Anna Cretin and the creeps at Toady Tonight were this week found to have defamed Mercedes Corby. After an expensive five-week trial prosecuted by my media hero Stuart Littlemore, it took a jury less than a day to find the nasty folk at TT had made damaging and unsubstantiated allegations against the sister of convicted drug smuggler, Schapelle Corby.
And now they have had to pay! In a confidential out of court settlement, Channel 7 has had to sign what is presumably a big fucking cheque and hand it over to Mercedes Corby.
You would hope that would teach the evil folk at Toady Tonight a lesson, but I suspect their insatiable desire for ratings, means they are rather stupid and slow learners.
All this could have been avoided if when Seven’s head of News and Current Affairs boned Naomi Robson, the convicted serial drink driver Peter Meakin had accepted my suggestion to have her replaced with a garden gnome. The difference would have been minimal and Seven could still have promoted the show as Today Tonight with Gnomie Robson.
Thanks for watching good night.
ABC Television in Australia is going to replace the venerable Lissajous curve logo, you know the worm-like thing that goes dah, dah, da – with this;
Eeek and egads! That is bloody horrible, and boring.
Now forgive me if I swear, but how fucking plain is that? How dated will that be come December, and how flat will it appear as it burns a hole in your plasma screen?
Somewhere, some talentless design agency has just pocketed the bettter part of a lot of money on something that will bore the living bejesus out of viewers.
But then again, maybe the ABC is introducing a dumbed down logo to go with its increasingly dumb-downed content.
Dah, dah, da!
Filed under: Anna Coren, Australia, Election, John Howard, Media, Peter Costello, Politics
The living dead interviewed Australia’s Dead Men Walking last night, when television’s finest autocue reader Anna Coren, sat down and embarrassed herself by speaking to the soon to be former prime minister J-Ho, and his annointed successor, opposition leader designate, Peter Costello.
In what could only be described as an advertorial for the Liberal Party, Coren asked all the hard questions about their political marriage and about their good working relationship. Cretin’s soft questioning about their relationship elicited these responses;
PETER COSTELLO: He has the most amazing work ethic that I’ve ever seen. You know, he can work 16, 17 hours a day and then get up and go walking again at 6am in the morning.
JOHN HOWARD: I like Peter as a bloke. He’s a very bright; I mean he’s a seriously intelligent person. And he’s also very funny. I mean, Peter’s got a natural talent for wit and humour, which is much greater than mine, I’m lousy at telling jokes. You disagree on things and you get cranky about it and say, you know, blah blah blah, but that…
PETER COSTELLO: I like Holdens, he likes Fords.
JOHN HOWARD: Yeah, he barracks for the Essendon Bombers and (inaudible) St George Illawarra Dragons.
So much wanking, so little journalism.
Great work Anna. With incisive questioning like that you’ll be able to get a job doing the advertorials on 9am with David and Kim next year. You are certainly going to need a job because it will be a miracle if your contract on Today Tonight is renewed.
Australia’s finest current affairs host Anna Cretin, err Coren reported, err read the autocue live from Flemmington last night. She wore this and subsequently boosted Today Tonight’s credibility to new heights.
Filed under: ABC, Australia, Dr Mohamed Haneef, Four Corners, Kevin Andrews, Media, Mohamed Haneef, Politics, Terrorism
ABC television in Australia will tonight broadcast an interview with terror suspect Dr Haneef. Tune in at 8.30 tonight and see who is the biggest liar; the Liberal Immigration Minisister, or the Doctor.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Channel 4, Four Corners, Media, Torture, Women
Over the years I have become somewhat inured to television reports of tragedy. However, a Channel 4 report broadcast on the ABC’s Four Corners programme last night had me hiding under the doona. It reported on the status of women in Afghanistan.
The woman pictured above is Gulbar. She was set alight by her husband. Below is a photograph of Pari Gul. She self-immolated in July 2007. Burning women are common in Afghanistan.
Figures suggest that at least 250 Afghan women have suicided by self burning in the past six months. The real figure is higher as only the women taken to hospital have been counted. The rest are quietly buried by the men the women were trying to escape from.
Even hospital admission offers no release from their pain as there is not enough morphine to alleviate their suffering. I find this extraordinary; in a country that produces most of the world’s heroin, these women are left to fester and die.
What must their lives be like for them to do this?
An Afghan woman in the Channel 4 doco said that they did it to highlight their suffering.
What it does highlight is the moral culpability of men in allowing such brutality.
For more information of the status of women oin Afghanistan and how you can help please visit RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan http://www.rawa.org/index.php.
Filed under: A Current Affair, Anna Coren, Australia, CBS News, Dan Rather, Election, Mary Kostakidis, Media, Today Tonight, Tracey Grimshaw
One of my favourite television journalists is former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather. Mr Rather, you may remember, was forced to resign two years ago by network chiefs after 60 Minutes broadcast a story about George Bush Jr., that was later found to have use falsified documents.
Mr Rather is now suing his former employer for $USD 70 million, citing breach of contract. There must be quite a bit of that going on as here in Australia the sublime Mary Kostakidis is suing SBS for breach of contract as well.
In his filed claim, Rather states that CBS attempted to tarnish his reputation to pacify an aggrieved White House.
All in all, it was an inglorious exit for one of America’s best, and most hated journalists. Hated, because Dan Rather appears to be a card carrying liberal, and the Christian right in the US has problems with ‘difference’. There are even websites exposing his liberal bias.
But I like Dan. I like him because he is on the left, and has a deft turn of phrase, such as these examples from election nights gone by;
“The election is closer than Lassie and Timmy,”
“Keep in mind they are teetotally meetmortally convinced they have Ohio won.”
But who here in Australia is worth liking on commercial televison? Nobody.
It is worth noting that here in Australia on election night, we will have Mel and Kochie presenting Seven’s converage. It is also worth nothing that 6.30 is when the US network news bulletins are screened, while here in Australia we have Tracey Grimashaw and Anna Cretin presenting their nightly bucket of shit.
Australian journalists have let themselves down. Australian journalists have let the country down. Australian journalists are, mostly, used-car salesman selling us lemons. Thank God for The 7.30 Report and Lateline.
You know what? I am as mad as hell, and I am glad I don’t wantch anymore.
Filed under: Australia, Mary Kostakidis, Media, Personal, SBS, World News Australia
Yesterday I wrote about newsreader extraordinaire, Mary Kostakidis and my ongoing obsession with, err admiration of her. I wrote that I would turn for her. And while that is true, it in no way encapsulates my love for the Queen of Cool.
Dear readers come with me on a journey and cast your mind back to 1990, the year that I truly became a Kostaphille. It was the year that Australian children were scheduled to stop living in poverty. And it was the year I flew the parental coop by moving to Canberra to live as a poor arts student in a grotto.
Now Sydney is a just a short four-hour bus ride from Canberra, and SBS is in Sydney; so it was quite logical that Charlie Smith* and I would travel to Sydney to meet Ms Kostakidis. We did, arriving at Milsons Point on a cold, wet June day.
Once there Charlie and I stared nervously and excitedly at the non-descript building which housed our prey, err I mean the SBS newsroom. After an hour or two of waiting and hoping and wishing and praying and peering into cars, it became rather obvious that we weren’t going to meet her that way, and we decided that because the Lord helps those who help themselves, we needed to display some initiative. We did because we concocted a story that we were both journalism students from Sunshine TAFE who were great admirers of the news service and please mister, ”would it be possible to have a look at the newsroom and perhaps kidnap a presenter”? Or somefin like that.
With a final cigarette to steady our nerves, it was on. We walked to reception and asked in stern, butch voices to have a look at the newsroom. Sensing that the answer was to be no, Charlie spied a door and sneakily and surreptitiously walked towards it in a manly and resolute fashion. Having played spy games as a nipper I knew the score and desperately tried to distract the security guard. If I wasn’t going to meet Mary, then I sure as hell would do all I could within my power to help Charlie meet her.
After about thirty seconds Charlie returned to me at the reception desk. He looked deflated as he walked out of the utility room.
I never did meet Mary, and to my knowledge neither did Charlie.
*(Name changed to protect international law lecturers at Johns Hopkins University).
Filed under: Australia, Mary Kostakidis, Media, SBS, Stan Grant, Tabloid Hack, Television, World News Australia
The evildoers have won. SBS legend and one of the few women I would turn for, Mary Kostakidis has reportedly quit her post as Chief Newsreader of World News Australia. Mary resigned after becoming increasingly unhappy, with the increasingly lame and commercial-laden bulletin.
I guess it didn’t help matters much that Ms Kostakidis had to share the bulletin with failed tabloid hack, the egregious Stan Grant. Here was a newsreading partnership doomed to failure. The coolly elegant Mary paired with Stan Grant, the washed-up and recycled former presenter of Today Tonight and its’ still born predecessor, Real Life.
Now that the evil dragons have slayed the mighty newsreading queen, and because the World News has descended into tabloid mediocrity; there really is very little reason to watch now. I guess I will now join the 38, 000 people who have turned off at 6.30 and stare blankly at the wall, waiting for the ABC News at 7.oopm.
Filed under: ALP, Australia, Citizen Journalist, Culture War, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Liberal, Media, Politics
I have recently again started questioning my role as a blogger and my motivation for doing so. Sure, I like writing and want an audience, but it goes beyond those shallow ideals and ideas of internet celebrity. It has occurred to me as a recovering media junkie I am now less interested in mainstream journalism. Sure, I watch ABC News and Lateline, read The Age and surf both the SMH and Brisbane Times online. But I just don’t care what they say. I am over the force-fed opinion, the tub-thumping of the opinion columnists, and the sanctimonious piousness of the poisonous 6.30 current affairs shows.
The first thing I do when I log onto a compute now is check out what my peers in the blogsphere have to say. It is far more interesting to me than the manufactured scorn heaped upon the poor son of the Victorian premier. Sure, he was a dill for drink driving, but he was a private dill, and it should be treated as such.
But Howard has opened the gate to takeovers and improved media mega moguls. Fairfax is on a buying spree, and power of that organisation and News Limited have both increased, as their takeover targets have been bought and added nto the fold.
It means fewer jobs for journalists, as copy is wired acros the nation and posted and printed in their increasing large media stables.
I would hope that with the election of a Rudd-led labor government, that he might, just might, do something to ensure diversity of opinion.
But if he doesn’t, well there is always blogging. And citizen journalists rock.
