By Christian Marx
Once again, the shrill cries from Andrew Bolt can be seen in his latest crusade for “free” speech. According to his warped world view, hate-speech is acceptable and should never be censored.
Bolt has been all bent out of shape by the news that many sponsors have withdrawn their funding of Sky News after the white supremacist, Blair Cottrell appeared on Sky voicing his opinions. Bolt’s scatter-gun rant against Metro trains and public transport minister, Jacinta Allan is typical of Bolt. All deflection and no substance. Maybe he needs to be told …
Dear Andrew,
Once again you rave on about censorship. Interesting. Can you tell me why mainstream media is gagged from reporting on your boss, Rupert Murdoch`s Middle Eastern interests? I have never seen mention of this either at the ABC or any commercial networks. Could it be that the ABC is being silenced by the hard-right apparatchiks infesting the ABC boards? Or perhaps the relentless attacks from the LNP/IPA have cowed the ABC into silence? Or at least it seems that way. Your hypocrisy appears to be breathtaking! For those who are unaware of Murdoch and his Middle Eastern financial interests, here is an expose on his company Geanie Energy that you might like to read, and here is another.
In your article from last week, you go on to accuse the ALP state government as “Tin Pot dictators”. Absolutely laughable. You then assert that $400,000 has been stolen from taxpayers. Really? How about the 30 million given to Rupert Murdoch in tax payer’s money to Foxtel?
You bet it was a mistake to have Blair Cottrell on Sky News … but this was no accident. Rather, I believe it was another deliberate attempt by Sky to push the envelope and test the waters. A very cunning attempt at normalising a toxic agenda of racism. I mean, you and Blair share very similar belief systems. True, you have not claimed to admire Hitler, but many of your articles are filled with racial and ethnic scapegoating. Your ridiculous article on immigration was yet another hard-right spin-fest, tailored to the lowest common denominator of your sub-normal IQ demographic.
I have no doubt that if the Cottrell interview was well-received, Sky would have been very pleased with the results. It is only because the backlash was so severe and sponsors pulled away from Sky that this interview was quickly pulled. Predictably as always, instead of management getting the sack or demoted, it was the presenter who copped a hiding. So typical of conservatives, really.
Michaela Cash and her grubby attacks on unions and the silly police raid on union headquarters and leaking to the press, springs to mind. Who copped the flak and the blame? Certainly not Cash! It was one of her junior underlings who took the fall.
You go on to say that Sky is the only broadcaster to ban Cottrell. I say to you, only because they began haemorrhaging sponsors. Stop your virtue signalling! It is true that the ABC once had Cottrell on, but it was on a panel and others were challenging his ideas in a robust debate.
Sky was different. They had him on to propagate his manifesto unchallenged. This was a blatant attempt to manipulate an already rabid-right audience into further dangerous waters.
You then go onto whinge about Sky being pulled from state rail. Why the hell should a public entity be forced to peddle extremist far-right dogma from a far-right, private media platform?! It has no right to defile the ears of ordinary citizens going about their business in a public space!
You go on to say that the opinion shows from Sky are very popular. Bahahaha. Give me a break. Sky opinion shows rate dismally compared to the ABC. Sky News rates on average 12,000 viewers from 6pm to midnight. As I said, absolutely dismal!
Which is why I suspect that Sky is now going to be broadcast on free-to-air media.
The ugly truth is that you are giving the impression that you are a paid puppet for Rupert Murdoch and his extremist views. Sky and Herald Sun etc push one man’s opinion and vision for the world. That vision is an ugly dystopian, neoliberal capitalist model. Unlike myself, who bows to nobody, I am a free agent who is able to expose the truth and all the lies peddled by the rich and their toady politicians. This is ultimately why commercial media is a dinosaur. It only reflects the views and wishes of the extremely wealthy.
Seeking to divide the nation through race and culture is the only way the far-right can win votes. In my opinion their policies are so toxic to the average citizen, that scapegoating, fear and hatred is all they have. I’m reminded of the Wizard of Oz: A booming, hateful exterior, but once the curtain is pulled back I can see strings manipulating every move, and there is nothing but a sad, embittered old man who long ago sold his soul to the devil for easy money.
[textblock style=”6″]
Christian Marx is a political and social activist interested in making the world a fairer place. He has a Bachelor of Social Science and has a keen interest in sociology, politics and history. He was one of the organizers of the March in March rallies in Melbourne and is the founder of the progressive news and information page, “Don`t Look At This Page”, and is also a co-founder of “The Global Revolution” website.
[/textblock]
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
One of the prime reasons for sponsors withdrawing support for Sky is clearly the dismal audience numbers that Sky are able to attract once the sun sets.
When their star, Bolt, can only manage fifty thousand on a good day (and that presumably includes airports and railway stations where Sky pay for exposure) it’s a dud and should be dropped in favour of re-runs of the Brady Bunch.
The era of the media shock-jock is coming to a close as their audience declines largely due to aging.
Kaye Lee. Yes.
Thank you Christian. I totally agree with you. When this house of cards eventually crumbles, we’ll be left with a mess to clean up, most especially the minds of the gullible, who watch things like Bolt. That will be the hard part.
Nice call Christian Marx. The links to reports on Murdoch the Muckracker’s oil interests in the ME and Israel – excellent exposure. How pathetically timid and cowering are the Newscorp Australian ‘journalists’ and assorted other commercial flim-flam.
I want to hear much much more from the ALP about its plans for the ABC when it takes control of the parliament. Reinstate its funding. Reinstate its independence. Sack the Board. Turn the blowtorch on the IPA.
I sense a visceral fear arising amongst the ruling elites as the global tide starts to turn against the crony capitalism that has run rampant for so long.
Nice one Kaye Lee!
Bravo Christian.
There has been lots of whinging in the emperor Murdoch sleaze sheets about the group Sleeping Giants and their effect on advertising withdrawals from Sky. According to them it’s a foreign influenced group ( be very afraid) who are set to disrupt free speech.
Would that be similar to the foreign influenced (via American citizen Murdoch) Daily Telegraph, Sky, Foxtel, the Australian etc, set to turn us into a dystopian slave culture propping up the Murdoch profit sheet, at Australian taxpayer’s expense?
Could it be coincidence that since the emperor’s visit to Australia last week, those rags have gone full feral on the ditching of Turnbull in favour of Herr Dutton?
How can we wake middle Australia up?
Thank you Christian for your astute remarks.
A Blot is a whinging pseudo-Dutchman who should be encouraged to return to his preferred national homeland rather than remain incarcerated in Australia like a pseudo-refugee. Perhaps he remains emotionally scarred by his youth in downtown Goolwa SA.
Michaelia Cash does a wonderful impersonation of a brothel madam.
I am advised that SKY has an audience of about 3% of the viewing public, at its “best”. No wonder Rupert wants to nobble the ABC.
Some years ago I watched Bolt and some other bloke called Akerman on Insiders; I saw them once, maybe twice.. That was enough, if they were on the panel, off went my telly….
It’s only so much ‘balanced ‘ discussion one can bear… So sadly my image of those two is somewhat hazy….
One thing is for sure, I will NEVER ever watch anything on Sky! And from the really “great” (NOT!) selection of so-called “presenters” (sic) they have, why would would any normal thinking person even bother watching any of them? Led by the “great” (Not!) Blot, with Credlin etc following close behind, they really are all a lot of flat earth, right wing mob of would be journalists, who would not know the truth or reality if it hit them in the face. As for Mudrake & his bloody East coast rags, the less said the better! Great article Christian!
BTW NEC, The Dutch wouldn’t have him.
New England Cocky, I just checked and found out that he was born in Australia, in Adelaide. Doesn’t that make him an Australian, or at least a pseudo-Aussie… he got the accent right, if nothing else….
helvityni,
Yes he was born here but didn’t like it so left as soon as he finished school to go back to Holland.
“I find the opera here, the halls, the dress, it’s all a little shabby.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20151026035914/http:/newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=6DAC75FD3E50586F46C096E9DA21CA00?sy=afr&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=brs&cls=25064&clsPage=1&docID=SMH1111194M57H5FDGMN
“Premier Daniel Andrews said the Victorian branch of the Labor Party had repaid all the money and he was sorry for what happened.”
And very well asserted, me thinks. Particularly as it is reported that the above quote is from Premier Andrews, him self. The sort of assertion, we all like to see.
Assertive,
Mark Needham
Good job, Christian. Some shameless hypocrisy that needed to be called out.
‘Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.
…and I shan’t. I’m all for this. Bolt’s bolts are so loose he sounds like a jerk every time he opens his stupid stupid mouth. And as for Sky, why would anyone with a brain ever listen to their rampant propaganda, even their presentation is only fit for thieves and morons, rather like loose Bolt’s. Sorry for the cliches folks but I would never listen to either of these two nutters and I fail to see how anyone affords them a living. They should be gagged and thrown in prison for fraud, hatred and disturbance of the peace, bugger free speech which there’s ain’t.
Gotta love (by that I of course mean guffaw and shake my head at) those “living in a reality bubble,” like Andrew Bolt. Those who claim such things as… ”I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
Then they go on to claim such things as… “why is free speech being destroyed by using the “I am offended” argument?”
So, lets’s get this straight… you are offended by others being offended Andrew? You’re taking offence, at others taking offence? Oh, that’s gold…
Dear Andrew, the self proclaimed freedom of speech warrior… free speech isn’t one-way. You don’t have a monopoly. It’s not your exclusive domain or play thing. Your rights to free speech are no more important than anyone else’s. Free speech actually works both ways, not just your way!
When people such as you spew forth your hatred as “free speech” – that’s your prerogative and wish to do so … But newsflash and the bit you ironically, aren’t quite mentally equipped to comprehend… others also then have “their own free speech right” to reply to your free speech”, as they wish, as is their prerogative.
It obviously is a hard pill to swallow from within that safety bubble, Andrew, but if you can’t understand, let alone accept… say my right to respond to your “free speech” with my free speech, without you actually being offended at me doing so, simply because I may refer to you as an uneducated, big-mouthed, rednecked, bigoted, racist, imbecilic, hypocrite (see what I did there – that was MY FREE SPEECH – you support) as I believe is abundantly clear to all open minded individuals, then you obviously don’t understand or I’d suggest more importantly, don’t care about “actual free speech”.
You are in fact, just a poor gullible parrot, quoting from the right’s moronic one-sided playbook and picking up his pieces of silver each week accordingly.
Being so, you should be judged and treated accordingly, as thankfully you now are.
“And as for Sky, why would anyone with a brain ever listen to their rampant propaganda, even their presentation is only fit for thieves and morons, rather like loose Bolt’s. Sorry for the cliches folks but I would never listen to either of these two nutters and I fail to see how anyone affords them a living. ”
No hatred here,
loved,
Mark Needham
Andrew bolt an oxy-moron if it were possible. Ranting and raving, chest beating and rabid to boot. given oxygen by Murdoch to say and do as he pleases.
Sky News is trailer trash, a magazine at the Doctors, well thumbed but the crosswords have been done the puzzles have been torn out and the numbers of people with various medical ailments thumbing the battered pages should make you want to run off and get some liquid soap and wash you hands mouth and head out, immediately