GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG - ISSUE NO. 8

1 MAY 2009

Underlined sections of the text are for stylistic purposes only.  If there are any links they will be identified and coloured blue.

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SALLY’S IN THE (EXIT) ALLEY - AND NANCY’S ON THE GAME (with apologies to Steeleye Span)

As MWD pointed out in Issue 1, the gorgeous Sally Warhaft put in a truly stunning performance as a Q&A panelist on 5 March.  MWD was particularly impressed by Dr Warhaft’s “I don’t want to live in a one-party state” evocation and her inference that such a scenario might be averted if only her fellow panelist Peter Costello contributed an article to The Monthly.

Alas, this on-air (editorial) proposition seems to have been a factor in her sacking as editor of The Monthly last Friday by the magazine’s editorial chairman Professor Robert Manne and by property developer/publisher Morry Schwartz.  The Monthly is invariably calling for greater public debate.  Yet Sally Warhaft’s demise was announced with a terse statement, devoid of the usual hypocrisies which invariably mark such occasions.  Said Schwartz last Friday:

As of today, Sally Warhaft is no longer editor of The Monthly. Sally and The Monthly editorial board had different visions for the future of the magazine.

So who is on The Monthly’s editorial board?  Well it comprises Robert Manne as chairman along with Chris Feik (who is employed by Mr Schwartz), Morry Schwartz and Sally Warhaft herself.  Clearly Warhaft had a falling out with Manne and Schwartz.  The usually garrulous Manne initially declined to explain his decision. But Schwartz took over the garrulous role and commenced blaming Warhaft with faint dams on Wednesday in Crikey. Here Mr Schwartz embraced clichédom by claiming that “there were issues with Sally”. Does he mean problems?

Yesterday Professor Manne returned to form with a very long condescending piece  in Crikey in which he described Sally Warhaft as his “former friend”. Alas, this is a highly populated area already.

The matter was reported in The Weekend Australian and The Age on Saturday by Nick Tabakoff and Dan Harrison respectively - and by Caroline Overington in The Australian on Wednesday and was covered extensively in The Australian , The Age, and the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday and again by Ms. Overington today. The leaks from inside The Monthly camp - or camps - suggest that:

§  Manne and Schwartz want to dominate The Monthly and resented Warhaft’s growing independence as editor. Schwartz and Manne believe that The Monthly should really be “The Manne”. Or, perhaps, “The Schwartz”. Since the millionaire Schwartz is putting up the money, at least he has something going for him.

§  Manne likes to be the chief guru and the undisputed figure of authority and did not like the publicity which Warhaft has received on Q&A, on Jon Faine’s ABC Radio 702 program in Melbourne and elsewhere.

§  Warhaft wanted to tone down Manne’s introduction to a series of articles to be published in The Monthly’s May 2009 issue responding to Kevin Rudd’s now famous essay on neo-liberalism, and all that, which was published in the magazine last February.  But Manne insisted on writing an introductory piece advising readers of what they should think about the Prime Minister’s essay. Warhaft committed the dreadful error of believing that readers of the magazine should be allowed to think for themselves.  Also, Manne vetoed Warhaft’s idea that Peter Costello should write for the magazine.

It so happened that Warhaft’s sacking by Manne co-incided with an article written by Manne in The Weekend Australian (25-26 April 2009) in which he described geologist Professor Ian Plimer’s book Heaven & Earth as “extreme” and accused The Australian of committing “a grave intellectual, political and moral mistake” in publicising Plimer’s work.

Manne did not even run the familiar eco-catastrophist line that Professor Plimer is a climate change sceptic.  Rather, he went one better and described Plimer (who, unlike Manne, has science qualifications) as a “pseudo-sceptic”.  Wow. Take that Plimer, etc.  If a pseudo-academic (a term which Manne uses) is not really an academic - this suggests that a pseudo-sceptic is not really a sceptic.  But Manne believes that Plimer is a climate change sceptic. Confused?  So is MWD.  Professor Manne has spent his entire life as a tenured academic, having been in the Politics Department staff at La Trobe University since Adam was a boy - or something like that. It may be that the term “pseudo-sceptic” has a special meaning in the groves of Bundoora.

It’s not so long ago that Robert Manne was voted by his (intellectual) peers as Australia’s leading intellectual.  Here’s how Australia’s leading intellectual operates in practice:

§  When editor of Melbourne University Magazine in 1969, Manne rejected contributions from writers with whom he disagreed politically.  When editor of Quadrant in the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, Manne also refused to publish articles from writers who took a different line from him on economic and social issues.  Australia’s leading intellectual has a track record of publishing those who agree with him.

§  As chairman of The Monthly, Manne presides over  a magazine which refuses to run a Letters Page in its print edition - while he insists on a right-of-reply in the print editions of newspapers such as The Australian and such magazines as The Sydney Institute Quarterly.  Australia’s leading intellectual believes that he should be able to reply to criticism of him - while denying the same right to individuals who are criticised by him or his publications. Even Guy Rundle, the notorious Nancy-hater, believes that The Monthly should have a letter/comment/reply section (see Crikey 24 April 2009).

§  The Monthly declined to run any correspondence in its print edition in response to the Prime Minister’s important essay.  However, Manne demanded - and received - six pages in the March 2009 issue to criticise both Kevin Rudd and his critics.  Australia’s leading intellectual has established his very own cult-of-personality - on a monthly basis.

§  Nowadays Professor Manne makes it his business to tell The Australian what it should write in its editorials and what its independent columnists should say. Australia’s leading intellectual seems to want to silence the views of others.

In conclusion, what can be said, then, about Australia’s leading intellectual?  Well he - for it is a he - is a control-freak who does not relish dissenting opinions and who feels threatened when sassy sheilas take attention away from the tenured professors and property developers on The Monthly’s board.  Nancy has been aware of Robert Manne’s game-plan all along - having read about it in the March 2008 and December 2008 issues of The Sydney Institute Quarterly.

BOB ELLIS GOES - AND SO IT WENT

Meanwhile, the big news is that Bob Ellis - the False Prophet of Palm Beach - has written yet another book. This one titled And So It Went: Night Thoughts in A Year of Change will be published on Monday.  MWD much valued some of your man Ellis’ previous work.  Especially his 2002 gem Goodbye Babylon which changed our knowledge of modern history. One of Ellis’ scoops revealed that Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was still alive in 1974.  Go on.

Ellis also expanded our knowledge of the art of drinking - by revealing that he (the False Prophet) and the one-time New Zealand Labour prime minister Mike Moore drank a butcher’s dozen of bottled wine in just a few hours while attending the 1998 Constitutional Convention in Canberra.  How about that?  A full 13 bottles of plonk in just on, say, three hours - or over two bottles an hour each for three hours in a row. And they lived to tell this (improbable) story.  Or so it (Ellis’ story) goes.  Or so it (Ellis’ story) went.

THE PROPHET’S PROFIT

MWD wishes And So It Went a bon voyage.  Nancy reckons the more money the author makes on royalties the greater the chance there is that Mr Ellis will finally pay the $750 dollars he owes Gerard Henderson as part of the $1000 wager he made, in the presence of Canada’s (secular) saint John Ralston Saul, almost a decade ago.

Those, like the late Alex Buzo, who reckon that Ellis plagiarised the so-it-goes mantra from the late Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969) are SO unfair.  Surely this is Ellis’ very own work. After all, Slaughterhouse Five repeats the mantra “so-it-goes”.  This, of course, is unrelated to Ellis who repeats the mantra “and-so-it-goes”.  On MWD’ calculations, there is a 25 per cent difference - give or take few percentage points, or 13 bottles of plonk.

Aware that Bob Ellis was about to make money out of And So It Goes - and conscious of the fact that he has trousered more than $150,000 over recent years writing speeches and gags for South Australian Labor premier Mike Rann - Mr. Henderson wrote to Mr Ellis in the following terms on 16 April 2009:

Dear (False) Prophet

I was reading Crikey in the aftermath of April Fool’s Day, when I came across the revelation that you had been paid $150,000 by the South Australian government between 2002 and 2007 to write speeches for Premier Mike Rann.  No doubt there have been further payments to you - per courtesy of the South Australian taxpayer - since then.

On reading the Crikey newsletter, my immediate response was: “Good News Indeed”. For this means you do have the capacity to pay the remaining $750 you owe me, following your two failed bets at $500 each which were wagered in 2000 and which fell due in 2001 and 2003 respectively.  You paid half of the first bet in 2002 but since then there has been no additional payments - my (unanswered) letters of 17 July 2003, 17 August 2004, 2 February 2005 and 30 November 2006 refer.

I am hoping to buy my (deaf) dog Nancy a hearing implant and I really need the $750 you owe me for this (good) cause.  Just joking, of course.  As previously advised, I will give the payment - if honoured - to Anne Henderson’s fund for refugees who have settled, or who are entitled to settle, in Australia.  A good cause, I’m sure you’ll agree. So be a good (failed) prophet and pay your debts.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

So far, alas, there has been no response. We’ll keep you posted and let you know if the Ellis cheque is in the mail, as it (the saying) goes.

GUINNESS TALKS

Meanwhile Nancy recommends that MWD readers take a look at Bob Ellis’s essay “Muscular Timidity” in Issue 194 of Overland (editor Jeff Sparrow).  In a (long) essay in search of a (good) editor, Ellis bags Kevin Rudd and former Labor prime minister Paul Keating.  Ellis identifies with the (alleged) view that Climate Change Minister “Penny Wong is the lesbian Chinese bureaucrat Rudd wishes he was”.  Funny, eh? It is surprising that the leftist libertarian sandal wearer Jeff Sparrow publishes such infantile sludge in Overland. The highlight of the False Prophet’s Overland essay occurs when Bob Ellis asks:

Is there an economist other than Keynes who has any currency now?

Is there a School of Business Administration that has any currency, and enjoys any credibility, among those Chinese, Indians, Irish and Saudi Arabians who guide the planet’s commerce?

Apparently Bob Ellis really believes that the Irish economy (which is in free-fall) is, in fact, guiding the planet’s commerce. Really.  Which suggests that the False Prophet has been on the Guinness again - or perhaps 13 bottles of something stronger.

NANCY‘S PICK OF THE WEEK

This week Nancy was most impressed by yet another non-debate on the ABC 1 Lateline program (executive producer Tim Palmer). On Friday 24 April 2009, presenter Leigh Sales interviewed advertising executive Rebecca Carrasco and communications consultant Tony Biancotti - with a view to determining “what’s giving Kevin Rudd an edge” in the political debate Down Under.  The focus was on “marketing” and the “brand”.

The deaf Nancy was impressed with Mr Biancotti’s focus on hand movements.  ”Open palms” - good. Closed palms were not mentioned - but the impression given that they were a bad look. Nancy responds to palms - whether of the open or closed genre. Mr Biancotti also opined that there was political value in Kevin Rudd’s “plain and non-threatening” first name. Unlike, presumably, John Howard’s plain first name - which apparently threatened some voters in the 2007 election.

The discussion went on. And on. And much wisdom was spread - especially when Ms Carrasco told the Lateline audience that we are “human beings and there are always positives and negatives in choosing anything in life”.  However, no one - not Leigh Sales, not Rebecca Carrasco and not Tony Biancotti - saw fit to mention the word incumbency.  No one on Lateline acknowledged that at most times - and especially at times of crisis - being the incumbent prime minister assists in giving a political leader an advantage over his/her political opponents.

Mr. Biancotti praised the fact that Prime Minister Rudd had recently been filmed “serving cake to old people at a home”.  Leigh Sales was too kind to let Biancotti know that the media would not be interested, in this time of the political cycle, in portraying an Opposition leader serving anything. Not only cake - not even coke.  Alas, this is what passes for political debate on Tim Palmer’s Lateline.

NON-NEWS OF THE WEEK

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy used to joke - when Labor was in opposition - that the Howard government’s appointments to the ABC Board were chosen from the (then) Prime Minister’s Christmas Card list.  Having depicted Labor’s first two appointments to the ABC Board as “Labor friendly luvvies” (see Issue Number 5), MWD emailed Dr (for so she is) Julianne Schultz and Michael Lynch to find out whether they had received written Christmas greetings from the PM last December or thereabouts.

Both replied in the negative. Dr. Schultz described the inquiry as “silly” and threw the switch to self-importance by declaring just how well qualified she is for the ABC gig. Shucks. Schultz is editor of the Griffith Review which is advertised on the (allegedy) advertisement-free public broadcaster. Mr Lynch, on the other hand, responded with good humour.  It seems that Lynch, who is currently based in London, is quite open about his political beliefs.  As the London Evening Standard reported on 16 April 2009:

Despite warm working relations with the current Tory culture team, he [Michael Lynch] said his experience in Australia was that conservative administrations were prone to wielding the axe. And he admitted: “The prospect of being here [in Brittain] under a Conservative government was not enticing.”  Mr Lynch is returning to Australia to join the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Quite so.

Until next time.