Last week Bolt posted about settlement of a defamation action against the Victorian Upper House leader, David Davis, by former ALP state secretary Stephen Newnham. Davis had been forced to apologise.
Bolt's contention is that it's "bullying" for a politician (or any public figure I guess) to resort to the courts.
In other words, the use of smear (at which Bolt is an expert, judging by the frequency that he uses this tactic on his blog) is OK if it's directed at a politician.
In 2002 Victorian Magistrate Jelena Popovic was awarded $246,000 plus costs in action against Bolt and News group over an article in the Melbourne Herald Sun.
I had the temerity to remind Bolt of this, but of course it doesn't paint him (or his newspaper) in a favourable light, so it wasn't published.
Put simply, he complains about free speech being restricted after being convicted of defamation, but then won't post a comment on his blog. I wonder how he defines "free speech".
And he's a coward, because he hides behind the power of a media conglomerate and feels threatened by a humble blogger. Obviously, he also has a strange definition of bullying.
(Click on the screen shot to enlarge it).
3 comments:
I read a lot of Bolt's stuff. He raises many topics that are not covered by other journalists.
He's an opinionated conservative. So his stance on many subjects is predictable.
I'm not here to defend Bolt, as I don't always agree with what he is saying.
I find it an interesting blog though.
Cav
I have no problems with his opinions - he's entitled to them. I object to his pretend concern for free speech, and his reluctance to allow open debate on his blog. He is also not a Journalist's bootlace, because he is lazy and does no research.
Last year I made him look silly on two occasions. He had posted opinion pieces - one about the Governor General's expenses, and the other about climate change using graphs. I drew his attention to the fact that the expenses he quoted had actually been those of Major General Michael Jeffery, the previous Governor General. He didn't post this, as it would have revealed that he doesn't vet his sources.
In the case of the graphs, they actually showed exactly the opposite of what he was arguing. He didn't understand the difference between an anomaly and a trend. He posted my first response, but once a few of his readers picked up on it, he censored the rest of my comments.
You'll notice he doesn't use graphs any more.
He sent me a message saying that he wouldn't post my comments as I was "bitter". My comments often got lots of abuse from people who used my service in SVN as an insult, but he never snipped these insults. I continue to post comments on his blog, and sometimes his moderators go to sleep and they get through. It's great fun. I always screen shot my comments as most of them are snipped.
'You'll notice he doesn't use graphs any more'.
But he does, a recently as this week.
Andrew Bolt does not moderate his own blog.
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