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The real Xmas miracle is thinking Katherine Murphy is one of the nation’s best political writers, and that The Guardian is left-wing.
She’s not.
It’s not.
Confusing #ScottyFromHillsong with the PM shows how effectively the PMO spins stuff to the Gallery. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/dec/26/this-was-the-year-australia-restored-trust-in-its-politics-and-that-really-is-a-miracle
She’s not.
It’s not.
Confusing #ScottyFromHillsong with the PM shows how effectively the PMO spins stuff to the Gallery. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/dec/26/this-was-the-year-australia-restored-trust-in-its-politics-and-that-really-is-a-miracle
Like her colleagues on #Insiders, Murphy laps up the spin and regurgitates it as her special sauce insight.
It’s not insightful, it’s just stenographic repetition of a failing ideology.
It starts from the false premise that our game of mates system is a democracy.
It’s not.
It’s not insightful, it’s just stenographic repetition of a failing ideology.
It starts from the false premise that our game of mates system is a democracy.
It’s not.
Journalists love to separate base and superstructure as if the political sphere operates independently from the economy.
It doesn’t.
Capitalism requires a veneer of political democracy built on commodity fetishism to mask the economic inequality that is endemic.
Gallery is blind
It doesn’t.
Capitalism requires a veneer of political democracy built on commodity fetishism to mask the economic inequality that is endemic.
Gallery is blind
to this glaring contradiction because they buy into the systemic lie that a formal equality of opportunity exists and that through application of the Protestant work ethic anybody can become a member of the wealthy elite.
They can’t.
Class inequalities are an essential feature
They can’t.
Class inequalities are an essential feature
of capitalism and papering them over with idealist gibberish about democracy just perpetuates class divisions.
Journalists don’t see it because they are incapable of critical, independent, materialist analysis.
They cling to the Fourth Estate delusion of objectivity and balance
Journalists don’t see it because they are incapable of critical, independent, materialist analysis.
They cling to the Fourth Estate delusion of objectivity and balance
believing that they hold a blowtorch to the belly of the system.
They don’t.
Instead, they give the system a stress-relieving blowjob and are well paid.
They wrap the turd of capitalism in the tinsel of two-party electoral politics and call it a democracy sausage.
Fuck that shit.
They don’t.
Instead, they give the system a stress-relieving blowjob and are well paid.
They wrap the turd of capitalism in the tinsel of two-party electoral politics and call it a democracy sausage.
Fuck that shit.
Just have a look at the list of *winners* of the National Press Club awards.
It is a Who's Who of shills and stenographic regurgitators.
All insiders and all compromised, but full of their own Fourth Estate importance
Murphy won it this year,2020, too. https://www.npc.org.au/journalism-awards/federal-parliamentary-press-gallery-journalist-of-the-year
It is a Who's Who of shills and stenographic regurgitators.
All insiders and all compromised, but full of their own Fourth Estate importance
Murphy won it this year,2020, too. https://www.npc.org.au/journalism-awards/federal-parliamentary-press-gallery-journalist-of-the-year
Anyone who claims their job is to "hold the powerful to account" and to be the saviour of democracy should reject this kind of insider self-promotion.
But they don't.
Instead, they self-indulgently bask in what they see as glorious limelight and accept accolades from their quarry
But they don't.
Instead, they self-indulgently bask in what they see as glorious limelight and accept accolades from their quarry
They are not the poachers of the Fourth Estate, they are the gillies, gamekeepers and gatekeepers for their Lords and Masters (and Mistresses).
Embedded in the Canberra Bubble, they help to keep it inflated and they whitewash the many sins they see.
Embedded in the Canberra Bubble, they help to keep it inflated and they whitewash the many sins they see.
It took an outsider to lift the lid on the rooting and tooting, but not one Canberra journalist has done a serious follow up.
They just rinse and repeat #ScottyFomMarketing spin and run away from digging the dirt.
Why?
Two reasons:
1. Their snouts are in the same deep trough
They just rinse and repeat #ScottyFomMarketing spin and run away from digging the dirt.
Why?
Two reasons:
1. Their snouts are in the same deep trough
And 2.
They depend on information scraps from the staffers, minders and spinmeisters, many of whom share beds, joints, bongs, lines and beers with Gallery folk.
They are cut from the same cloth and are easily interchangeable via the two-way career hatch in the Bubble.
They depend on information scraps from the staffers, minders and spinmeisters, many of whom share beds, joints, bongs, lines and beers with Gallery folk.
They are cut from the same cloth and are easily interchangeable via the two-way career hatch in the Bubble.
Journalists know that they might be staffers one day, and vice versa.
They have a mutual interest and codependent relationship.
They are creatures of the Bubble and they will protect each other.
They get the shits when we expose their masturbatory circle-jerking on the socials.
They have a mutual interest and codependent relationship.
They are creatures of the Bubble and they will protect each other.
They get the shits when we expose their masturbatory circle-jerking on the socials.
I was in the Gallery full time for nearly three years for Hawke-Keating transition.
It was an incestuous cesspit. Many of my colleagues from that period are still there 20+ years later.
The newer, younger generation are cookie-cutter carbons of the appalling IPA neocon drones.
It was an incestuous cesspit. Many of my colleagues from that period are still there 20+ years later.
The newer, younger generation are cookie-cutter carbons of the appalling IPA neocon drones.
I see them on TV and get a feeling they are mostly Young Liberals with zero critical-thinking faculties and huge ambition.
They are not boat rockers, they would have been the school snitch, or worse the school captain.
They claim to be objective and apolitical but they're not
They are not boat rockers, they would have been the school snitch, or worse the school captain.
They claim to be objective and apolitical but they're not
Their objectivity is totally subjective. It is a false conscious view of objectivity that neutralises their highly political but naive world view that's been inculcated via theoretically weak media studies and journalism academics with no real knowledge
Their education is stripped of any systematic critique of the media industry or analysis of media power.
It devolves into a professional (for want of a better word) ideology centred on a heroic and largely mythic rendering of the Fourth Estate as a robust guarantor of truthiness.
It devolves into a professional (for want of a better word) ideology centred on a heroic and largely mythic rendering of the Fourth Estate as a robust guarantor of truthiness.
The Fourth Estate was never heroic, but it's defenders have never actually read Edmund Burke's words.
Most wouldn't be able to distinguish him from Bourke street and certainly couldn't tell you anything about him or his ideas.
He was scathing about journalists and journalism.
Most wouldn't be able to distinguish him from Bourke street and certainly couldn't tell you anything about him or his ideas.
He was scathing about journalists and journalism.
This lack of knowledge is compounded by fierce anti-intellectualism that is not overcome by the odd pamphlet or Quarterly Essay penned by the anointed.
It is also reinforced by a short-termist outlook - every day is just a new story.
History is explained at junior high standard
It is also reinforced by a short-termist outlook - every day is just a new story.
History is explained at junior high standard
For most journalists, history is just a series of dates piled on top of each other, and it consists of national hero stories recounted alongside jingoistic junk about the nation's enemies.
History is great (mostly) men. Not a dialectical mosaic of competing interests and powers.
History is great (mostly) men. Not a dialectical mosaic of competing interests and powers.
Journalism is dying.
I am here to bury it, not eulogise some heroic golden age.
Journalism must be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
It is bankrupt, economically and ideologically.
It is part of the political problem of capitalism.
It offers no solutions for our world.
I am here to bury it, not eulogise some heroic golden age.
Journalism must be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
It is bankrupt, economically and ideologically.
It is part of the political problem of capitalism.
It offers no solutions for our world.
I should just finally add that I rejoined the Press Gallery a couple of years ago.
I applied and was admitted as the correspondent for @independentaus
This year I had to re-apply for my Parliament House pass (not Gallery membership, which I have).
To my dismay, it was refused.
I applied and was admitted as the correspondent for @independentaus
This year I had to re-apply for my Parliament House pass (not Gallery membership, which I have).
To my dismay, it was refused.
I sent the renewal to Gallery committee head David Crowe per the proper procedure.
He and Jane Norman refused to sign it.
But, they have not communicated this to me.
I have emailed both of them and they have not even bothered to reply.
What's going on?
Why are they blocking me?
He and Jane Norman refused to sign it.
But, they have not communicated this to me.
I have emailed both of them and they have not even bothered to reply.
What's going on?
Why are they blocking me?
They don't like @independentaus and they don't like that I openly criticise them.
They'd rather spitefully keep me out of their cosy club than openly debate issues.
But all of them hypocritically bark long and loud about press freedom for themselves.
Fuck that shit.
Goodnight.
They'd rather spitefully keep me out of their cosy club than openly debate issues.
But all of them hypocritically bark long and loud about press freedom for themselves.
Fuck that shit.
Goodnight.