The Alan Jonestown Massacre

[ataxi]

Link (to Philip Adams op-ed piece)

Saw this on Media Watch last night as well. In brief:

• ABC Enterprises sets down $100,000 of funding for Chris Masters (Four Corners reporter) to write an unauthorised biography of Alan Jones.
• After four years of (supposedly "meticulous") work, Masters completes the book.
• Alan Jones' associates get hold of

Comments

[tevriel]

The inherent wrongness of the current government approach to the ABC board, and the entire necessary explanation of why this shit happens, can pretty much be summed up by the part where KEITH FUCKING WINDSCHUTTLE is on the ABC board.

More or less my point

[ataxi]

Although in many ways Windschuttle is like a paragon, a touchstone on whose work the demonic likes of Albrechtsen like to riff, producing claptrap of an even more bigoted character. He's a token scholarly reference for "journalists" like her who prefer hate-filled lies to actual research.

Re: More or less my point

[tevriel]

That's the problem. He has just enough academic credibility - although, what I've read of his is blatant rubbish, since he cites RUDYARD KIPLING as a reference point for non-racism - that they can piously claim to be on side with Fact.

Which, rage!!

[conradin]

I still love Rod Quantock for saying that the ABC could be run by Marx and Lenin and it wouldn't counter the right wing bias in the rest of the Australian press.

[ataxi]

There would probably be a section on impressive beards in the mission statement though.

[ataxi]

Eh. Thought you were changing your journal (I expected a new username or something) ...

[anxiolytic]

You forgot one important part, also mentioned on media watch last night: The book is being chased by other publishers and is likely to be a commercial success. The ABC board if they truly did drop this are either too stupid to understand copyright and their inability to bury this book, or they were too gutless to stand up to a defendable law suit.

[ataxi]

Ahem: "Masters receives hot interest from commercial publishers to print the manuscript for him."

Yes, it's going to be the biggest thing since The Latham Diaries probably. So they've thrown away the funding (taxpayers' money!) and the profits. Mongrels.

[anxiolytic]

fine, win with facts. Listen to your gut.

[ataxi]

Yes. That was my mistake; I looked it up in my post when I should have looked it up in my gut!

*grin* I take it you watched that then?

[loic]

How about somebody breaks the ice by publishing a pamphlet saying simply: "ALAN JONES IS A FLAMING FAIRY FAG" with his photo from when he was arrested in a public bathroom in the west end of London. Would it be okay to publish the book then or is there some other truth they're afraid of. Its already a matter of public record that he's for sale.

[ataxi]

*grin*

I'm sure not-proper bug reports are irritating, but Flock 0.7.1 tends to crash on close for me at the moment. Memory leak?

[loic]

ooh - interesting. That's not good. What platform are you on?

[ataxi]

win32 (XP Pro SP2). Haven't narrowed it down, my best guess so far is that it might occur when I connect to the work VPN and then dc while it's running. But to be honest I have no idea. Doesn't happen with latest Firefox though.

It doesn't stop me using it, since it only ever occurs after I've closed the browser, as mentioned.

[prawnwarp]

Gerard Henderson had an op-ed in the SMH around the time when Windschuttle was appointed, in which he argued that Howard's habit of appointing right-wing culture warriors to the ABC board was counterproductive, from a conservative point of view. This was because - according to GH - it took them out of the never-ending public "debate" about ABC bias (my scare quotes, because it's never been an actual debate, just a received idea).

A typical piece of Hendersonian sophistry (which I often find amusing even as it raises my blood pressure) which then degenerated into Yet Another ABC Bash, kicking the left-bias straw man a few more times.

If the board really did bin the Jones bio, I think this is an own goal for the right, purely from the point of view of tactical politics. Surely a book attacking Jones could be more easily dismissed by the Right if it were published under the ABC imprimatur (we all know they're a bunch of commies).

[ataxi]

Yes, it's odd. Perhaps it was more fear of legal action or pressure from the Jones camp than a desire to suppress publication - obviously not going to happen - on the part of the board. My post probably miscued on that.

The sidestep you mention (I'm unfamiliar with Gerard Henderson, not being a regular SMH reader) has an obvious flaw: in appointing his supporters to the ABC board Howard would actually want sympathetic forces to influence its output. If there is sufficient influence on the ABC board to reject Jonestown it's not that much of a stretch to imagine the independence of its broadcast journalism becoming compromised, particularly as practiced in the long form on programs like Four Corners.

[prawnwarp]

This ABC story backs up Adams' claim that the board trashed Masters' book - which I was prepared to dismiss as a typical bit of Adams' old-lefty paranoia - but also claims that the decision was made on commercial grounds, because they got the collywobbles about legal costs.

This all reminds me of a David Marr broadcast on Radio National when the new defamation laws came in. He said generations of journalists (himself included) had internalised the old NSW "truth is no defence" law, and that it would take a while for the self-censorship to shut down. Maybe that's what's happening here. Or maybe the costs argument is a smokescreen and Adams is right after all.

Henderson is one of the more intelligent conservative commentators in Sydney. He'd actually be a good journalist if he wasn't such an obedient footsoldier in the culture wars, so he's always tying himself into rhetorical knots, trying to ensure that he's on the right side in the Great Game.

[ataxi]

It doesn't precisely claim that the decision was made on commercial grounds - it claims the ABC Board claim that."It had been edited, legalled, even a cover prepared ... the board decision came despite ABC Enterprises actually arguing for publication ..."
Go, out of context quotation.

It's not clear why the board's opinion differed from that of ABC Enterprises, although the board would've had less invested in the project I suppose. I also suppose we'll have to wait to see what's actually in it to judge. Obviously there's the strong rumour that Jones is gay, which I guess might turn off some of his listeners if it became "official".