Posts Tagged The Herald Sun

What we need

Whoever it was decided to put a MUTE button on the remote control of a television set is deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize.

The MUTE button has relieved me of the tedium of listening to anything that has been said by Tony Abbott since he began banging on about the Brisbane flood levy from a couple months ago.

The MUTE button did save me from the sad and sorry spectacle of listening to more than about 12 seconds of Senator Mary Jo Fisher’s interpretive dance speech from a week or so ago, after which I switched channels to spare me the visceral horror of the visuals.

The MUTE button is my friend.

The MUTE button may well be proof that there is indeed a God, and that He/She/It is most definitely a compassionate deity.

Praise be to the MUTE button.

But we need another thing.

We need a MUTE button for the internet.

You would set up your internet MUTE button by inputting the names of anyone you could not give a flying fuck about and of whom you are sick and tired of hearing every time you click to a news site (I’m thinking Judy Moran, any Ibrahim brother who gets shot, Charlie fucking Sheen or any other dipshit celebrity having a public meltdown, a whole raft of politicians, pundits, property developers, Harvey Norman, Andrew Bolt, Pauline Hanson, anything even remotely associated with the television series “Underbelly” and so forth). And then, when you click upon a news site to find some actual fucking NEWS about some actual fucking STUFF, your MUTE button would filter any story containing those names from the page.

You could also input by subject. For example, “GREAT BIG NEW TAX!”.

Your very own, highly personalised internet filter, if you will.

I think this is an excellent idea.

Someone go make it.

Please.

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Whistle while you work

Consider the following post from Andrew Bolt’s blog. It comprises a 118 word quote from a Yahoo news story, and nothing else …

Comments are not being accepted.

The post is entitled “No comment”.

Which seems to indicate that even Mr. Bolt is reluctant to “comment” upon the very item he himself has posted. And so, we may be rightly justified in asking ourselves, “Why is it so? For what purpose has this been posted by Mr. Bolt?” …

“A pure hand needs no glove to cover it” – Nathanial Hawthorne

Indeed.

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TalibandGate!

Julia Gillard has made a “disturbing verbal slip”.

A transcript of this outrage compared to actual footage of the atrocity reveals once more that the leftist elites of the Stalinist-driven ABC have colluded to cover the “embarrassing gaffe” and paint their Red Goddess of The Infinite Sickle in a light far more flattering.

We must surely give thanks for the revealing of this conspiracy on this day to Australia’s Greatest Investigative Journalist, Mr. Andrew Bolt.

In a daring expose that will surely rank with the breaking of the My Lai Massacre story in 1968 by Seymour Hersh (and one that shall no doubt have dire implications for Mr. Bolt’s attempts to engage with members of the Federal Labor Government in future), Bolt has uncovered a poisonous trend within the Public Service of widespread deception, manipulation of facts and data, and outright denial of obvious truths, all designed to satiate a wider ideological and political agenda dictated to by those faceless men and women of “your” warmist ABC in an effort to deform and distort public perception of political activity at the highest level by deliberately misrepresenting the factual record.

While it may be (arguably) argued by those apologists for the media elites of the inner-city left that the elocutionary facilities of our political representatives cannot be considered an issue of vital importance compared to, say, the constant influx to our shores of swarms of illegal Islamists via highly organised foreign flotillas of deceptively innocent-seeming vessels of terror, the issue must be placed in a larger, and potentially far more dangerous perspective.

The leaders of our country must possess the ability to communicate effectively and seriously on the world stage, as issues that go to national security and the safety of our diggers heroically struggling in foreign climes are at the highest stake, and the consequences of ineffective, inefficient and simply erroneous communications could be potentially dire indeed.

That Andrew Bolt has so courageously taken it upon himself to buck the trend toward the type of ideological pamphleteering that comprises so much of contemporary mainstream media reportage to reveal, without fear nor favour, an unpleasant reality, a troubling aspect (if you will) of our current Prime Minister’s psyche and general demeanour, and one that shall inevitably come to impact upon our international efforts to rid the planet of Islamic terrorism, must be applauded by all who value transparency and accountability from those practitioners of that once noble, and now rather ragged, institute of the Fourth Estate.

Encore! Encore!

And so, I entreat you all to join with me now in celebration of the fine works of upstanding journamalism Mr. Bolt has seen fit to deliver unto us over these many years past, and long may he continue to embiggen us all with his extraordinary talents far, far into the foreseeable future.

Word.

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Taking a risk… just like the people wanted

I woke up to the news of a 50-50 Newspoll and a shit-scared Julia Gillard vowing to stop playing it safe; she will throw out the ‘Rule Book’ and get down with the people.

Julia Gillard. Advisers now just out of frame.

Julia Gillard. Advisers now just out of frame.

Gillard’s advisers, after much focus group testing, found that the electorate thought she was too “safe”. The electorate thought that Julia was too stage managed during the campaign and they felt they didn’t really know the “real Julia”.

Feeling the threat of a Newspoll that showed Australia dangerously close to “Prime Minister, Tony Abbott”, Julia Gillard’s minders aranged an appearance on the Nine Network’s Today Show. She performed well and stayed on message. Gillard delivered her message well, telling the voters that she would get dirty and engage with the issues on her terms. “You’re avoiding gaffes and all the rest of it….we’ve been running that traditional style of campaign. I’m going to throw that rule book out and really get out there”, Gillard said.

And the media gobbled it up.

“Let Gillard be Gillard”, said the political geeks on Twitter, with their allusions to fictional West Wing President Jed Bartlett and has Chief of Staff’s “Let Bartlett be Bartlett” note.

The media stayed perfectly on message. The Australian, The Age, The Herald SunThe ABC all lead with similar stories. Gillard would be throwing out the script, running a real campaign the old fashioned way, taking risks, making mistakes.

But in this age of stage-managed campaigns, even taking a risk seems so… dull. Doesn’t it?

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Keeping the masses outraged

The Herald Sun continues with the quality journalism:

Screen shot 2010-06-30 at 12.22.43 AM

TAXPAYERS could pay $13,500 to fly Julia Gillard to Queensland to pay tribute to a party godfather and raise money for Labor with the big end of town.

Ms Gillard, who has shunned the trappings of office and declined to move into The Lodge, was due to fly to Brisbane on a government jet for an ALP fundraiser last night for an exclusive $5500-a-head dinner with business elite.

Operative words in this article are “could” and “was”. Not once in the article does it say she did use tax-payer funds to fly to Brisbane.

But don’t worry, the Liberal party buzzwords were in there:

Led by factional warlord Bill Ludwig, the AWU is the power base of the party’s Right wing, which was instrumental in delivering Ms Gillard the leadership in last week’s unprecedented coup.

“Factional Warlord”: DRINK!

Seriously, it’s like the Herald Sun is just re-printing Liberal Party talking points.

Still waiting for that pay-wall.

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Compare the pair

Let’s compare how the two newspapers spin MTR’s (a.k.a Outrage Radio For The Over 60′s) continued failure to crack the Melbourne radio market:

The Age:

Radio host defends ratings flop

Melbourne’s newest radio station, MTR 1377, has failed to make an impact, attracting an average audience of just 10,000 people and a market share of 1.7 per cent in this morning’s ratings report.

News.com.au (article removed):

Battle for listeners hots up in lucrative Melbourne talkback market?

I would quote part of the article, but unfortunately it has since been deleted. Rest assured though, they were very positive that a 1.7% share was a stunning success.

If MTR wishes to pick up the ratings may we suggest:

  1. More live updates from the Police media unit.
  2. Saucy Sam Newman on women’s issues – nightly after 10.
  3. A mix of the hits from the 30′s, 40′s and today (the 1950′s).
  4. A Black Thunders style enterprise that cruises the streets handing out boxes of expired tacos.
  5. Every fifth caller wins a set of drinks coasters featuring the face of Steve Price.
  6. More of Ann from North Balwyn. Kaz Cooke was right.
  7. A quiz show hosted by Ian Plimer – everything you knew about science is wrong!
  8. Increase outrage by 43.5%
  9. A woman.

Leave more suggestions in the comments.

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Taking bets

As I predicted yesterday, the paper versions of Melbourne’s main daily newspapers were all over the Carl Williams murder story. Furthermore, I predict that unless another boat of darkies shows up, or a new war breaks out, Carl Williams will be the media focus until the end of the week (perhaps longer).

I challenge you, the Groupthink readers, to predict just how many column inches (in m) will be wasted on this voyeuristic, crime-romanticizing shite between Tuesday (yesterday) and Sunday (the 25th).

The GT reader who gets closest will be awarded a prestigious #SocialMediaExpert badge.

Prizes will be awarded separately for The Age and for The Herald Sun.

To get you started, here are some numbers from yesterday, just to give you an idea of where we are heading.

The Herald Sun used approximately 6m of column space to report the Murder and around 1.05 square meters of images and charts to illustrate the story including a 4 page wrap around in full colour and then the front page proper.

The Age covered the story extensively too, but I will hold the numbers until we have a result at the end of the week.

Have at it.

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