The Conversation has now launched its election fact-checking site. The opening set includes a factcheck I’ve done, on a claim by Tony Abbott that it now takes three years to get a mine approved compared to less than twelve months six years ago. This is wrong on about as many levels as it can possibly be, the most important being
* The claim rests on a single coal mine in NSW, which was initially rejected, then approved on appeal
* The implied blame is directed to the Commonwealth government, which changed in 2007. But mine approval is mostly a state function, and most states have switched from Labor to LNP governments in the last six years
Meanwhile, there was a Twitterstorm over the weekend, about a story run by independent journalist Margo Kingston, who used FOI to determine that Abbott had been made to repay $9400, claimed as expenses while he was promoting his book Battlelines in 2009. MSM weren’t much interested, but the barrage of tweets has elicited at least one story, here in the Age.
John Quiggin 
Of course, Terje is really supporting much more than just some petty flogger (Bolt). He is giving fealty to Bolt’s master and owner, Rupert Murdoch – without who Bolt wouldn’t exist in any Establishment Media sense.
Bolt owes his existence to his strenuous suck-holery.
Murdoch worship is at the heart of this argument, IMO.
The serial lying billionaire is attractive to some and repulsive to everyone else. Weird.
Terje,
Sopisticated opinion equals motived reasoning.
Your opinion has no truth-value unless you use some objective evidence to back up your opinion.
Bolt does not use any evidence from reputable sources to back up his opinion. He chooses to believe in a small minority, who in other circumstances he would be sneering at, he does like to sneer.
In the gambling example, he omits discussing up any of the actual evidence about how gambling affects society. You remember society, the collective that is what we need to fix up to make the individual more free and the world a better place?
Bolt also seems to think that his reasoning powers are better than the scientists who have worked on the problem of climate change for decades. What is it about Bolt that provides you with the certainty that his thinking has a greater truth-value than anyone on ‘the left’?
And there is another thing you do not seem to understand about being objective/rational.
Simply, saying that one knows one is biased is not enough to provide the subsequent statement with any truth-value.
This claim, that Hayek also makes in the introduction to Road to Freedom, provides evidence for my argument that you – and people with your kind of brain or mind and/or circumstances – do not understand what objectivity entails and perhaps you are simply incapable of it or is the motivated reasoning hypothesis sufficient to explain the difference between right and left and why good people believe bad things.
Terje, you’re the one who went swiftly from a specific comment about the panels, to a general comparison with Insiders, saying: “So I agree that they are not equivalent. Bolt makes more space for those with dissenting views and is more transparent and up front about his own biases.”
You presented the panels as indicative of the show as a whole. Nowhere did you make it clear in this comment that you thought that, although the panels were balanced in their guest profiles, the show as a whole was not. You had earlier indicated that current federal Labor politicians seldom went on the show, but that’s not the same thing.
Your specific comment about balance in the panels has been shown to be misleading. More generally, it’s clear that the rest of The Bolt Report contains even less by way of dissenting views, consisting as it does of Bolt editorialising and interviewing right-wing politicians and public intellectuals. So, it makes no sense to present the panels as indicative of the show as a whole anyway. For your claim that “Bolt makes more space for those with dissenting views” than Insiders to be true would require massive unbalance not just in the Insiders panels, but also in who is interviewed on Insiders. You’ve provided evidence for unbalance in neither, and now you seem to have changed your target to Q&A.
I note that Abbott is now bleating that the fact that his repayment came to light is somehow a ”a blatant attempt by Labor to smear and mislead”. Funny that, I thought it was just the result of good investigative journalism by Margot Kingston.
ralph, he also seems to be blaming one of his staff for the “error”. That gives us (and his potential Cabinet colleagues) some clues as to the kind of PM he’d be.
He’s a real prince.
where would i be without turgid.
the up front, no quarter given,implacable explication of a world view that normally hides behind a sophisicated and charming rote driven drone,is right there in all its murk.
“‘don’t be ridiculous?”
latest favorite fin line? “privare font”.
that’s from a couple of days ago.
did they mean baptismal font or the type of type used.
private font.
You’re equating Tony Jones with Andrew Bolt?!? Bolt is clearly a polemicist. I don’t particularly care for Tony Jones’ questioning style, he constantly goes for the “gotcha” politics questions which are a particularly bad fit for a show like Q&A. That said, he is clearly a journalist who doesn’t push a barrow on any issues as far as I know.
You reject the assertion that Bolt does not argue in good faith? Here are a couple of links.
http://roymustard.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/shamless-liar-andrew-bolt-cherrypicks-his-way-to-climate-failure/
http://andrewboltliesdeceptionsonagw.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/double-the-doubt/
Judging from this interview yesterday, I don’t think Mr. Abbott read your piece in The Conversation:
http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/InterviewTranscripts/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/9274/Interview-with-Chris-Uhlmann-730-ABC.aspx
“A typical mine, for instance, that five years ago took under twelve months to get the approvals done, it now takes over three years. No wonder the investment pipeline is starting to dry up.”
This is another case when the uninformed are being wilfully misled by a laughable ideological interpretation of the facts. Rather than the eternal boogyman of “excessive government regulation” which will be trotted out until the Sun goes supernova, the collapse in mining investment owes origins to the far more parsimonious explanation of declining minerals prices across the board. Over the past 12 months or so, mining companies have shelved the majority of their prospective projects because they are now projected to be uneconomic to utilise in the foreseeable future. It is nothing to do with MRRT, carbon tax, regulation or any other kind of horribly biased “explanation”.
@Alan Are the Somalian pirates terrorists or pirates, or both? Are Somalian pirates prosecuted as terrorists?
The hijacking of airliners was defined by the UN in the 1970s as aerial piracy.
The 9/11 terrorists were aerial pirates. The NATO and allied military entered Afghanistan to subdue the home base of these brigands and those that harboured them.
Naval and military deployments against pirate lairs date back thousands of years.
Punitive expeditions against bandits are common-place too such as chasing Pancho Villa and his gang of bandits back in Mexico in 1916 and the occupation and destruction of a pirates lair in Spanish Florida in 1817.
The US military attacked a Somalian martime pirate camp to rescue hostages. EU naval forces have also attacked these pirate lairs to destroy boats and supplies.
@Tristan K
To be fair though, the hard-hitting “journalist” didn’t let him get away with it:
See?
@ralph
Are you aware of the many times Tony Burke and Julia Gillard have also had to pay back personal expenses accidentally claimed as work related? If the Labor party and their media proxies want to moralise about such abuse then they should at least be consistent in applying the standard.
If you define Right and Left in terms of less or more government control of economic markets ,and on the other moral issues (abortion ,euthanasia, gay marriage etc) the other way around ,then I think the typical Q+A panel normally has at least one far right person but almost never a far left one . Most of the others are usually left or right leaning centrists ,perhaps more left than right .But my point is without a regular representative of the far left the panel seems unbalanced to the Right . There isnt much room to the right of their usual Rightist but there is lots of room to the left of everyone else . That doesnt seem like a right bias to me.
The typical Rightist these days seems to make a libertarian style case for no govt control of anything economic beyond ensuring property rights .This may just be the Coalition using a popular sentiment (as the Republicans use the Tea Party in the USA ) in an effort to distinguish themselves from Labor.
@Megan
What is your point? Honestly, if you listened as much as you talked, you might be more convincing.
@TerjeP
The issue is, first, that Abbot’s “expenses misclaim” was known about but barely reported. And, secondly, that one of the coalition’s main claims about Labour is corruption, a claim Labour has not really made about the coalition. So this is about the coalitions double standards, not the other way around.
@TerjeP The issue is not travel charges per se it is the double standards employed by Abbott over the alleged misuse of travel allowance by the Speaker of the House.
@kevin1
It was sarcasm, my point was that Uhlmann let Abbott get away with it.
What was your point?
@TerjeP
Hi TerjeP
“then it seems fair to expect the progressives to face the conservative media.”
The problem with your assertion Terje is; where in the hell will you find this “conservative media.”?
“Conducted between May 2012 and March this year, the University of the Sunshine Coast’s representative survey of 605 journalists around Australia found that more than half (51.0%) describe themselves as holding left-of-centre political views, compared with only 12.9% who consider themselves right-of-centre.”
“An interesting finding emerged when we compare journalists from the three biggest news organisations in the country – News Limited, Fairfax Media and the ABC.”
“41.2% of ABC journalists who declared a voting intention said they would vote for the Greens, followed by 32.4% for Labor and 14.7% for the Coalition.”
“Among the Fairfax Media journalists who responded, Labor was by far the most popular party at 54.7% support, followed by the Coalition and the Greens, both on 19.8%.”
“46.5% of News Limited journalists who answered this question said they would vote for Labor, 26.7% for the Coalition, and only 19.8% for the Greens.”
http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/so-who-skews-news-bias-australian-media-revealed/1875830/
Anyway, good luck with your search for a conservative media.
Kind regards
phoenix
@Megan
if you weren’t so self-referential, you might communicate more effectively, or is hearing the sound of your own voice the objective?
@kevin1
Not at all.
Please let me hear the sound of your voice. What was the point you were making?
@Megan
Good grief! Have you considered that a journalist employed by the ABC (and married to a Labor MP) might reasonably decide that letting Abbott damn himself from his own mouth might be a protective yet honest approach, rather than telling his audience what they should think? (which is what you require him to do.) Most people prefer to have the truth revealed to them, rather than being “told” what to think, in my experience.
Since you asked, my point is that you get your kicks from bellowing and petty rockthrowing against individuals rather than thinking and engaging with others on substantive issues. I recently invited you to elaborate on your objections to NDIS but all you were prepared to say was that you were suspicious of it because….you were suspicious of it. This was politely pointed out to you by me and others including JQ, and you were encouraged to elaborate, but you stormed off in a huff accusing our host of closing down debate. Your permanent indignation and sense of grievance led to you later demanding an apology from us (is this unprecedented?) when a disability advocate protested govt behaviour. (BTW, the advocate did not reject the NDIS, but a govt decision, but any stick with which to beat a brown dog is your MO.)
I think it is a waste of time to debate someone who carries all this baggage, but you did ask for an apology, and this is the one you deserve.
@kevin1
I think that Uhlmann (regardless of who he is married to, if he is to be considered a journalist of any worth) should have taken Abbott to the facts about mine approvals and held him to account.
I’m very old fashioned in that regard. I still believe that journalism is an essential element of a functioning democracy and corrupted journalism (ie. spin, propaganda & ‘marketing’) is strongly corrosive of a functioning democracy.
Your “point” is difficult to engage with, considering that it mostly consists of personal criticism.
However a few points could be made:
1. JQ declared that discussion over and I complied.
2. We now have further examples of people and groups questioning the NDIS, now rebadged “Disability Care”, such as the lady who realised that being aged 64 she will never get the benefit because it cuts off inexplicably at age 65; the groups who last week pointed out that the wage for the new carers will be about $10/hour less than the usual rate; the Lawyer’s Alliance concerns about process, governance and protection of individual rights and a lack of reporting mechanisms; And especially, the lack of any review mechanism against adverse decisions.
Thanks for being open and coming out with your criticism of what I have previously said. Let’s have this discussion.
This is democracy.
Maybe Bolt will ask Abbott some hard hitting questions about travel allowance? Maybe Bolt will point out the hypocrisy of the pursuit of Slipper?
Maybe someone in The Australian will write an opinion piece about it, and bring it up day after day?
Or maybe not.
@Megan
1. it’s not personal criticism, it’s criticism of behaviour.
2. fess up: JQ did not declare discussion over, he said take it to the sandpit but your self-importance doesn’t tolerate that; who cares about the topic.
3. Have you ever had a job in the media or govt and tried to deal with the contradiction between your job and what you think? Even so, why is it that the ABC is perceived by most as more critical of govt than the non-ABC media?
4. Oh dear, govt and bureaucratic policies are not handing out “heaven on a stick”: who would have thunk it? In the real world, people know they still need to struggle to make govt policy work for them. None of your whining invalidates the NDIS concept. You’re probably in a minority of one (OK, make that 2, as Ikonoclast doesn’t believe that reform is possible without revolution.)
I won’t respond further; the more you talk the more you confirm what I’m saying.
So you get the last word – Go for it!
@kevin1
The people of Australia really deserve an open discussion about how their tax dollars are spent – especially how much goes to private ‘for-profit’ corporations and how much is diverted away from the government sector in the name of “efficiency” or “savings”.
I’ve wheeled this one out over the years when confronted with the “you don’t know what it’s like” argument.
I like to call it the “Anguished Shill Wrestles With Inner Hypocrite” quote:
@phoenix
If you’re going to selectively quote a source to misrepresent what it says, best not to link to the source, because others will check. The article actually begins:
“MOST Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead.”
And it goes on to explain:
“Media bosses more in sync with voters
“Yet, among those who arguably matter most – the journalists in senior editorial ranks who have the most power to decide news agendas – a dramatically different picture emerged.
“Among the 83 senior editors who took part in the survey, the Coalition was the party of choice on 43.2%, followed by Labor (34.1%) and the Greens (11.4%).
“This suggests that Australia’s media bosses are more in line with the broader electorate, at least according to recent Newspoll results.
“It is important to note that there is little research showing that journalists’ personal political biases affect their work.
“When asked in this survey about a range of influences on their work, many journalists said their superiors have a much stronger influence than their personal values and beliefs.”
@phoenix
So 73.6% of ABC journalists support one of the parties in the Labor / Green coalition that is running the country. This ratio is so far out of whack with norms in the community. I find it incredible that people so quickly defend the ABC as unbiased. It is clearly biased. If it was open and transparent about the bias then it would be a bit less annoying. Or if people at least stopped pretending that the ABC was balanced when clearly it isn’t.
Out of interest does the ABC have an apprenticeship program encouraging greater diversity amongst it’s ranks? Does it even attempt to be representative of the community it is supposed to serve? Why bother with a charter if they can’t or won’t follow it?
Blind freddy can see that it does. Not with direct dishonesty* but through omission and double standards.
* Although there was a recently case of what looks like blatant dishonesty in The Age newspaper where invented quotes were used to make Julia Gillard’s “no carbon tax” promise seem less dishonest. A case of dishonesty being used to protect the dishonest.
@Martink
I think their main claim about Labor has been on the issue of competence. On the issue of corruption the main concern has been that they defend the corrupt such as Peter Slipper and Craig Thompson.
p.s. It is “Labor” not “Labour” when you are referring to the Australian political party. They like the US spelling.
@TerjeP
**One** of their main claims is corruption, other major claims make no difference. It’s perfectly simple and clear to everyone except people who don’t want to know.
(And to add to what I said the issue isn’t the pot calling the kettle black it is Abbot not really being aware of what he says and having no long term consistency whatsoever.)
To date, Slipper and Thompson have not been charged with anything. Until tried they are assumed innocent.
Hi Luke Elford,
TerjeP is blatantly bias against the ABC as he only mentioned that
“73.6% of ABC journalists support one of the parties in the Labor / Green coalition that is running the country.”
He conspicuously omitted that:
74.5% of Fairfax” journalists support one of the parties in the Labor / Green coalition that is running the country.”; and;
66.3% of News Limited “journalists support one of the parties in the Labor / Green coalition that is running the country.”
Crocodile said;
“To date, Slipper and Thompson have not been charged with anything”
Statements like that crocodile will land you a job at the ABC.
“Defiant Slipper will defend fraud charges“
“The former commonwealth parliamentary speaker on Thursday pleaded not guilty after being charged with three counts of dishonestly causing a loss to the Department of Finance and Administration.”
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/defiant-slipper-will-defend-fraud-charges-20130523-2k2fj.html
Kind regards,
Phoenix
@phoenix
Fairfax is on par with the ABC. However Fairfax isn’t taxpayer funded and defended by a cheer squad waving a charter and insisting that they offer objectivity and balance.
One of the problems with perceived bias of the media is that the media has to be interesting to work at all.
In terms of political discussion, one obvious strategy is to find commentators who are intelligent, articulate and hold opinions that have been a thought through to at least some extent so there’s a chance of a discussion occurring. These are people who are likely to discover that the world is complex and managing it well is likely to require a nuanced approach. The problem is that as soon as people start talking like they sound left wing, even if they aren’t. Empirical research suggests that left wingers are more likely to have more complex lives, thought patterns and tastes; I think most people would agree with that anecdotally.
An alternate approach to political discourse is to find some simple, emotionally resonating beliefs and blast them out no matter what. These guys don’t do so well on Q&A type shows because they tend to start to look like idiots when they are questioned, sometimes as soon as they open their mouths. I’m not sure why the right wing has gone down this path en masse of late because there is a fair amount of available material for the right that doesn’t sound like it came off the back of a cornflakes packet or a Marvel comic. The trouble is, that you’d have to argue logically, review evidence, admit complexity, concede certain points, and, as a result, you’d sound a bit left wing by the current standard models.
(I seem to remember a time a few decades back when it was the left that held simple emotional positions but right now it’s hard to believe I’m not imagining that.)
@crocodile
Not quite true. Thomson has been charged with multiple counts of fraud and theft. Slipper has been charged with three counts of defrauding the Commonwealth. Both are contesting the charges however, and you are correct about the presumption of innocence.
OK Phoenix, he hasn’t been found guilty of anything. Happy now. I don’t want a job at the ABC. You can have it yourself.
@TerjeP
Hi TerjeP
Fairfax is even more on par given its left wing bias; because it is also “defended by a cheer squad waving a charter “
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fairfax-media-charter-of-editorial-independence-20120619-20l4t.html
There is also an overwhelmingly large percentage of journalists from the left at Fairfax, this imbalance in itself contradicts the Fairfax charter as it can only translate into a correspondingly high percentage of left wing bias that the journalists produce.
The only way to stop bias in the Australian mainstream media is to start sacking left wing journalists until we have a more balanced mix that represents the broader community. (that includes some left wing journos at news limited, as News currently has 66.3% of journalist that are left wing.)
Kind regards,
phoenix
Hi JQ,
How come my comments keep getting moderated, don’t I fit in here or is there a technical issue?
Kind regards,
phoenix
Phoenix, from experience I know we need to be very careful with the way we reply to messages with this particular software. If you reply to someone who has replied to somebody else so there’s 2 blue hyperlink reference tags attached of the various participants, then you need to remove at least one of those tags if you want to avoid the auto-moderator grabbing your message. eg. the line that looks like this but with pointy brackets:
(strong)(a href=”#comment-205521″)phoenix(/a) :(/strong)”
Apologies, I’m not very good at explaining such things.
Terje does it make any difference to your idea that the ABC doesn’t represent the people it is supposed to serve, to know that 89 percent of people think the ABC provides a valuable service to the community?
That information comes from Counterpoint. Counterpoint was once the only program on the ABC where objectivity and balance were never on offer – not even lip service was paid to these ideals.
Anyway, Counterpoint now with Amanda Vanstone, did a program a while ago about privatising the ABC and how the ABC was biased and she makes that claim.
Accurate identification and assessment of media bias is extremely difficult. It’s virtually impossible for an individual to accurately identify media bias by subjective evaluation, for a number of reasons.
First, everybody has their own biases which colour their perception of media presentation. Adversarial political interviewing (a mainstay of political broadcasting) automatically creates the appearance of hostility between a journalist and interviewee, which is readily interpreted by a partisan viewer as demonstrating bias on the part of the journalist.
Second, the vast majority of people (in fact, virtually anyone who is not a media professional) will watch or listen to only a small fraction of the programming provided by a particular broadcaster. Making claims of partisan bias based on a subjective interpretation of a small handful of programs or the behaviour of a small number of journalists cannot be taken seriously as an assessment of the bias of a media organisation.
The only even slightly reliable way to assess media bias is by a formal study of the entire programming of a particular broadcaster over a period of time according to set criteria and quantifiable methodology for determining bias. All the studies of this kind which have been done in Australia in recent years have found no significant partisan bias in Australian broadcast media, including the ABC and commercial broadcasters. However, even this type of research has difficulties posed by the choice of criteria for assessing bias, and the method of identifying it.
In any case, these studies make little difference, as most people seem to prefer their own subjective impression to any rigorous analysis. It’s a pity, because it’s a really tedious debate that gets nowhere and makes otherwise smart people look like fools.
but isn’t the editor the one with the say on what is published?
if that is so, then the opinions and orientation of the reporters means zilch.
@may
“but isn’t the editor the one with the say on what is published”
Yes, but when 75% of the journalists are left wingers, the editor would have to leave out 2/3s of the left wingers stories to balance up the content with the stories of the 25% of right wingers . i.e 50% of the paper would be blank.
Terje, Phoenix, I don’t think the journos are actually biased. It’s just that journos are in a position to be better informed and know what’s going on even if they’re not always allowed by their more conservative bosses to publish it. Andof course reality has a well known left wing bias.
or they can leave out 2/3 of the left winger’s stories to balance up with 25% of right winger’s stories and consign the rest of the paper to advertising. -a.v.
@alfred venison
Or you could just fill those pages with “PR journalism” instead of real journalism:
Of course the ABC offers programmes other than political commentary
Are you proud of quoting a claim that comes from a program that’s never objective or balanced? Do you do this sort of thing very often?