thnx as always crikey

Too much carry on to wade through

Bah! You just sunk in my estimation. I’m not sure how much of that ‘carry on’ I agree with, but not only is it somewhat persuasive, it’s a wonderfully amusing read. Top quality shitcanning like that is a rare and valuable resource, prompting us to question our assumptions and offering the opportunity to recognise where we might have been swept along with the herd without noticing. Crikey is far richer for Jack’s highly underrated contributions, whether folks are persuaded by him or not.

Here’s a brilliant example of the sort of magnificent shitcanning which can make you realise its subject is despicable:
https://youtu.be/fiMnUBFbQJg

yes, wee bit of hyperbole in mine, granted!

Alas, looks like my longer reply won’t get through mods, bob. chrs, hope all well with you and yrs

Yeah, there’s a good bit of hyperbole, Bob. Mostly got of extreme frustration. No-one seems to be running the place. Imposing some value-adding self-discipline, some editorial and programming pushback on outsized content-makers’ egoism and opportunism.

It’s the arrogance, entitlement, institutional introspection and personal self-importance that has been allowed to flourish by weak leadership, at taxpayer expense, that so galls. And in the end, bores. This show encapsulates ABC decadence and decay to perfection. As a dynamic and contemporary subject, Lachlan Murdoch has no presence at all, and is thus of zero relevance to it. It’s not a three part series on him, it’s a three part series on Greg Hassal, Leigh Sales, Paddy Manning and whichever other political-media brand/byline shoves their two bobs’ unsolicited in our faces. It’s pure ‘national story’ projection, dressed up as ‘national story’ reflection. As with every single piece of ‘journalistic story-telling’ now, its only subject is itself.

By the way: What exactly is Leigh Sales’s…actual job at the ABC now? How much does she get paid for doing it? All she appears to do now is pop up interminably on other ABC people’s shows and talk about a) what an incredible career in the media she’s had, especially at the ABC b) what she’s learned as an ABC ‘story teller’ from it c) her ABC encounters with awesome famous people and, them both being awesome and famous, the awesome famous humble-braggy anecdotes they made together, on the ABC d) her latest commercial podcast, and e) her latest commercial book.

Nice work if you can get it.

/harumph, bob.

I don’t know if I agree with everything you’ve said here Jack, but I certainly agree with most of it. I’m not a regular watcher of Australian Story, but had a look at this one and won’t be coming back for part 2. From the moment Leigh Sales intro finished in a totally unjustified and very uncomfortable big close up, I thought “what do we have here?” Then I was asking “why do we need to be told so much about Paddy Manning? Why have we been taken to a tape storage area to see a couple of camera-tapes* taken from a shelf. FFS! Was I watching a story about La***an Merdo , or a story about the making of a story about La***an Merdo? There was some deft selection of archival clips and some slick quick cutting establishing historical periods, but overall the amount of information we were given justified 10-12 minutes of screen time, not a full TV half hour. I hope Kim Williams was watching – talk about all icing and no cake.
(*It’s 2024. Doesn’t the ABC have all this stuff digitised into a cloud thingy?)
(First time I did this it went to “awaiting approval”. i hope the modifications get it past the gatekeeper.)

From the few interviews I’ve seen the only ‘smart’ Murdoch in the current iteration is James – and he’s been written out for not following Daddy’s script.

Not so sure about that. After watching Australian Story last night I thought that Lachlan is just not very smart whereas I would describe his father as “shit-house rat cunning”.

Oh, I didn’t write it for you, hmmmm. I well know you will just publicly pretend not to read it. In the manner of the well-to-do church-goer who studiously ignores the angry communist soap boxer outside the cathedral while ostentatiously dropping a coin – a smallish one, one must keep the classes in their proper lanes – into the poor box under the ante-room eaves.

Enjoy the Lachlan porn, hmm.

A ‘deep dive’? Lachlan himself gets to loftily stand back and take great superior pleasure in being the Oscar Wildean centre-of-ABC-attention at fully-funded taxpayer expense, with no voice-over input at all to provide even some lukewarm modicum of cohesively framing sceptical journalistic counterpoint on the ‘public interest’ behalf. All while a narcissistic parade of the media and political usual suspects jostles to get their little snippets of tediously self-serving, axe-grinding, agenda-pushing solipsism into this latest episode of ‘Our Australian Story’, and Hassal (his turn) takes his best shot at a Walkley (Best Show Runner, Political Reality TV category).

If that’s your idea of a national broadcaster ‘deep dive’, Kimmo, you need to revisit your cost-benefit expectations of your 8c/day, or whatever our dear old Aunty’s shared taxpayer stipend is these days. You’ll be watching, like everyone else here, but don’t kid yourself that it’s anything more than mere political porn for the soft pap prog. Ninety percent of Australia has only ever even heard of Lachlan Murdoch – if at all – as the husband of a hot blonde they used to see on the cover of Who Weekly. Or more lately, some actor playing a Netflix star they idolise.

Don’t even watch it, if you truly want to express your progressive anger at the world we have all made for ourselves, kimmo. Don’t even go into the Church of Soft Pap Prog Hypocrisy to fart there. Your hot air – like mine here, one supposes – only makes it more oppressive and impregnable.

Too much carry on to wade through but I did manage the first sentence. I can’t see any reason that an exploration of a media magnate Player in a limited news media market wouldn’t meet the ABC’s charter so I’m guessing that on reflection you granted permission.