insights into bust ups and custody battles in a pomo world not consciously intended.
They tried to free ride reality and the reality of misery with their conceited meddling and are learning quickly a life lesson, for this laxness.
Such a thing, Karma.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Your last sentence. Yes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In an election run up he’d definitely be cast as a terrorist. 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
shameful that sad personal lives of people become a circus for the masses and I join in by forming the opinion that [an attitude to] Sally Faulkner’s new partner might be the key to the father keeping his children in Lebanon. not wanting “another man raising my son”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. Hadn’t considered that but it makes psychological sense. Unfortunately.
LikeLike
After (briefly) watching the entitled half wit Caroline Overington on QA, this comes as a welcome return to reality: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/the-role-of-white-privilege-in-the-60-minutes-kidnapping-saga-20160416-go7wkc.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t watch that woman.
LikeLike
I can’t even watch Q&A. especially since the remuneration of TJones was revealed as I just got distracted by his costly tailoring.
sometimes just follow the Twitter comments on it though. leaven it with ‘a remove’ and it is less offensive. I can’t stand 6oMinutes either. botoxxed bleached harridans screeching “look at this awful thing” they are the modern Madame deFarges.
best regards to you dear JW
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ann, thank you for your last sentence. Means much.
LikeLike
WELL. all that fuss about “respecting the laws of other nations” and now Ali Elamine a private citizen in Beirut, late of Brisbane but with an american accent has accepted ‘a substantial payment from Network 9 and the Government Of Lebanon has now apparently been able to forget the whole thing.
and Tara Brown spent less than 60 Minutes in their slummy slammer. I wish I could have heard what Schapelle Corby said when she saw that news.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nine has paid him off? Brown wasn’t in jail? I haven’t caught up shame on me.
LikeLike
Nine’s million-dollar get-out-of-jail card in Beirut
The Australian-12 hours ago
‘She has agreed to relinquish all custodial rights to her two children’ …
Some of the online comments after that report are delicious and it appears that she is not actually married to the father of her latest child
[I am so old that I was part of the horror era when a pregnant female not married to the father was ostracised most dreadfully by family, employers, society, the system, hospitals and often the actual father. The pain lingers 47 years on let me tell you that for free]
as Mr Elamine wanted a divorce as part of his deal.
This type of tabloid TV is like that ‘Marry Someone You Never Met’ rubbish. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH PEOPLE!
Paul Walter is spot-on with his “frilly femininity” marrying a “swarthy alien” so please come rescue my mess comment below.
As for the professional rescuers, they have been left OUT of the deal.
From glamour portraits of Ms Faulkner online, all winsome lashes and hotiron curlsI presume her ego is rampant.
When the father of her 3rd child grows weary, and maybe takes his child when he leaves, she is so going to need Relinquishment Therapy.
Awake at the hour of the wolf every day wondering if it was all worth it to get back to hubby2.
Hubby1 now has $1m and his children. I hope they never become Suicide Bombers because their mum sold them to their dad.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ive just woken from a sleep with an idea I missed completely when I rsuhed this off.
I want to get back to AnnOdyne and Jennifer Wilson, but first must issue a profound apology.
In my haste, I missed the fundamental issue of gender stereotyping and actual, deliberate inscription in the conditioning of a virtually captive audience operating toward a target demographic, the suburban lower middle class and conservative working class.
It an engine for social reproduction, an example of reification as well as inscription and commodification.
It works from that point in this case, not only on ethnic stereo typing, but that within a context of gender stereotyping which is incedibly archaic. The males involve Ray Martin; Mr Sincerity and the blokey Croc Dundee types “lending a hand” to rescue a maiden in distress, in this case Mrs Faulkner pre-conditioned example of the necessary frilly femininity and learnt helplessness, that an authenticate the audiences fantasies.
Of course, çlique’ Tara Brown is the very epitome of the steel magnolia, the resolute, sensitive (blond, Caroline Overington type) resolute heroine battling and winning in the face of the anonymous wall of patriarchy that surrounds suburban women, who gasp in admiration at the Alpha female and yearn to be and fantasise that they are Tara Brown, girl reporter.
We have reached the same level of primitive and shambolic meta language that involves a string of similar public representations that include soapie queens like Albrechtsen, Miranda Devine and the ubiquitous MTR.
So?
It is just that they are reinforcing the processes of individuation and role assignment within a dated Partridge Family simulacra that reinforces the Sexual Division that currently operates and breeds both ignorance and fear in men and women of themselves and members of the “mysterious” and “opposite” sex, creating a world of clumsy vegetables represented most starkly in motifs like Barnaby Joyce or the Kardashians. A strange and self perpetuating world of violence fueled by abjection, from the domestic to the level of national and international politics operating on the praxis of ideologically sanctioned assumptions of the sort that led to the Beirut fantasy in the first place. must drive us to aGadarene precipice as the unreflected upon goals of Murdoch automaton types subsume necessary realities.
All of this to capture an audience and then market crap spliced into an episode at the moment when an aroused audience is most receptive to a message, commercial or ideological with no thought of how waste ful this is for society.
Broadsheet keeps attention focussed on reality, as with the recent 4 Corners on now almost forgotten Panama, but from tabloid tv becomes unreflexive role reinforcement and mass marketing of above mentioned consumerist bling and oxic mind candy.
As for QA, the brief amount of it watched included an adult questioin from a young woman about 60 minutes followed by several minutes of grandstanding from Overington that not not even Jones’ protest that Overington was contradicting her own newspaper’s revelations of monies paid and chequebook journalism…on she went, blanking Jones as if he had not even spoken.
But I think some in the audience saw through her and the tory politcian who also added nothing; pathological lying, hypocrisy and arrogance.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Whoa, thrilling synthesising of superficially disparate but deeply connected events PW.
Of course you are spot on in your analysis of the gender relations at play here, an analysis I admit it had not occurred to me to make either, so normalised is this insidious crap one barely even notices it anymore.
I take issue only with your description of Overington as blond. So am I, albeit streaked with a little grey these days. So what’s your point?
LikeLike
Sleep doesn’t come easily..
The next sketchy bubble in this last process comes of the observation that something of deep beauty and power, sisterhood within humanity over the history of the species and its celebration, including of your rugged fertility life cycles: growing up, friendships with both males and females, the misery of the lunar cycle, loving (sometimes), the epic process of gestation followed by fierce and historically risky birthing, then the joys and agonies of child rearing followed by the sudden intrusion of menopause and maybe rejection- it is a pretty comprehensive program.
I realise that your long term project here has been an atypical celebration of life, documented also through the individual case history of Practice of Goodness.
It is the voice of women and men also, “talking back”, antithetical to top down rubbish peddled by opportunists.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/04/20/married-at-first-sight-break-up_n_9733800.html?utm_hp_ref=australia
LikeLiked by 1 person
“clumsy vegetables represented most starkly in motifs like Barnaby Joyce or the Kardashians” oh Mr Walter I would propose marriage if I was free, in the meantime I can only give a nod via my blogless –
No Kelpies needed at No Place For Sheep however. A most excellent Australian blog I commend to you. Follow the link to vent your spleen on Bananaby Joyce, Donald “7/11” Trump or the witless Tara Brown who has been in a slummy Beirut slammer for much more than 60 Minutes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I see you have the good taste to live somewhere either side of the Glenelg river. Precious, precious clean part of the world.
LikeLike
Thank you, Ann. Much appreciated.
LikeLike
Correction: In the para referring to Ray Martin. I forgot to include the other clique representation, Faulkners husband, the swarthy alien villain of the piece, silenced by non conformism to the desired text.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Blow me down, if Julia Baird does’t have a mid eastern gent in the hot seat at the Drum. The look on her face is the worst look of Julia Baird, in prejudice mode, so have left it for a bit and maybe take a closer look later. If I’ve been unfair on the woman, will come back later and correct.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Back for context on it. The portion was part of an interview Baird was doing on an ISAL segment strategically placed after a far more interesting segment featuring qualified observers discussing the response to Barcelona Tonight 2. I guess Baird is entitled to do devil’s advocate, but I am really starting to feel a deep sense of alarm as to her objectivity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve always felt that but when I’ve said it I’ve been set upon.
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, yes well I doubt anybody is going to pursue that possibility.
LikeLike
People will laugh on theother side of their faces if it is the straw that breaks the camel’s (or Alpacá’s) back as to retaliation from offshore extremists.
LikeLike
Do you really think they give a fuck about a failed child snatch?
LikeLike
I think they give a fuck about being constantly slandered.
LikeLike
Intelligent thinking on this subject.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-21/knight-when-a-ratings-chaser-goes-predictably-wrong/7345872
LikeLiked by 1 person
For the record, for what it may prove to be worth:
And how good it is to see AnnODyne commenting on this topic. Readers of the blog might note potential similarities with perspectives raised in respect of the ‘Royal Prank’ of December 2012 in Jennifer’s “The Hospital and the Radio Station: When Management Fails Who Pays the Price?” available from the archive for December 2012.
Was the whole operation concocted as an entrapment operation targeting the two British child recovery operatives?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Also for the record. In my opinion barely scratches the surface in respect to unasked questions.
LikeLike
Terse comments, like so many just now.
It is no longer just one or two atomised oddballs out here in pleb land wondering if they have imagined this, but widespread and almost a spontaneous social response expressing long held frustrations with the persistent worst of tabloidia, as exemplified through 60 Minutes.
Can’t resist this.. love the pic of Tara and the copper… two people who want to hit each other?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hadn’t thought of that..that was really unpacked particularly well by you two.
For my part, mulling over another celebrated antic, the public pillorying of the Paxton family.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Re FG and AnnODyne..
LikeLike
I know this is an old thread, but stuff keeps turning up that sets off this sense of irrritation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-24/60-minutes-crew-'made-mistakes'/7354268
The outlook with these people brings this writer to despair.
They are contritely sorry because they did wrong, maybe caused harm , or because they got caught red handed?
LikeLike
Here we go… this is not a dead issue.
Back again after watching two amazing pieces of journalism on the ABC tonight. The second was a full episode of Media Watch on 60 Adverts.. a rush of new info, quite damning.
The first, a 4 Corners episode on the dreadful death of a refugee on Nauru is serendipidous in providing an example of broadsheet current affairs journalism that contrasts starkly with the counterfeit insult to intelligence tabloid tv panhandles. MW reveals further news about the story that won’t die no matter how much 9 spends..like Lady Macbeth, the stain just not washing away.
MW is too complex to recall just now, for the sheer detail, but I do remember the noughts spinning off into infinity, as to cost of cover ups and bribes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Christ, that Four Corners was gut wrenching. Bloody bureaucrats, obeying orders, we all know where that ends up.
How does anyone survive working in DIBP? It must be the most toxic place in the country.
LikeLike
I couldn’t get past the bit about him being left out in the blazing sun when they were waiting to fly him to Port Moresby.
Does 60 Minutes ever do REAL current affairs?
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLiked by 1 person