… sometimes, you’ve got to wear it!
It gave the bitter, twisted and washed-up old hacks who compile the Media Glass House no joy to have to ask the artists in The Bug‘s graphics department on our HQ’s mezzanine level to place the dunce’s cap on Paul Barry over his performance on Media Watch on Monday night.
So, how did Barry earn this dishonour? Some shameless poll-pushing for the No campaign on The Voice and far too much exposure on the issue given to the far-right-wing Sky News cooker/nutters.
Barry began his opening segment on The Voice with this: “…another heated week of debate about The Voice playing out in the media, featuring more bad polling for the Yes campaign.”
And shortly after… “Meanwhile, with No voices getting loud headlines in the media, the polls are spelling bad news for Yes campaigners”.
Note the total lack of qualification about the polls. More bad polling. The (bad) polls. All in the last week. Not a hint of any good news.
The MGH has a simple question for Barry: Why did he ignore the Australia Institute poll that actually came out late in the week under review and was featured on last Sunday’s Insiders? Please don’t tell us Media Watch was taped before then?
Perhaps Barry didn’t think a poll conducted by a centre-left organisation was as news or trustworthy as one conducted for a rabidly right-wing news outfit gunning hard for The Voice’s defeat for no other reason than to give the LNP a political win?
We’ll also question why he inferred at the outset that the Newspoll mentioned was from last week? It was 26 June.
The other poll Barry mentioned was the one in The Canberra Times last Tuesday week, an ACN Papers’ online survey of 50,000 readers. We’re assuming those folk proactively uploaded their opinions. We at the MGH will call that a dodgy poll at best being largely regionally based and one that should at the very least have been balanced by the Australia Institute poll which we suspect (at least hope) would have been conducted for it by a reputable firm.
Our next beef with Barry is the time he devoted to the MSM getting stuck into Aboriginal Affairs Minister Linda Burney for going “offscript” in her National Press Club appearance mid last week to denounce the tactics of the No case – how absolutely naughty and stupid of her!!! – and especially the excruciating 20 seconds he gave to SkyNews presenters to spew their venom at the minister.
Barry reported that Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt and some unknown bearded git on Paul Murray’s show had “set about knocking Burney for six”. Really, Mr Barry? How objectively and professionally ABCish of you!
We had Peta Credlin – “a massive swing and miss from Linda Burney”, Andrew Bolt – “stop hoodwinking voters about your racist Voice” and some chap who looked like he’s just come from an Institute of Public Affairs job interview – “the Voice to Parliament is in the toilet and we’ll talk more about Linda Burney’s continued unhinging later”.
We at the MGH thought all three with their risible rhetoric came across exactly as they are – rightwing bullshit artists – and did Linda Burney no harm whatsoever.
Besides, wasn’t the poisonous view of one of those clowns enough?
A very disturbing aspect of how The Voice debate has emerged over recent times is these constant calls for the Yes campaign to stay nice and refrain from calling out the No debate for using exactly what Burney described them as – Trumpish, post-truth tactics.
Criticise the No campaign and lay bare its many lies and you apparently give off the heady whiff of panic and looming defeat. Stick with the standard Yes sales pitch and the MSM will happily continue to rip it apart up to October.
Conversely, the No case pollies and their MSM backers can call the Yes campaign a racist con by elitists that is hoodwinking voters; worse still, they can lie about all sorts of unfair advantages that will accrue to our First Nations people if The Voice gets up and that’s all fair and proper.
The MSM’s assault on Burney was illogical and unfairly one-sided. It should have been grist for the Media Watch mill, seeing the MGH thought Media Watch‘s brief was to call out poor MSM behavior, not promote it unquestioningly.
Instead, Paul Barry on Monday night sadly gave the impression he’s quite happy to promote that absurd notion being pedalled by the MSM, namely those two completely different sets of rules for what each side can and cannot get away with. Worse still, he appeared to actively push the No case and its disgusting tactics through a lack of balance and objectivity we are all entitled to expect from an ABC presenter.
Maybe Barry’s time as Media Watch host is the thing that needs to be knocked for six?
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