It was only meant to be a flesh wound, it wasn’t meant to end Barnaby’s career. That was his fault.
This is the basic message from the Daily Telegraph, where Sharri Markson revealed insider knowledge of the ‘crisis talks between the offices of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister’ in the lead up to the New England by election, about how to hide Joyce’s affair with his media staffer.
If you’re confused about how it could be that Markson, who on October 20, before the New England by election, reported the rumours of Joyce’s affair as ‘vicious innuendo’, can now be admitting to knowledge of the crisis talks before the by election (why would there be crisis talks about rumours?), and can also be the very same journalist to win the ‘scoop’ of the front page story confirming the rumours, with a photo of the pregnant mistress who used to work at the Daily Telegraph, you’re not alone. But it gets even more-confusing still, while at the same time making perfect sense.
Markson’s ‘analysis’ of these crisis talks reads like an apology to Joyce, as if everything got a bit out of hand, and he was never meant to lose his position as Nationals leader, Deputy PM and Cabinet Minister, and that this kerfuffle was not to be blamed on the poor innocent Daily Tele – any damage done was Joyce’s fault for not handling the story well. Markson writes:
‘The government got through the by election without the secret exposed’ – because Markson chose not to expose the secret – and Joyce’s resignation today ‘is down to his (Joyce’s) serial mismanagement of what could have been a one – or two-day story – which is all it was ever intended to be, for there was no vendetta against Joyce or malice towards him by The Daily Telegraph’.
Read it twice if you need to. I know I did.
Now let’s unpack that layered statement, shall we? We know the government got through the by election without the secret exposed, which raises questions about the integrity of journalists across the nation, who are all defensively claiming to have the upmost honour in never reporting ‘vicious innuendo’, unless of course that vicious innuendo in some way damages a Labor government, and then it’s a ‘questions to answer’ pile on with no end in sight.
Next. Markson only ever intended for the story to be a one or two-day story. Let that sink in. Markson is admitting here, or even boasting, that the Daily Tele decides how long a story runs in the media, and that if they decide to press go (with the shot of the pregnant mistress), they can also decide to press stop. This one just got away from them. Not like usual. I shit you not.
We’re not finished yet. The reason it was only ever intended to be a one-or-two-days-at-the-most story, a flesh-wound and not a career-ending scandal, is because, low and behold, The Daily Telegraph, in all its personified wisdom has ‘no vendetta against’ or ‘malice towards’ Barnaby Joyce. The Deputy PM from the Liberal National Coalition is a mate of the Daily Telegraph, naturally, so, as Markson innocently explains, they weren’t out to get him – he just tripped and fell of his own accord.
Yes, that means exactly what you think it means. As we knew, but we never thought the Daily Telegraph would admit, the Murdoch press holds vendettas against individuals, and shows malice towards them in their editorial positions. Like Julia Gillard, for instance. Like Craig Thomson. Like Peter Slipper. Like Kevin Rudd, Bill Shorten, Dan Andrews, Annastacia Palaszczuk, Jay Weatherill, name any Labor politician from the last few decades and the story is the same: vendetta and malice by the truckload from the Murdoch media. And they’ve just admitted it.
You seriously couldn’t make this shit up. Sharri’s not making it up. Sharri, the journalist who ironically had to go ‘undercover’ to a journalism course at university in order to ‘expose’ the left-wing brainwashing of the media (ha!), who claimed not to know about Joyce’s affair, then did know, then apologised for knowing, and admitted she did know before after all, has laid it out very clearly. The Murdoch media is not interested in reporting about politics. They’re interested in playing politics. It’s just such a pity that so many Australians are still willing to be played.
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