The mainstream media has gone stark raving mad

79 Comments

1. Victoria, thanks so much for this – I’ve been looking for it this morning but could only find all the other commentators commentating on it. This is jolly good ammunition. Let’s hit it hard.

   I’m thinking that it’s time for a boycott. Next Saturday, perhaps? No Murdoch papers, no Fairfax, no ABC (football excepted?) I’m looking, as we speak, at change.org. I have no experience with this kind of thing, so any help would be wonderful. Anyway, I’m trying to write a little screed to go along with the petition. Any help would be hugely appreciated.

2. PS, could someone give us a link to the actual editorial?

3. I’m just as horrified as you, Victoria. Thanks for putting it so succinctly. Since when are the newspapers in the business of making up the news as distinct from reporting it?

4. Mike Carlton appears to have been delegated to write the same officious ultimatum in todays SMH.

   Sad, that. There goes all the respect and admiration I had for you, Mike.

   You’re the one who is going, anyway. On July 2, when you are entombed by the paywall I will not be paying $15 per month to read crap.

5. I am speechless. How could MSM get any worse than dictating to Australians and our Prime Minister who should lead our nation?

   What particularly flabbergasted me were the words:

   “The Age’s overriding concern is that, under Ms Gillard’s leadership, the Labor Party’s message about its future policies and vision for Australia is not getting through to the electorate. ”

   Really? Is there no-one at the Age able to research the 540+ pieces of legislation Labor has passed during the preceding 3 years?

   What is the excuse of the Age for lack of information of the Liberal’s policies? Is this due to Tony Abbott’s leadership? Using the same logic, shouldn’t he be resigning too?

6. Assets owned by Fairfax:
   Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au)
   The Age (www.theage.com.au)
   RSVP online dating (www.rsvp.com.au)
   Australian Property Monitors (APM) (www.apm.com.au)
   Stayz (www.stayz.com.au)
   MyCareer (www.mycareer.com.au)
   Drive (www.drive.com.au)
   Domain (www.domain.com.au)
   cuisine.com.au (www.cuisine.com.au)
   League HQ (leaguehq.com.au)
   Real Footy (AFL) (www.realfooty.com.au)
   Rugby Heaven (www.rugbyheaven.com.au)
   Business Day (www.businessday.com.au)
   Essential Baby (www.essentialbaby.com.au)
   The Vine (ww.thevine.com.au)
   WA Today (www.watoday.com.au)
   InvestSMART (www.investsmart.com.au)
   Brisbanetimes (www.brisbanetimes.com.au)
   Stuff (www.stuff.co.nz)

   http://www.fairfaxmedia.com.au/our-assets/online.dot

   Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Media

   business-centred magazines including BRW, AFR Smart Investor, AFR Magazine, AFR Boss, CFO Australia, MIS (magazine) and Asset (Magazine)

   Fairfax ownership of 100 per cent of Allure Media. Allure Media own a range of websites, including the Australian licenses for Lifehacker, Gizmodo and Kotaku

   2007, Fairfax Media acquired the former radio assets of Southern Cross Broadcasting: 2UE Sydney, 3AW and Magic 1278 Melbourne, 4BC and 4BH Brisbane, and 6PR and 96fm Perth

   Fairfax also acquired Satellite Music Australia (SMA) as part of the SCB deal, who provide music channels to retailers, as well as Foxtel and Austar[29][dead link] (where it is branded AIR)

   Fairfax also owns papers in major regional centres, including the Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong), The Newcastle Herald (Newcastle), The Border Mail (Albury-Wodonga), The Warrnambool Standard (Warrnambool), The Courier (Ballarat) and The Bendigo Advertiser (Bendigo). In addition, its subsidiary Fairfax Community Newspapers publishes 35 community newspapers serving suburban Victoria and New South Wales.
   As a result of its Rural Press acquisition, Fairfax has taken control of many newspapers including The Canberra Times and The Land

7. The editorial is here: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/for-the-sake-of-the-nation-ms-gillard-should-stand-aside-20130621-2oo6e.html
   Thanks Victoria for another great insight and analysis. It is disgusting what the MSM are doing.

8. Also, the Mike Carlton piece in today’s paper that starts
   Time to face facts. Time to pull the pin. Julia Gillard is leading the Australian Labor Party towards a catastrophic election defeat, probably the worst in its federal history. For the good of the party and the good of the country, she must quit the prime ministership or be prised out of it.

   oops no, sorry, that is from 21 july last year
   http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/pm-must-go-or-the-party-will-be-over-20120720-22fcl.html

   this is from Mike Carlton today
   Prime Minister, it’s time. Time for you to quit. As this Parliament draws to its close, it’s time for you to recognise that, for all your achievements, you are leading your government and your party to an electoral defeat of unprecedented disaster.

   http://www.smh.com.au/comment/with-regret-gillard-must-go-for-nations-sake-20130621-2onnn.htm

9. Thanks for the info, Rose, and for the link. I’m not suggesting the we stop expressing ourselves as commentators on these wonderful alternative sites – but we need to move outside our comfort zone.

   A lot has been said about the power of the ‘social’ and ‘alternative’ media, but this heart-breaking stuff is still happening – and gathering steam, and our passionate and brilliant writers, and our citizen journalists haven’t been able to stop it – so what next? I don’t believe that we need less talk, but we do need more action.

   So can anyone help me with change.org?

10. Thank you, Victoria. Will tweet this blog post.

    Never realised even Mike Carlton had jumped on to this ludicrous band wagon. I thought he had more scruples. Maybe his RU team had lost.

    How the anonymous author of that editorial could write such an egregious piece of garbage is beyond me. Surely, it would also be beyond their journalistic ethics. Astounding.

11. Thanks Victoria will share this blog. FYI My letter to Mike Carlton this am…

    As one of your loyal foot soldiers over many years I am still shaking like a leaf at your call for Julia Gillard to step down. I feel completely numb – as though I’ve been socked in the bread basket by one of your rugger bugger mates.

    I invariably turn to your column first for its smart, bright, enlightened exposés. I’ve loved your use of the language, your skill at cutting to the chase when it comes to humbug and mendacity. But now it seems you’ve succumbed to the rabid rubbish of the Bolts, Akermans, Jones – the whole Tory “bloketocracy” who must be high fiving it having read your piece. What an own goal you’ve kicked.

    Julia Gillard has steered this cumbersome hung parliament through a torrid time and seen through a great many important pieces of legislation; too long for my shaking hands to list here. She’s done it with dignity while smothered in the ordure spread by the Murdoch and Fairfax press and the shock jocks of commercial radio.

    I too, was a fan of Rudd. But more and more I began to see his sociopathic tendencies rise to the surface. He’d dudded many and Simon Crean for one will never forgive him for wimping out when he did have the opportunity to press for the top job again. You probably know that up here in Queensland during the Goss years they called him “Dr Death”. A strange moniker but one I began to understand during his tenure as PM. Being outed the way he was was seriously wrong. But that doesn’t mean his re-instatement would be right.

    So adios, hooroo, hasta la vista. I hope you get over your bout of Hadleyitis soon. I won’t be checking on your condition but wish you all the best nevertheless.

    Yours in abject sadness,
    Gail Shaw

12. I was gob smacked with this article….to what hole has journalism fallen into? I am so angry with the lack of respect and fear mongering that is prevalent in Australia today…we live a lot of our time in Fiji with a government which has not been “democratically” elected but I’m guessing if TA gets into power we will be a lot better off in a third word country!

13. Meanwhile, Tones is still going around feeling up women…

    http://www.firstnationstelegraph.com/#!Abbott-says-his-key-witness-has-died/zoom/c14sy/image10wr

14. Mike Carlton has written the same thing about Gillard standing down before, as I quoted almost a year ago in this post:
    http://victoriarollison.com/2012/07/28/the-mobius-strip-of-leadership-tensions/
    Yet Gillard is still there. Still doing an amazing job in the face of so much disrespect. Maybe it’s time for Mike Carlton to move on and realise Gillard is not giving up. And we’re not giving up on her. If we did, she surely would lose the election. I wonder if Carlton realises he is supporting Tony Abbott by constantly undermining Gillard’s success?

15. Victoria, I have come to the conclusion it is useless preaching to the converted. We need to write to the Editors of every paper and point out their mistakes, flaws and lies. We need to express our indignation at what they are doing and have been doing. This is getting us no where. We have to hit the MSM en force. I have already started. We should blog the letters as Open Letters. Eleana

    Please read my open letter to ABC RN Outsiders with Jonathan Green
    http://alternativeviewstomsm.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/open-letter-to…ical-reporters/

16. I see they all want our Prime Minister to throw her hand in. And all the women haters in Parliament and the ( so called media) want a coup ! Well maybe these factions are getting a wee bit worried about the election result. I know a lot of people that I speak to have turned around to our Prime Minister after seeing the saturation against her in the press, thanking you…..

17. Thanks for a voice of sanity Victoria. The Age editorial is irresponsible and wicked. If Kevin gets the gong are they suddenly going to be responsible and report “his” policies. It is totally the fault of a pathetic media and pathetic journalists that politics in this country is in a shambles. Rage is an understatement of how I feel today!!

18. I have not read this article in the Age but i too am fuming at the audacity of this anomymous author to decide for me that our PM should step aside for the good of me and the other voters. He does not speak for me, no he doesn’t and he is not speaking for a lot of my friends and by the looks of the commentary he is not speaking for many people. How dare he or she?
    Thank for the list of everything Fairfax owns. I can’t say that i use any of their products but i am in favour of boycotting Farifax anyway. There is nothing fair about Fairfax!
    I am with you Victoria and Kate! Getting a protest set up by change.org is a great idea and alas i too do not know how to go about this. But once it is up and running i’d be the first to sign.

19. Boycott all the media for a month! Write to them and tell them why. The MSM are losing money and this will drive it home to them.

20. Well said Victoria!
    It has been too long now since the news in this country was reported.
    At what point did the media make a Faustian deal with corporations to become propagandists and gossip mongers rather than well researched, objective and informative journalists?
    The media has lost touch with the people in preference to becoming mouth pieces for the elite few bent serving their own purpose of getting richer and gaining more power.
    Do those among us who believe this sort of rubbish really think these self proclaimed gods will give a rats arse about the masses and our families if they succeed?

21. Well said Gail. Victoria – thanks once again for an analysis that is spot on! After the ridiculous piece of Liberal propaganda by Nicolle Flint in the SMH the other day I see that the campaign is really ramping up in Fairfax if it wasn’t already!

    Victoria, I am completely outraged by this. It’s more than irony – it’s hypocrisy! What hypocrites the MSM are, and sadly I’m including the ABC in this. A friend of mine did some volunteer work in Julia’s office back before the last election. This was probably about the time that I (not being all that politically savvy back then) started to notice the free ride the LNP were getting in the media and I kept wondering why the government never contradicted the bullshit that was coming out of the LNP and in particular Tony Abbott. I asked my friend and she said she’d wondered too and so had asked the people in Julia’s office. They said that they did and that they do everything to get their side of the story out there into the MSM but they were being actively ignored. Now this might not be news to you but it was to me at the time and from that moment on I began to be more and more angry at this obvious bias. So whose fault is it that Labor and Julia Gillard’s government have been unable to get their message out? – it’s YOURS, MSM, YOU PACK OF HYPOCRITES.

22. I read about this on Yahoo7 this morning. So yes, the Age is not reporting the news; it has become the news.

    Some points.

    One, the Age criticizes Gillard for not getting Labor’s policies and vision through. So condemning her for that sounds like the Age is actually pro-Labor. That’s a pretense. What the Age is doing sounds exactly like what the Murdoch press is doing, and they are certainly not pro-Labor. Nice try though.

    Two, where is the equal opportunity bashing of Abbott for his lack of policies and vision?

    Three, as you have pointed out, Victoria, it’s not Gillard’s role to get her vision through. It’s the media’s role to report it.

    Four. whenever the government criticizes the Opposition for their lack of policies, they come back with, “We don’t have to release our policies until the election is called in August.” They are right! They don’t have to announce their policies yet. But neither does the government.

    Five, the government has some very good policies such as Gonski reforms and NDIS. These ARE very popular with the electorate, so the Age is LYING about not getting its message through. What the Age is doing is trying to find some excuse for Gillard’s low poll numbers, and we all know that the media’s and the Opposition’s negativity is responsible for this, not the government.

    Six, let’s be clear about something. The Age is not trying to undermine Gillard because they want Rudd to lead Labor. Rudd has no policies or vision. They are pushing for Rudd because they are trying to undermine Labor.

23. Well said. Agree completely.

24. Thank you Victoria, so well said, and so true. I am saddened, disgusted and ashamed of this country for letting this shamful nonsense continue. Just like Anna Bligh, hard working intelligent knowledgeable woman will never get the recognition they deserve in this country. We really are too immature!

25. The name on the byline should be Rhinehart (colluding with Murdoch).Every morning I send an SMS to 6pr in Perth, as the talkback station,from which I have been dumped a few times.The general message I send is usually asking’what?another challenge?’followed by questioning where the real news is.What about the whereabouts of Kathy Jackson as an example.I encourage all Perth listeners to flood them with questions about the free run Tony Abbort gets.Their SMS number is
    19999677.We only get an auto reply,but they would certainly get the message that we are not all sheep,they certainly responded to the public when they dumped Sattler.

26. oh thank god for some sanity I must admit I looked at the headline and thought I can’t bear to read it. The media makes its own reality, they keep speculating and then say there is so much speculation that it is untenable. The level of hysteria abotu the leadership issue has been unrelenting since day 1. I for one will not be paying to subscribe to the Age on line.

27. So, Maybe the Age will print this in their next edition, minus the ‘fs’ for the sake of younger and older readers, but with all of the logic. Maybe a paraphrased copy of this blog, with fewer big words, can be printed in the Telegraph so their readers and shock jocks looking for inspiration will also get the message.

28. I go along with all the message content in this email….however I am disappointed that profanities have to be used to get a message across..it indicates that the author is struggling with language skills to enforce her words. Does not impress!

29. I just got a call from Newspoll, my first ever. I told them that Newspoll can go and get fd. I hope they take that message in the spirit it was intended.

30. Silkworm, you spoke for all of us.

31. Victoria thanks once again. Sane reasoning.

    The only reason Fairfax/Age wants to send that sort of message to the general public is that one Gina Reinhart wants it to be so. Step down PM? What for. What good reason would she do that, because you want it. You GR are starting to ape RM in the bullying department. TA just takes his cue from whichever of you he thinks that he can get the best mileage out of.

    Talk about a lot of self interested losers they are.

    If Victoria has disappointed anyone with a few profanities, I am sure she can be excused. After all its what we are all saying especially when we see & hear the absolute rubbish that is being dished out to us on an hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year after year basis. There, guess I didn’t have to use a profanity, I just save it up to scream at the TV at home. My poor husband asked my quite nicely I might add, ‘can you stop with the f word please’, its apparently offending him on some level. Oh, just don’t get me started on exasperation!!

    Robyn (all of the others here) is right about that friend of hers asking them at JG’s office why the ALP can’t get their message out. I also have contact with the PM’s office as I live in her electorate & I also asked the same question. We can’t even get a decent coverage in our local paper because it is owned by guess who? Fairfax that’s who.

    John Howard, you did a very sneaky move when you were in power. You removed the convergence laws that kept the very fine line of balance in the media. Not many people realize that. This should be a very good reason NOT TO VOTE FOR TA & HIS MOB. They are all a contriving bunch of idiots.

32. Spot on Victoria! Well said.

33. Well said Victoria! You speak for us…I’ve been fuming all morning. Have emailed Age editor & cancelled the Age. Look fwd to change.org petition.

34. silkworm, please substitute the phrase: “go forth and multiply.” thankyou.

35. Well said Victoria. This is an appalling attack on democracy and, as you say, ironically framed as an attempt to save democracy. The hypocrisy is astonishing. They choose not to cover policy but prefer to get themselves in a lather over leadership speculation and then blame the Prime Minister. How about doing their job examining policy and leave the leadership muck reporting to actual factual coverage ie. if there is a leadership challenge then tell us about it. I’m fed up with the constant rumour cycle. We need real journalism, not this trash. Shame on you Fairfax – you were once the media organisation of choice and The Age was the jewel in the crown. You are now competing with The Australian for ‘bottom of the barrel’ award.

36. @dave the brickie….spot on Dave and they promised us, having Gina on the board wouldn’t influence policy…guess the laugh is on us.

37. Brilliant!

38. I love you Victoria. That was the best article I’ve read on the subject, and it encapsulates my thoughts exactly. I am astounded at the shenanigans going on ‘out there’ at the moment. Amazed and discouraged. So thanks for cheering my day.

39. Well said Victoria, there are so many of us with similar views. I am continually outraged by the unbridled arrogance of people with a journalism degree who think it is their right, if not duty, to hijack our ‘democracy’ by setting the agenda for the upcoming election. If only the media used the time it devoted to the non issue of Labor leadership to insisting the LNP articulate its policies for the upcoming the public would see how little they have to offer.

40. Thanks Victoria
    you are a beacon of light in an ever darkening world.
    Have been thinking of starting a fund to give Kevin Rudd a lifetime supply of incontinence pads that may help his leaking.

41. Dear Victoria – I stumbled across this article be chance. Fresh on this Facebook/socialmedia thing. Only want to see Mad Monk given his comeuppance. Keet up your work. Oddly enough there are men who also think as you seem to do.

42. I would write – responsible parents whose big seventies faze lottsa weekend parties who employ journalists who think they are the employer of the Prime Minister of Australia but who couldn’t control their own family business behind closed doors… LOL I did when I had a friend flying up for the Fairfax boys weekend parties..Woo Hoo
    Lots of nipple pierceing was the ‘Age’ back in those days….Fairfac like Gine Rinehart think they are running this country… Not so… Let the PM run her election and let people’s voices make the choise…..not a round rineharts one handed poker game and pierced ear rings!!!!!!!!!

43. Hey, CMMC, can I pinch your slogan? Over at Fair Media Alliance we have a thing going on with printable car -stickers. This would make a beauty.
    Meanwhile, I’m writing a letter to go with a change.org petition to go to Newscorp, Fairfax and ABC along with a boycott day for next Saturday, unless anyone has a better idea. I’ll aim to get it up tomorrow, so if anyone would like to contribute ideas, please do so.
    Thanks again, Victoria.

44. Well said, tho I really wish that you had laid the bride bare instead of just commenting on her frock. The Prime minister has I think made some bad decisions (boat people is one example that comes to mind and so is the same sex marriage issue) and the PM does seem to be out of touch frequently (although I think that is the marketing led labor party at fault and not the PM as such).

    In light of the machinery waging this soft war against her, anyone that thinks that Julia Gillard is not strong enough for the job, is clearly deluded. The PM has done well to keep her sanity, stave off Rudd whose constant white anting of the Labor party speak volumes about his ego and little about the needs of Labor and or Australia as a country.

    The truth about Fairfax media and its dire state, terrible decisions and the consequences of the bedchums it is choosing to share std’s with are staggering and need to be made plain.

    Unfortunately those who will decide this election are from the top and the bottom of the food chain! At the top they shape the news that influences those at the bottom. Those of us from the middle, who read articles like this, who are interested and moderate in our views, won’t get a look in. Ironic given that the top of the food chain has no regard for those at the bottom of the food chain and will eat them alive an orgy of American capitalistic values. I had a school teacher who once told me that you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink; you can sure as hell make it wish it had the drink when it had the chance. I believe that the bottom of the food chain are about to discover how much they have in common with that horse.

    A choice between Abbott whose lips have been sewn shut by his corporate minders who are afraid that people might recognize him for the malicious corporate handbag, he is, or the disappointing Prime Minister whose integrity should not be called into question because she successfully trounced Rudd (never seemed to be an issue when Keating did it to Hawke), but because she appears to not want to commit to a positive position on the ideological issues of the day (environment, mining industry,detention centers etc). Gillard has done well to inhabit a middle ground but I don’t think that the Rudd government was elected because we wanted a middle ground government. I think that people actually want commitment, rightly or wrongly to ideological and moral positions.

    Another point where I think that Gillard is visionary is her bringing womans self determination back into politics, it is fairly plain to anyone with any ability to analyze past performance of Abbott must be able to see that an Abbott govt will attack those rights. Abbott who is currently under a vow of silence about his plans for us has not yet declared his plans for a theocratic government btu after the election he will (like Howard) tell us that he was upfront and that he has a mandate. If as I suspect, he does unleash his religion upon us then woman’s rights are going to be one of his targets. Think of it as Australian year zero minus Pol Pot but with the Disney channel as a replacement…

    The PM has been disappointing for many of us. In light of what she has achieved and in the face of an opposition that is staggering in its mind numbing bullshit and corporate nepotism, I think that Julia Gillard is the only person in the currently lacklustre labor party (aside from Penny Wong and a smidgen of others) who ought to be warming the PM’s seat*. I can only see one rather dim hope for the Liberals to actually do good for Australians and for Australia and not at all with Abbott at the helm.

    When the media anoint Phony Tony the mad Abbott as PM you better pray for a leadership spill just like the one that labor used to shaft Rudd (Mr Turnbull, you are on notice) because the minute Abbott is PM, his hubris and corporate mates will rape and pillage this country as it has never been raped and pillaged before. As Malcolm Fraser said Abbott is “…one of the most dangerous (politicians) in Australia’s history”. He wants that job, and has no scruples about how to get it either…

    * I suspect that if we add all the donkey votes in the next election and counted them as lack of confidence in the governing parties and system then we ought to be having a referendum for a new political system…

45. Are you REALLY so new to the idea of newspaper editorials? Pretty much every newspaper in the world publishes one every day.
    BTW Ian: Gina Rinehardt is not on the Fairfax board.

46. I was also extremely disappointed by Leigh Sales’ interview with Craig Emerson on 7.30 the other night and left a message on the website. I cannot believe the rest of our media is being led by the nose down into the irrelevant by the gutter Murdoch press. Read the Leveson report – the man should be in gaol… not telling us who should be leading us. I haven’t bought a Murdoch product in 30 years and have no intention of starting now….
    And I have real sympathy for Rudd – if he didn’t campaign vigorously the media would invent crap about him ‘spitting the dummy’ or ‘quietly plotting’. What part of ‘NO’ don’t these morons understand. Might I also point out that this is the 20th anniversary of Hewson’s Liberals losing the unloseable election. Only last year Murdoch threw his enormous resources behind a fellow criminal and tax evader Mitt Romney and got nowhere…

47. Dear MSM,
    there comes a time in ones life that one must give up this addiction.
    I’m afraid that I have to tell you that this addiction is had taken over your better judgements and now you seem frail.
    It seems that you really need help because your losing all of your friends, readers and subscriptions due to this addiction.
    They say birds of a feather flock together and unfortunately the crowd you now hang around with just does not fit in with society or the community.
    Your spending way too much time and effort on your addiction not to mention the financial cost of the actions due to your addiction.
    So, I have decided that I need some new articles in my life, articles that appeal to the community and articles that give truthful fact without the addiction clouding the opinion of their authors views.
    I really feel your trying to push your addiction onto me and frankly I really don’t like what your offering.
    This is the reason I stopped enjoying your company and now have found others to relate with.
    It was good while it lasted but now I am appealing for you, The MSM, to get rehabilitation before it’s too late, before you have a financial breakdown and come join Australian society when you have lost this horrible addiction.

48. So Julia Gillard has to go otherwise “voters will be denied a proper contest of ideas and policies – and that would be a travesty for the democratic process”. This ridiculous claim from a media outlet that refuses to tell voters about Gillard’s policies. And refuses to apply any scrutiny whatsoever to the alternative PM. Contest of ideas? What happened to the media in this country? Speechless.

49. To Labor supporters

    – Labor’s leadership in-fighting is real, no matter you like it or not.

    – it is undeniable that Rudd is more popular among the voters than Gillard, he may avert the election loss.

    However, you may like to stick with Gillard down the road of ” dying on your feet than on your knees”. But don’t blame the medias.

    I am sure that Abbott coalition would rather face Gillard in the election.

50. It seems that the print media in particular are affronted by the fact that Ms Gillard has not stepped aside &/or Kevin Rudd has not challenged as they had been forecasting. This tends to give some credibility to the belief by many that this whole thing has been a media beat-up driven largely, as I see it, by the Murdoch press.

    If the media were to be consistent they would have taken much more interest in the Herald Nielsen poll from last week showing Abbott at 30% and Turnbull at 63% as preferred opposition leader.

51. The only reason I can see for Fairfax’s constant spruiking of Rudd is that over many years Rudd cultivated journalists, Grattan and Hartcher for example, by feeding them information with the understanding that Fairfax would support him in trying to remove Julia Gillard. As the window of opportunity for Rudd to challenge diminishes, the hysteria, frenzy and blood lust within Fairfax increases.

52. Every Saturday I look forward to reading Michael Carlton’s column, so this morning I was totally gob-smacked. He is usually the person one could turn to in the print media to get a balanced perspective, but maybe not. I sent him an email advising him of my disappointment in his article and I hope that he is inundated with other similar emails.

    I read a piece that came up on facebook the other day. It came out of Australian Independent. It was written by @fluffula original posted on TurnLeft 2013. It was brilliant. She said everything that I had been feeling ever since Julia became PM. If I could just copy the last paragraph, it will give you a good idea of how good the article was.

    “Kevin, you were dumped by your party and Ms Gillard put in your place because you were a prig who disapproved of anything you thought played well with the election and outside of the Apology to our Aboriginal People who have been abused for 200 years and continue to be and the stimulus, you couldn’t run Government. You wouldn’t consult, you bullied and you ignored those who you thought had slighted you. You were in it for the ego, much like Abbott and you are not a better alternative, I do not believe you could have weathered such an onslaught or gotten NBN. GONSKI or NDIS through parliament, all nation building, impressive initiatives. You couldn’t get your ETS or Health Policy through. Yeah I know you leaked at the last election to make sure she faced a hung parliament or no Government at all because better the Man than THAT woman. In my opinion, you should leave the party and hang your head in shame.

    No gentlemen you were not born to rule, you were born to remind us that some men in Australia are not worth pissing on if they were on fire.”

    Julia Gillard is our first female Prime Minister and she has served our country brilliantly

53. Thanks for the link Kate. Fair Media Alliance is a great site. We need more of this kind of media.
    There must be journalists who still have integrity and are dying inside because of the rubbish and bias they are required to produce and support. I feel for them.

54. Thanks, rosellajam. We’ll have the petition up and running before bedtime tomorrow, so if there are any points you feel strongly about, please let’s know so that we can write the best possible petition. And thanks again to Victoria for getting on to this so early and so well.

55. Thanks for the excellent piece Victoria.

    I honestly don’t know why anybody bothers to pay any attention to the mainstream media anymore. They are so obviously corrupt and not in the least interested in the actual news it seems a total waste of time. They are in slow-motion self destruct anyway. Just wait a few years and they will be dust. Radio, newspapers, and TV news are all hemorrhaging audience at such a rate that if it wasn’t for plain inertia we wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore. I feel sorry for the real journalists who are aboard the doomed vessel. Perhaps they should bail out and become bloggers.

56. Good one Victoria. You tell ’em! Very disappointed in Fairfax lately. They still do some good work occasionally…. but some of the rubbish they come out with! Man! It’s worrying because we need diversity of media, meanwhile Fairfax is shitting in its own nest with this disrespect for its audience.

57. IN THE end, though his murky past threw a dark shadow over the party for almost 30 years, Lyenko Urbancic was never forced to hand in his membership of the NSW Liberal Party.

    An avid anti-Communist who was outed in the 1970s as a former Nazi propagandist, Urbancic died yesterday in Sydney. He was still a member of the party and attended a State Council meeting last year.

    The party never succeeded in expelling the Yugoslav-born, right-wing, Slovenian nationalist. Nor did it end the influence of his faction, “the Uglies”, which he helped create in the 1970s to restore backbone to the party.

    Urbancic’s rapid rise in the party ended in 1979, when he was exposed in a radio program as a former Nazi propagandist in Yugoslavia. He was briefly suspended from the party while investigations were conducted, but denied the claims and narrowly avoided expulsion.

    In 1986, he told a Sydney newspaper: “I never said ‘Heil Hitler’, I never put a Nazi uniform on, I never greeted in the Nazi way.”

    But Urbancic never disguised his efforts to lead a right-wing faction to attack the party’s small-l liberal members and influence its policies on drugs, homosexuals and law and order.

    In the mid-1980s, the Uglies were believed to control about a quarter of the State Council’s delegates. But the Uglies never took complete control of the party. In 1988, the Liberals were restored to power by a Hungarian of Jewish ancestry, Nick Greiner, who distanced himself from claims that the party was under the control of neo-Nazis.

    The Liberals have found it difficult to shake off the association with extremists, or fears by the party’s moderates that a right-wing insurgency may prevail.

    The fears resurfaced last year after David Clarke, an upper house MP, helped to lead a re-emergence of the party’s right faction. This prompted one of his Liberal colleagues, Patricia Forsythe, to claim on ABC TV that the party risked being captured by extremists and zealots.

58. Victoria, I have to say that we are very much on the same page, as I wrote a piece last night on the same subject, minus The Age article, which came out this morning.

    “Are the MSM really that stupid?”

    Are the MSM really that stupid?

    Keep up the great work 😀

    Cheers 😀

59. Good one, Truthie.

60. CMMC, thanks for that 😀

    Cheers 😀

61. The problem is that the Age has sunk to such a low that they’re just not publishing any news at all. Good article and thanks for putting it out there.

62. Uh.

    Just FYI, because it seems like you don’t know much about how newspapers operate:

    First, the editorial follows the editorial line, which is set by the editorial board, which is comprised of all the senior editors of the paper.

    Second, the editorial is in the OPINION section of the paper. That is as opposed to the NEWS section. The difference being that the opinion section includes the opinions that various people hold regarding the news, like the editorial board of the Age, who are apparently of the opinion that Julia Gillard should step aside. They have that opinion because of the news—reported in the news section—that all of the polling shows her leading her government to an electoral wipeout.

63. NEWS JUST IN: All 47 of Julia Gillard’s supporters in Victoria have never heard of the concept of daily newspaper editorials, let alone the fact that nobody ever takes the slightest bit of notice of them mainly because they’re not read.

64. Thank you Victoria for this, glad someone has said it. I guess I am really giving up the Age today, it’s sad because it’s been part of my life since I came to live in Victoria (sorry about too many Victorias) over forty years ago. It really meant something to me and now it’s gone. Lost. Sad.
    Ignoring the smart arse comments about what an editorial is, the key point is the circularity: the MSM have been out to discredit Julia Gillard and now they’ve succeeded, they say she has to go. It is deeply concerning for our democracy.
    Julia Gillard has made mistakes, but she has also faced a perfect storm – minority government and being the first female PM. This has enabled both Rudd and Abbott to wedge her – both trading on her perceived ‘illegitimacy’. If Julia Gillard were to step down it would mean terrible things for Australia, both about the power of the media and patriarchy.
    Unlike some commentators here, I don’t agree that the MSM has little influence. As far as I’m aware most voters get their information about politics from TV news, and in turn TV ( and radio) get a lot of theirs from the print media. If any knowledgeable media people on here know differently, please feel free to advise me.
    The particular issue with the Age is that it used to be a good paper and now it’s sold out. Thank heavens for the Guardian.
    I think it’s important for people to speak up and I look forward to seeing the petition.
    Btw that Nicole Flint in the Age is a pretty unbelievable phenomenon. Where did she come from?

65. MK thanks for teaching us how to suck eggs.

    The point missed in your explanation is that is the way most newspapers used to operate, but it’s not how they operate now.

    The news section has long since stopped being about factual investigative journalism and is mostly biased often deliberate inaccurate opinion that feeds into the editorials and opinion pages.

    One is a prop for the other and unlike in the past it is often the editorial and opinion that get reported as the news, not the inaccurate news that fed the opinion.

66. Someone was asking about bumper stickers?

    Just get that photo of the LNP front bench on the cover of their “Plan for the future” pamphlet and change the heading to “The Razor Gang”.

67. Nice one Victoria. The only thing that sells papers anyway are the sports sections. The rest of the content is mainly opiniated junk! Keep up the intelligent discussion.

68. Thank you for your opinion Victoria. This is my rhetorical question: If you keep whiteanting every woman who disagrees with you with vile and negative language, how do you expect to get any credibility for women in general? To put the question in context do a review of the language surrounding other successful women like Rinehart, Bishop, Hanson and Thatcher. How many woman complaining about the treatment of Gillard danced on Thatcher’s grave?
    On the point of who elects the PM, the PM is the Parliamentry leader of the party which has the majority in the lower house, and is elected by sitting members only, as is the Leader of the Opposition. If you want to vote directly for the PM, you need to do the work to get elected. If you want to vote indirectly, you need to make sure you elect a sitting member who is going to vote for your choice. At present, I think it may be safe to say that a vote for Labor would not necessarily be a vote for Ms Gillard as there seems to be a large proportion of Labor MPs/senators and electoral candidates who don’t support Gillard as leader. The labor party is much huger than Gillard or Rudd, it needs to get back to being more of a party for working people and less of a US presidential style election advertising space selling opportunity. Gillard is currently making the same mistake as John Howard, she does not know when to sacrifice the leadership for the sake of the future of the party. Possibly Rudd is also making the same mistake and one of the other talented Labor MPs needs to step up and take the lead and leave the Rudd Gillard years behind to be remembered in a TV mini series. Looking at the current crop of sitting members there is plenty of talent of both sexes available to take up the leadership.

69. Liam have to disagree with you the Thatcher analogy.

    She was barely lambasted or attacked because of her sex and people danced not because she was a successful woman in power gone, but because she was a terrible leader who caused unnecessary widespread suffering and hurt based on a failed ideology that is held up as and ideal be the far right to this day, Howard being chief amongst them.

    If Thatcher had been a male who had done exactly the same, the same people would have danced on his death as well.

70. Thank you for your opinion, Liam & thank goodness that is all it is, because I am damned sure no man is going to tell me how to think. Never have & never will.

    Hanson successful??? This is a woman who, due to the chicanery of Tony Abbott, was sent to gaol but now backs him to the hilt!! Must be Stockholm Syndrome. She has been an utter failure in her many tries to enter parliament since her first fluke win. Rinehart inherited her wealth at the right time & due to her father’s teachings & the right time for making a buck, has parlayed that into a huge fortune. JBishop & Thatcher are just nasty, non-empathetic people.

    We also do not need a lecture on the fact that WE don’t elect the PM. We are only too aware of that. Wish we could but………

71. It is a great article Ms Rollison, thank you,
    it annoys me that it is Mr Abbott in the media, or if blokey, Tony Abbott, yet the Prime Minister of Australia is reduced to Julia and/or Ms Gillard.
    Like the PM or not, has little to do with anything, but reducing her to first name or Ms Gillard reduces the significance of her role as Prime Minister and that is their aim.

72. Well written Victoria, really loved it all including the f…..
    The big question is can we…. keep this awesome woman … Prime Minister Julia Gillard and NOT vote for TA who leads Liberal.

73. Thanks Victoria. You have written this so well, it was a joy to read. You are spot on. The MSM would LOVE Gillard to stand down, but she wont. The MSM has bullied, smeared, ridiculed and abused our first female PM and now it would absolutely suit them for her to stand down, and take ‘ownership’ of the disgusting, manipulative mess that the MSM has made of our politics. Our PM, The Honourable Julia Gillard — has done nothing to deserve this. The Labor Government has worked tirelessly and excellently to achieve the best outcomes she can for this country and our Prime Minister stands at the head of all of their achievements. I don’t know how many Australians have been hoodwinked by the media. I don’t know how many Australians need to work at learning how to think for themselves. The hatred that some people apparently feel for Julia Gillard is irrational. The ‘haters’ can’t explain their hatred. Most people who don’t like what the Government has achieved or who just prefer to vote Liberal, don’t have to resort to ‘hatred’ of Julia Gillard to make their points. The hatred is unjustifiable and the people who apparently feel that way cannot explain why they feel that way. The media has created the hatred. The Abbott led coalition has fed into it, worked with it and profited by it — but it is the creation of the media. Now the media would like Julia Gillard to just go away, quietly – and by doing so, offer some slither of justification for all of their vilification of her. She gave in. She buckled. It was HER fault that people didn’t listen to her, Not the Media’s — so she had to go. Well, she wont go. And now the Media is BEGGING her to go. How desperate is that? She’ll be staying. And the voters of Australia can have a think about what they want to achieve in this country and vote accordingly on Sept 14. If there is any justice left in this country, the Government will win with a majority — so we can legislate to regulate this media. It needs regulation. Desperately. Abbott wont do it. Nor will Rudd. Maybe this is why they are so keen for Julia to ‘stand down’ — they are frightened she might win. And the current Labor Government is the only Government which will stand up to the media in this country, should they get a majority.

74. My reply to the AGE was the real story is PM Gillard may just win the election and make the AGE and all the other MSM look the fools that they are.

75. Very well said, Renee, I agree with you a 100%. This blind “hatred” is very definitely irrational & we all know those who foments it.

    Do we want individuals like that to run this country? Imagine how despicable it would be. It was bad enough when mean-spirited Howard was in charge & gave tacit approval for all kinds of nastiness to erupt. It will be worse with his odious heirs.

76. Renee, also spot on. I’ve been wracking my brains as to why all the media now seem to have jumped on the band wagon of Murdoch’s making. I see the appalling Gina Rinehart’s influence at what used to be a trusted source – The Age, but the ABC has had me somewhat flummoxed and I might say heartbroken at it’s shift from balance to attack on Labor. Maybe it is just that – fear of regulation. Sadly the introduction of regulation was botched by Labor but the outcome may have been no different had they made a better job of it. The media became a pack of screaming banshees because as far as I could see these moderate changes might actually require them to base their stories on the truth! Now this wouldn’t suit the Murdoch media at all since Murdoch has no qualms about letting the truth get in the way of a good story. But it also seems they’ve gone into Journo group think as Brendan O’Connor said the other morning and are hunting as a pack. They scream about FREE SPEECH completely ignoring that Free Speech doesn’t mean you can say absolutely ANYTHING! I think we could all do with some education of what Free Speech means in this country in a constitutional and legal sense, because most of us have very little idea!

77. Uh oh. Looks like spam fishing. A non-specific, flattering comment pretty obviously translated from another language and requesting an email response (and thus fishing for email addresses). I would not email them. It will almost certainly get you put on a spammer list that gets sold to god knows how many other spammers.

78. @Robyn, I am pretty sure we never had any legal guarantee of “free speech” here in Australia. We certainly don’t have a bill of “human rights”. We are allowed certain “privileges” as our owners see fit. The whole free speech and human rights thing is something for people in USA. Unfortunately delirious patriotic propaganda and their lack of vigilance has meant they lost both to creeping fascism — of course they still *think* they have both, but ask Ed Snowden how much either is worth today in USA.

79. For Mr “Flim Flam” and “Guff” it gets worse
    And showing jealousy is a great curse
    They’re now doing it tough
    Soon will run out of puff
    Since Rudd put the Libs in reverse.

    Today Tony Abbott the bum
    Let a grain of truth from his mouth come
    When he said, “”You can bet
    What Libs promise you’ll get!”
    By wiping all good Labours done.

    Question Abbott the Rhodes Scholar star
    And his answer will start with “Look Ah!”
    Then his slimy tongue
    Spits the usual dung
    Same old, same old, thus far

    Some Catholics think Tony’s a Saint
    But look closer you’ll find that he a’ínt
    For he’s not had a Miracle
    Sometimes gets hysterical
    And should be kept in a constraint

    Lying Tony has proved he’s a smarty
    So to keep Aussie hale and hearty
    And to fulfil your dreams
    Please shit on the schemes
    Of Abbott’s Misogynist Party.

    No way could you call Abbott hearty
    In fact each of the Libs is a smarty
    And behind their façade
    No female regard
    From this cynical Misogynist Party.

    Drooling messages so “Crystal Clear”
    While grimacing from ear to ear
    This Misogynist Lib
    Licks his lips with each fib
    Abbott’s agenda is something to fear

    Tony Abbott is obviously sick
    With a brain as thick as a brick
    If you are right in the head
    Please don’t let us be led
    By this wing nutted lunatic

    If the Misogynist Party was wise
    It would stop echoing all Abbott’s lies
    Which in the long run
    Will bring them undone
    And a Party that all will despise.