Mood:
not sureTopic: big media
ABC are copping the (in)famous (melo)dramatic blowtorch today [pic of front page Sydney Daily Telegraph, and Melbourne's Herald Sun in due course).
We wrote of the tabloid agenda setting gambit last week:
Wednesday, 16 April 2008Civil rights lawyer Evers gets the News Ltd blowtorch but is it a beat up?
Mood:quizzical
Topic: legal
Then this follow up:
Thursday, 17 April 2008Sydney Daily Telegraph lead story frozen out by tv big media peers as dodgy?
Mood:a-ok
Topic: big media
In that dynamic it was a fraught factual and legal situation about under age sex possibly consensual, possibly criminal abuse all to still be determined.
(In fact the big media power rivalry involved spun off in two curious directions with News Ltd into other gender/sexual harrassment litigant story involving a Young Lib flying off to New York - as per crikey.com.au gossip, and tit for tat criticisms of news standards between Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph - we have a sheaf of clips about it but that's another story).
We wrote last week that ABC TV news in effect 'humiliated' both senior journo Janet Fife-Yeomans and editorial decision of the David Penberthy both at the Telegraph by not only freezing out the attack on the barrister/legal system as potentially flawed (we think so as NSW govt looked to be egg beating against the respected defence barrister) but also adding salt by running another embarrassing legal story about Family Court lack of resourcing and safety as no.1 lead story. That's a sincere repudiation really.
Now Kim Dalton is arguing today for the ABC TV just now on AM that today's tabloid is effectively a beat up (our words, not his) - more about deciding who to keep faith with - live feed of Sydney and Melbourne marchers - more mundane perhaps than the live cross to Gallipoli but not to the families of the actual marchers one presumes. According to Dalton on AM just now it's a tv editorial divergence where either way someone authentically involved in the ANZAC memorials - marchers in Sydney/Melbourne (in other words home soil that was being defended), or dawn service in Turkey (where so many died) - are going to miss out on live broadcast. Seems like a reasonable choice here, survival or death, as the dominant theme (?).
Why indeed should the live feed on the battleground be favoured over the ceremonies on home soil? That's a value judgement people might be expected to have valid differing views on, perhaps related to who is desperate for the ratings and advert sales?
Since when did 30 minutes delay really matter?
Looks like the egg beater is out again with some added spice gettting square with ABC rivals. This kind of divisive Big Media is pretty exploitative of sensitive feelings of veterans and their families, let alone logistical headaches of different time zones. In the world of politics this is a well worn and cynical strategy of emotional manipulation, with no actually sincere compassion for the vets or relatives. It's about point scoring, and power rivalry of the Big Media.
Frankly News Ltd should be ashamed for being so divisive. They could make their point alot more moderately and respectfully. Are they really suffering so much relevance deprivation syndrome to stoop to such tactics? Where is the editorial judgement to get the facts clear on their big lead stories? Have they underpaid and under resourced their staff so much that they can't keep the content fuel up to the front page furnace?
Or did they really get it right. The truth will probably come out in about 12 hours time by the tv nightly news one presumes. A bushfire or a damp squib? Professional reputations on the line again. What a blood sport the big media really are.
