And that goes for you too, Johanna!

Has ABC chair Ita Buttrose carpeted Michael Rowland and Johanna Nicholson yet? And if not, why not?

These “journalists” put in disgraceful performances while interviewing Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews during the recent state poll campaign and they each owe the taxpayers of Australia an unconditional apology for straying far from Aunty’s charter of independent, fair and balanced reporting.

Rowland and Nicholson got sucked in by the LNP/commercial mainstream attack line for the election that Andrews was a corrupt, toxic, polarising politician hated by voters, especially females, and needed to be thrown from office for what his unnecessary lockdowns did to cafe owners and Lisa Millar’s and Leigh Sales’s brains alone! For the sake of democracy, decency and Victoria’s future, he had to go!

It was a nonsense campaign never based on a bedrock of fact or logic. It was a cobbled-together coalition propaganda campaign based on a quivering platform of pure unadulterated bullshit.

Andrews polarising and toxic? The polls consistently showed Andrews well ahead of Matthew Guy as preferred premier. Yes, the polls tightened during the campaign but the two-party preferred vote always showed Labor well on track for a third term.

Guy and the LNP slogan “Don’t let him get away with it!” fought hard in the contest to be the joke of the election.

What were Victorians being told not to let Andrews get away with? That his popularity remained high during those dreadful lockdowns when he followed the medical advice and saved Victorians’ lives? That Andrews along with other state and territory leaders later read the political winds – that the now-vaccinated citizens of Victoria and elsewhere wanted to let it rip and it didn’t matter so much if someone else died?

The whole LNP/MSM strategy of attacking Andrews was based on a nonsense and Guy’s performance on the hustings matched that for stupidity.

His policies were a hodge-podge of cobbled-together crap; he was plagued by the rantings of right-wing nutters among his candidates; his pressers were trainwrecks; he got referred to the Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission towards the campaign’s end and the LNP didn’t even have the decency to disclose their policy costings as promised.

The LNP got exactly what it deserved for a shitty, shameful campaign and having a listless loser as a leader – a repeat of the 2018 Danslide. Well, one seat better as it turned out.

And the mainstream mediocre has been left with egg all over its face with its shameful support for the LNP through its “Toxic Dan” type splashes, outrageous push-polling on a dodgy candidate’s very dodgy exit polling and sheer desperation in trying to find something sinister in a decade-old car accident and a fall down some holiday steps.

The Bug was not alone in constantly calling out this disgraceful, concocted conspiracy between the LNP and the MSM. We predicted a Labor majority. Countless numbers of citizen journalists on Twitter called it the same way. They saw through all the nonsense. Rowland and Nicholson didn’t.

Rowland’s interview with Andrews was straight out of the LNP/MSM playbook. Why was the Premier so polarising? Why had he made so many enemies? Why were countless people, even in safe Labor seats, got their baseball bats out for him. Why had Andrews been mentioned at FOUR IBAC inquiries!

At least Nicholson sort of asked one question about policy or performance, even though it sounded like an LNP talking point. The rest was from the LNP/MSM playbook.

From both supposedly professional and senior journalists and presenters, most of the questions were aimed at Andrews’ personality and his perceived ethical shortcomings and the supposed mounting aversion to him out there in the electorate. Both might as well have ended their interviews by shouting: “Victorians are not going to let you get away with what you did!”

Nothing much about policies. Everything about the man.

And guess what everyone out there now knows? Dan wasn’t toxic. Dan wasn’t polarising. The polls swung back to Labor in the later stages of the campaign despite the MSM’s best efforts. Dan did nothing wrong in that car crash yonks ago. He really did hurt himself falling down stairs. Being mentioned at IBAC didn’t make him guilty of something. Nudge, nudge, right, Michael?

Most of you Buggers out there saw through the LNP/MSM crapshoot. Rowland and Nicholson eagerly swallowed it like a cup of Flavor-aid at Jonestown.

Their performances were disgraceful. They got sucked in by all the bullshit. They forgot their salaries are paid for by the Australian taxpayer; not a flaccid-arsed New York nonagenarian totally lacking in principles or ethics; not by whoever shares a large balloon glass of overpriced cognac in the Nine Entertainment Co. boardroom with Peter Costello as they make a toast to the picture of Sir Robert Menzies on the wall.

So I repeat the question raised at the outset. If Ita Buttrose hasn’t carpeted Rowland and Nicholson yet, then why not?

And if Buttrose thinks that the way Rowland and Nicholson performed was okay by ABC editorial standards, she should fuck right off right fucking now and take Rowland and Nicholson with her unless they tell us they’re are dreadfully sorry and truly mean it.

Don Gordon-Brown