Media in Tony Abbott witch hunt (Australian leadership crisis)

Herald Sun (Melbourne) ^ | 2nd March 2015 | Andrew Bolt

[naturalman1975]

ABC boss Mark Scott is openly gloating at the near-fatal troubles of Tony Abbott.

Last week, he tweeted a joke about the latest leak designed to hurt the Prime Minister — one attacking Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin.

“Torrential rain in Canberra tonight,” sniggered Scott, linking to a weather forecast. “More leaks expected.”

Taxpayers give the ABC $1 billion a year. In exchange, it is meant, by law, to be balanced, but under Scott, it is campaigning against Abbott.

It’s not alone. The media pack attack has been astonishing, and truth barely seems to count. Check some recent anti-Abbott stories.

Claim: Fairfax newspapers said Abbott could have cost drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran their last chance of clemency by pointing out we had given Indonesia $1 billion in aid.

Fact: Indonesia’s President, himself, denied Abbott had done any such thing. He has made it clear for months there will be no clemency.

Claim: Fairfax papers suggested Abbott’s comment had caused “many” Indonesians to protest against him in Jakarta.

Fact: Pictures suggest just a dozen protesters in a city of more than nine million.

Claim: Abbott was accused in The Australian of asking our “leading military planners” for “advice” on a “unilateral invasion of Iraq”.

Fact: Our leading military planners — the heads of the Defence Department, Defence Force and Air Force — all deny any such suggestion was made. Even the article’s author concedes this alleged “unilateral invasion” would actually involve asking Iraq for permission.

[naturalman1975]

Australia's conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott is under relentless attack by the left wing media. It may well lead to him being removed from office by his own party. He has made some minor, genuine mistakes, but most of what is happening bears no resemblance to reality.

Freedom of the press means the media is allowed to be biased - except that one of the worst offenders is the taxpayer funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation - because it is government funded, it is supposed to be balanced - and it is anything but.

[Gay State Conservative]

Freedom of the press means the media is allowed to be biased - except that one of the worst offenders is the taxpayer funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation - because it is government funded, it is supposed to be balanced - and it is anything but.

Don't know if you've ever heard of him but there's a guy named Rush Limbaugh who does a political commentary radio show here in the US for three hours a day every weekday.He's *very* famous and is despised by the left in this country to a degree that would be difficult to explain.On occasion,when discussing media bias in this country,he makes reference to some article or documentary he once read/saw.It chronicled the comments made by students at the Columbia School of Journalism,a school that's considered by many to be the finest journalism school in the US (Columbia,as you probably know,is one of our "Ivy League" schools...along with Harvard,Yale,etc).

At one point each of these journalism students was asked the simple question "why do you want to become a journalist?"And according to Mr Limbaugh every one of them answered,essentially,"because I want to change the world".

I wonder if journalism students in Oz would give the same answer to that question.

[Gay State Conservative]

Also,regarding the ABC's bias in spite of taxpayer funding...we get broadcasts of BBC newcasts here on cable and on over-the-air stations daily.I watch them pretty regularly to see what “the other side” thinks.If I had a nickel for every time one of their commentators used the term “far right” to describes groups/individuals in Europe and the US I'd have a Ferrari parked in the driveway of my mansion perched on the cliffs overlooking Coogee Beach (near Sydney...unbelievably beautiful).