Robert Manne on Monckton's plan for the Australian media

Bill#8 There is no such thing as an irony filter. Trust me.

It's over Tim. Your lot has lost.
A collective apology will suffice.
Apology accepted in advance.
Let's all go on now to worry about other far more important things.

Snap!

But this is still a significant worry, as the tube has a reach into the suburbs that print-media - particularly the Oz - can only dream of. Which is the point, really...

We can't have that !!!!!

The masses will lynch us if they find out the truth !!!

Ever encountered any of those theories about the links between the excessive use of punctuation and various personality disorders, Karen?

Sorry, Karen(?????)

I think Karen was being sarcastic, bill.

We need to come up with a more appropriate name for a hypothetical "Australian Fox News". (Where's Zibethicus when you need him?)

To borrow a phrase from Orac over at ScienceBlogs' [Respectful Insolence](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/), you could call it Fetid Load of Dingo's Kidneys News. It's at least topical to Australia.

Although I will admit it's a pretty unwieldy term.

Thanks. That was very interesting. We have a somewhat similar situation here in Canada, with the appearance of Sun TV. So far, they've managed to make themselves look like a bunch of buffoons, but there's no doubt that they represent the intersection of money and the kind of far Right ideology that Mr. Manne is talking about.

Ah, I apologise! Irony filter not working again...

Karen was being sarcastic, but in this context that's not a good thing.

Hopefully it is some editor at the The Monthly, and not Australian's leading public intellectual himself, who mis-refers to Monckton as "Lord". Aside from that, this is an excellent article, and it answers Tim's question in depth -- be sure to read it.

Ianam,

Monckton is a lord, just not a member of the house of lords. It is the latter claim he has wrongfully dissembled his way around. However, lord is the correct honorific for a viscount.

Ok, you're correct about the distinction between the honorific and the membership in the House of Lords; my mistake. However, my reading says that while it's proper to address a viscount as "Lord" in speech, the correct designation is "the Viscount Monckton" or "the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley". I myself, not being a fan of aristocracy, will call him something else.

At least in Canada we have a law that apparently says you cannot broadcast "false or misleading news"

So currently no Fox news and, I imagine, a very disappointed Sun News though their latest escapade in faking a citizenship ceremony is just a bit dubious.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/fake-citizenship-ceremony-…

The correct designation is "the discount Monckton". The baronet title was given to his grandfather in 1957.
I used to think it was part of the fee for helping Edward VIII during the abdication crisis in the 30's, but the timing is wrong - it looks like it it's more the titles for the boys thing for English conservative politicians.

That article was just utterly demoralising to read. The continued corruption of democracy by these conservative arse-clowns is inevitable. Progressive politics is sadly finished in this country thanks to the cashed-up bogan masses guided by their right wing puppet masters. May as well just go out and buy a McMansion, a pearl white BMW X7, and a kick-ass jet-ski. I give up - Can't beat 'em - join 'em. I am now going over to news.com.au to read about Lady Gaga's Australian tour. No more giving a shit about shit, unless it's extreme or awesome shit. Goodbye.

Fox in Australia would set the cat amongst the pidgeons.

Fox vs Faux news

We do need some balance, sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

I quite like "The Fetid Load Of Dingo's Kidneys News", but it is a mouthful. How long do you reckon before it just becomes "Dingo's Kidneys News" (which has the virtue of "DK" in the abbreviation) or even just "Dingo News"?

@ianam

I myself quite like referring to him as Chris. I imagine that annoys someone as attached to titles as he.

@Dave H

> I myself quite like referring to him as Chris.

I've done that for ages. Also "Vicky" (short for Viscount)

Karen, could you find it within yourself to write something that is not immensely stupid?

Omg, a rich person starting up a media firm. How frightening!

The Monthly, owned by rich developer Maurie Schartz

The Global Mail, owned by Greens supporter Graeme Wood.

What a pathetic thread.

Well now you've left your little rant on it, it is.

Do you really have nothing better to do than that?

OMFG:

> OMG, a group of citizens complaining about lies and bullshit masquerading as news. How frightening!

> What a pathetic troll I am!

There, fixed that for you.

Has it ever occurred to you that journalism should be about, um, investigating the truth and telling the truth -- no matter where on the 'spectrum' that truth may be -- and not about 'balancing agendas' or some other similar Broderist garbage?

-- frank

Pst, should some one actually tell Viscount Chris, of Climate Furphy Manor, that the Rupert Murdoch Media empire already owns and controls 70% of Australia's existing print media.

The House of Lords has issued a formal official disclaimer note, for all to see, in regard to his [shenanigans abuse of privileges in regard to his title and misappropriation of their specific copyrighted royal letter head.](http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-mon…)

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln ...

Ah yes you see but, despite what they say, right, the law was changed by socialists, right, and so you see Lord Christopher has got a constitutional lawyer (who don't seem to have their own section in the Yellow Pages but nevermind) to firstly lay claim to the concept that Lord Christopher's objection has any validity, right, and secondly to drag the case out for years if not decades during which Lord Christopher can claim whatever he likes right, to those gullible enough to find such things of any value.

The important thing to remember is that while he is a real Lord - they can't (easily) take that away from him, right - he just knows fuckall about science.

The supposedly liberal Fairfax press is only marginally better than The Australian. In the period Feb to July 2011, 33% of climate related articles in The Age and 53% of articles in the SMH took a negative stance on climate change policy.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/media-climate-science-communication.html

Frank

Do what I do. I don't read the dishonest Monthly nor would I consider reading that new leftist rag, The Global Mail.

Problem solved.

Lefties like you are such drama queens.

Like Karen, OMFG-DKE is incapable of saying anything intelligent or worthwhile (as his next post will further confirm).

China is creating a global media network.

They haven't found anything out of the norm with their climate, I suppose that they will be telling the world about that.

( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9072595/China-laun… )

Um, Heystoopid, the article is by Robert Manne, not Ali G Monckton. You (and Tim) ought to try reading it, and google this thing called "television" that takes up so much of the time of the hoi polloi, and find out about Fox News and its impact ... The Australian is most certainly not equivalent.

Karen runs true to form with one of the most astoundingly stupid statements ever made. Not that she'll read it, but here's an article in, of all things, The Australian: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/chinas-strategic-change-o…

According to OMFG, anyone concerned about a global Chinese propaganda machine is a lefty drama queen because he won't be watching it.

ianam, I have read a few of your post's, lol, mugs like you don't help your convoluted team and people like you create skeptics, thanks.

Do you believe what you read in the Australian ? Or only when suit's your DK bias ?

People with an average IQ would know that China's move is theatrical/political/economical positioning.

This made me ROFL

"For Lee, such measures underscore the acute embarrassment China faced when it was blamed for the collapse of the overly ambitious climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009."

hahaha, bit of twisting going on there eh !

"EVERYONE" knows that it was the climatgate emails that foiled the Copenhagen caper.

... post's ...suit's ... DK ...

I must say that you're an amusing cretin, Karen.

Um, if this is 'irony', then remembering that the first three rules of politics are; 'no irony', 'no irony', and 'no irony' is long overdue, to my mind.

Thankyou for your kind complement ianam, flattery from someone so grossly handicapped with Napoleon syndrome makes it especially gratifying.

Me:

> OMFG:

> > OMG, a group of citizens complaining about lies and bullshit masquerading as news. How frightening!

> > What a pathetic troll I am!

> There, fixed that for you.

> Has it ever occurred to you that journalism should be about, um, investigating the truth and telling the truth -- no matter where on the 'spectrum' that truth may be -- and not about 'balancing agendas' or some other similar Broderist garbage?

OMFG:

> Do what I do. I don't read the dishonest Monthly nor would I consider reading that new leftist rag, The Global Mail. [...]

> Lefties like you are such drama queens.

So protesting against supposed "dishonesty" in "leftist" publications is righteous and good, while protesting against dishonesty in non-"leftist" publications makes one a "drama queen"?

So it's OK for Monckton and Rinehart to tell lies because you like their lies?

 * * *

And I'm not sure what Karen's point is:

> China is creating a global media network.

> They haven't found anything out of the norm with their climate, I suppose that they will be telling the world about that.

I think what Karen's saying is, since the Chinese government is telling lies, therefore it's OK for Rinehart to tell lies. Or something. Maybe Karen can clarify what she's really saying.

-- frank

Revealing video of Monckton espousing his ideas on developing a mining industry bull-horn: Monckton proposes mining industry news ventures in Australia.

Do not be drinking or eating whilst watching and listening either that or cover your keyboard.

"We need to come up with a more appropriate name for a hypothetical "Australian Fox News". (Where's Zibethicus when you need him?)"

How about /The People's Misobserver/?

further to #40, if /that/ won't go, how about:

/Balanced to the Right/
/World Snooze/
/Coal Industry Digest/
/Rupert's World/
/Monckton's Mouthpiece/?

I vote we call the Australian Fox News Furphy News

From the bottom of the barrell, metaphorically as well as literally.

Another could be "water cooler news" (shortened to WCN)

A good name for an 'Australian Fox News'?

That's easy...Australian Fox...Bunyip...

Bunyip Tails!

Also taking orders for:

Dreamtime Downunder
The Hairy-Nosed Recorder
Platypus Playpen

Their masthead motto could be: "Gina, Chris and Andy, sitting in a tree..."

Gina, Chris and Andy, sitting in a tree..."

The line continues ...

Letting fly at he and she ...
Ne'er a word of wit is spoken
Nought but tosh and arrant hokum

Maybe they should just formally put the "AU" in Fox - Faux News? (Trouble is that's already used to describe it in the US, I think.)

I suppose I am your complement in a sense, Karen.

The problem for Monckton - and Gina - is that global warming is a reality and over the next decade or so, this will become increasingly evident, as will the credibility of their views on climate change. You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but it is difficult to do either when faced with the growing reality of rising temperature, rising sea level and more extremeâmore frequent weather events.

Gina is a astute business woman. She is unlikely to be investing in Fairfax simply to provide climate change deniers a platform to spout their stuff. Monckton may yearn for such a platform in Australia. Gina seems more interested in a high return on investment. She is shrewd enough to realize that her investment in Fairfax is unlikely to appreciate if she presses to use its mastheads to publish views which do not accord with political and climate reality.

Red Dog News?

mike pope @47: I fear you over-estimate Ms Rinehart's intelligence.

Myself, it's mike's intelligence I question, because the assertion that newspapers have to be in accord with reality in order to make money is ridiculous, and quite contrary to observed fact, as is the assertion that you can't fool some of the people all of the time about climate. And something that seems to have whooshed right over mike's head, even though it is all in the article, is that Ms. Rinehart, is in addition to being a radical right winger and a confirmed denialist, is in the coal business, and so it is very much in her interests to persuade people that burning coal is not the cause of the things mike mentions, and it's also very much in her interest to persuade people that those things aren't happening ... which, as the evidence strongly shows, is remarkably easy to do, especially if you own a television news service that is a scruple-free propaganda factory, a la Fox News. mike and folks like him are living in a la la fantasy land of denial where, through some magical illogic that they have cooked up, billionaire coal miners who themselves are rabid global warming deniers will somehow do the right thing as if guided by some "invisible hand" ... a failed concept if ever there was one.

Just as a reminder, Rupert Murdoch is worth $7.6 billion, and he didn't make all that money by telling the truth. Do you suppose that Murdoch is calling up his editors at the WSJ and telling them to stop running editorials that "do not accord with political and climate reality"? I mean really, how blinded by cognitive dissonance can you be? The very reason that there are so many deniers and necessary action on the climate is not happening is because financially astute billionaires like Murdoch and Scaife and the Kochs and financially astute corporations like ExxonMobil are pouring funds into pulling the wool over people's eyes, and their return on investment is doing mighty well as a result.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: Rinehart is worth $18 billion. She could throw $10 billion at sharing her views about the climate with the masses without a penny of return and still be wealthier than Murdoch.

But being a financially astute woman, a global warming denier herself, and in the coal mining business, she would consider it a good investment to dissuade people from believing all those lies about CO2 causing the sea level to rise and such. This is something that folks like mike seem unable to grasp: that people make decisions based on their own beliefs, not yours. So if you really think that Rinehart would steer away from publishing views which do not accord with political and climate reality, you would first have to convert her to your view of reality. Hey, maybe you could get her to read the peer-reviewed climate science literature ... after you remove those chunks of coal from her eyes.

> Rinehart is worth $18 billion.

And IIRC there is reason to suspect that will grow quite considerably over the next decade or so.

What she's doing with Fairfax can be covered by raiding her petty cash tin.

Actually, Fox News in Australia could be a good idea. There was a nice essay in the Atlantic Monthly that suggested that the loony right media in the US was hurting the Republicans rather than helping them. Their extreme right views on everything make it difficult for a good presidential candidate to get selected. Witness the fact that all the Republican candidates have to declare that they don't "believe in" global warming.

So lets have a Fox News and split the conservatives into half sensible and barking mad.

Meanwhile, Murdocracy runs into a couple of hurdles...

Lambert, the difference between The Australian and Fox News is that one is profitable.

>We need to come up with a more appropriate name for a hypothetical "Australian Fox News"

Linfox News?

Although they have turned to a pale shade of lime over the last year or so...

And yes, Fairfax is back-seat change for Rinehart. But even if it wasn't, I suspect that the access to influence that it offers is worth the price to her...

There was a nice essay in the Atlantic Monthly that suggested that the loony right media in the US was hurting the Republicans rather than helping them.

That's a nice fantasy, but it's radically wrong. For one thing, there is more to the extensive harm that Fox News does than just Presidential candidates ... it is utter folly to wish it upon yourself.

John Brookes:

A news channel that makes people stupid should be created so that your favourite political party can win? Um, I'm with ianam on this. Such an idea is terribly, terribly wrong-headed.

-- frank

@51 ianam; surely you jest, about the true wealth of Prince Rupert of Propaganda Lies or, Georgina "the big one" from WA!

If you take the data, at face value from the world's rich list as published in "Fibius Business Propaganda Magazine", it contains a number of conflated errors and inflates the wealth on the so called rich list by a considerable margin. Sadly, "Fibius Magazine", does not take into account his large corporate borrowings or liabilities and in addition appears to add all the stockholders share capital as well, or so it would seem, to inflate his wealth to make the billionaires list.

As for Georgina Rinehart, her wealth is very much over inflated based on the estimated wealth of assets buried in the ground on land she may or may not own, but has purchased cheap renewable mineral exploration/exploitation leases at nominal prices from the State, to extract the ore or coal from! These fixed assets are still in the ground and not yet extracted. In short, she is not as wealthy, as people think she is, and much of her current estimated wealth could be deemed pure hype and speculative propaganda, as a true cynic would say.

Thus, when Prince Rupert of Propaganda Lies divorced his second wife Anna Mann, in 2010, to marry Wendy, wife number three, his settlement was audited by large accounting firms for a fee, in a 50/50 California style split! Now, if you believe the various news media releases and reports of that year, Anna's settlement was reported to be in the region of USD1.2 billion dollars. Thus his net worth is definitely not the $7.6 billion dollars, as is reported by some propaganda media outlets or, yourself.

To put it mildly, the so called "Fibius Rich List", much of the information provided on the rich list is pure propaganda hype and should be taken with a grain of salt.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln ...

@Mike Pope: you are an optimist.

Don't forget Rupert Murdoch's support for the (fairly pointless) war on Iraq, "Oil will return to $20 a barrel if we topple Saddam".

Just because a man is a money-making machine, doesn't mean that what he believes, says, and does is either rational or correct.
The same goes for Gina Reinhardt in spades, I woulod say - her purchase of part of Fairfax is not going to make her money and is part of her (& her right-wing peers) delusions about the influence they would like to wield within our society.

The thing that makes me snort with laughter evertime I read stuff about this purchase of fairfax, is that print media is dead, with scheduled TV not far behind - the only people seemingly unaware or in denial of these facts being the self-important scribes who work for these dinosaur media organisations.

But while I enjoy the idea of the old media dying its well-deserved death, I then realise that the *new* media is even more fact-free than the old: we are surrounded by a blanket of misinformed opinion which modern technology has allowed (encouraged) halfwits to share with us.

Vince

we are surrounded by a blanket of misinformed opinion which modern technology has allowed (encouraged) halfwits to share with us.

This is something Max Boykoff touches on in 'Who Speaks for the Climate?: Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change', how much he expands on this aspect I am not sure as I am still in the early chapters.

A lot of these carbon barons are their supporters are very old and so can spend their fortunes indulging their fantasies without fear of consequences. I wonder about their adult grandchildren. They must be aware than grandma and granddad are trying to insure that the world they leave behind will be a dung heap. I have two words of advice for them: conservancy hearing.

I think it's high time someone tried to tie up the disinformers with some litigation.

I think the UK should look into whether the GWPF is in breach of its status as an 'educational charity' and the sources of thier funding.

Perhaps some US think tanks could be challenged under racketeering laws?

According to OMFG, anyone concerned about a global Chinese propaganda machine is a lefty drama queen because he won't be watching it. What do you think?

@Heystoopid

Your debate about the details of Rinehart's vs. Murdoch's wealth is foolish and point-avoiding.

@Sabrina Hillier

I think that commercial spammers deserve the death penalty.

@Dibble # 64

There is real ambiguity over whether the GWPF in in breach of the terms of its tax-exempt status. Hopefully this will be clarified during the course of this financial year. Accounts 2010 - 2011 are not yet available for inspection but if they are as opaque as those presented for 2009 - 2010, they will not help much.

According to the 2009 - 2010 accounts (interestingly, unaudited under Section 477 Companies Act 2006 exemption), the GWPF - self-described as an 'educational charity' spent £128,342 on 'charitable activities' without providing any further detail. I can find no evidence that any of the monies were spent on anything you or I would normally consider to be 'charitable activities'. Rather, the main activity of the GWPF has been to produce large quantities of misleading and sometimes incorrect information, much of which is fed to the Daily Mail and Telegraph newspapers.

The bully boys at The Australian are threatening Manne with legal action for this article on the ABC Drum

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3871300.html

http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/03/08/oz-editor-marshals-lawyers-to-halt-…

I suppose all the right wingers who are crying "freedom of the press" over the Finklestein report will come riding to his defence. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Mitchell falls on the fainting couch and loudly declaims:

> "...heâs trying to de-construct me."

Oh, the horror!

;-)

On the topic of Monckton, he now has a foundation and a new logo:

[The Lord Monckton Foundation](http://lordmoncktonfoundation.com/home)

MikeH, I reckon it's a racing certainty they will...

Certain personalities don't really get the whole hypocrisy thing, because in their minds they're being totally consistent - 'this is good for me, so it's right; this isn't good for me, so it's wrong; where's the problem?'