The Bug’s Media Glass House has spent decades getting stuck into journalism that reeks of deliberate one-sidedness, generally pushed by right-wing media to bolster or protect their own sordid agendas, be it business or protecting true-believer buddies.

An excellent recent example has come our way from a dear friend of The Bug’s co-editors, Lex Swayn, who with those two BUGers and another bloke we simply called Mr Justice Anderson out of absolute reverence worked together in Brisbane as arguably the finest newspaper court reporters the world of journalism has ever known.

It seems Lex has got himself into a very reasonable state of outrage in recent weeks over widespread mainstream mediocre coverage of the murder charges brought against Ben Roberts-Smith where some of this nation’s most respected scribes simply can’t resist kicking off stories about the Afghanistan veteran by describing him as Australia’s most decorated living soldier. Lex says some bulletins simply refer to Roberts-Smith as Australia’s most decorated soldier, inferring EVER! which Lex says is an absolute nonsense.

“Neither, of course, is correct,” Lex explains. “Keith Payne, 92, is Australia’s most decorated living soldier and there are too many WWI and WWII VC men who would drown BRS’s awards.”

Lex reckons Keith Payne would win most decorated living soldier by a length over Roberts-Smith. We suspect quite a few more if not by the length of the straight. Lex cites Wikipedia’s comparison between Payne and BR-S to back his claim about the current MSM lies being run with almost military precision.

Lex points to two recent examples of this campaign to boost Robert-Smith’s image, regardless of the facts; offerings from Mark le Grand in The Weekend Australian last Saturday week, and Joel Fitzgibbon in the Inquirer section of the same edition. And just last night, Lex and the MGH team spotted the most recent example of the media pushing B. R-S’s “record” – Nine National News – and our collective guess is that other stations probably did the same.

Putting Fitzgibbon aside, that so many well-known scribes are pushing yarns that are simply not factual tempts our MGH compilers (and Lex Swayn as well) to ponder if there’s a sinister motive behind it all.

And why? We suspect it’s a deliberate ploy by this nation’s predominately right-wing media (is predominately unnecessary there?) that will do what they can to make sure their boy gets off these charges. They are determined to make sure their man doesn’t turn from a hero to a zero, even if that they have to beef up their rhetoric by inferring that Roberts-Smith was arguably the world’s bravest soldier EVER! and who made Audie Murphy look like a cowardly sissy!

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