Saturday 1 August 2020

Hyenas



Two young women are apparently largely responsible for the reintroduction and spread of the Corona virus into South East Queensland.

Their stupidity and ignorance is causing enormous social and economic chaos and it may eventually lead to some deaths.

They should be condemned, and made to suffer the legal consequences.

They do not, however, deserve to be lynched, left to die in the desert, or be deported.

Those suggestions, and many more that are better left unpublished here, have been doing the rounds on social media.

This is hardly surprising, considering that elements of the gutter press published front page stories identifying them, complete with photographs.

These were exactly the same newspapers that had been demanding that the Queensland government lift its border restrictions a very short time ago. Consistency is not a feature of some media. Perhaps the editors believe that the average reader has the concentration span of a goldfish, yesterday's headlines are cancelled when the newspaper is confined to the recycling bin.

No amount of piling-on is going to change the outcome of the behaviour of these two, but hey, the only thing that matters is selling papers.

I had an experience with our local rag, the Toowoomba Chronicle, about ten years ago which is a pretty fair indicator of the moral state of much of our media.

A fellow principal of a school close to mine, had the misfortune to have a child accidentally run over and killed in the set-down area in front of his campus. He managed the dreadful situation very well, both on the day, and for the weeks and months afterwards.

Many of his staff were deeply traumatised, and unable to teach on the day. He had the presence of mind to get his office staff to phone all surrounding schools in an appeal for teachers without classes on the day to help. As a non-teaching principal, I went to his school and found myself looking after a year seven class in which the elder sister of the child who was killed was a member. The class teacher spent her day comforting this child and a couple of her friends who witnessed the incident.

I went home at the end of the day enormously impressed by his strong and compassionate leadership in managing children, staff, colleagues and media.

This man was devastated by what had happened at his school, and whilst he coped extremely well on the day, succumbed a few months later to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and went on sick leave.

He never recovered, and was no longer able to work, despite attempts at rehabilitation, and eventually was superannuated out. He supported a large family, and his wife, whilst working, wasn't making a lot of money as a school cleaner. 

A couple of years later, I was shocked when I picked up a copy of the Chronicle, to see a photo of this bloke, looking unshaven and dishevelled, on the front page, with a headline reading "School Principal Sues Grieving Father".

A reporter and photographer had knocked on his door at dawn, and snapped a photo on his doorstep without asking permission.

The gist of the story was that the principal's solicitor had made a claim for damages against the insurance company responsible for the compulsory third party cover of the father's vehicle. The father was not being personally sued, and this action is par for the course in such situations.

My colleague's solicitor was doing his job and trying to assist his client. 

This publicity, and the hostility it generated had the potential to tip a person diagnosed with PTSD over the edge. lt was also not news. It was simply sensationalist journalism designed to sell papers.

I phoned the editor of the paper to make a complaint and request a clarifying story. He refused to hear me out and claimed the publication of the story was completely justified. I then made a formal complaint to the Australian Press Council. The complaint was rejected (after a wait of nine months) on the basis that the report had broken no laws, and was of public interest. The first statement was correct, but I have my doubts about the second.

When it comes to basic decency, the press, especially the elements of it owned by Newscorp, is missing in action, and has been for years.

This element of the media has all the integrity of a pack of hyenas. 

Comments closed.
 

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

There you go again Bob, celebrating your conspicuous compassion on a vanity blog.
It's so very predictable.

Anonymous said...

No comments about the extreme bias at the ABC Bob?
I'm astounded at your error.

Anonymous said...

So you are a hard lockdown supporter Bob.
Funny how stopping people from crossing your border doesn't also mean stopping the flow of funds from Canberra.
You can't have one without the other.

Anonymous said...

Now that James Murdoch is leaving Fox, it can get back to reporting in climate change with honesty instead of a global warming agenda.

Anonymous said...

Bob. if you really are an "ageing subversive", why don't you support other subversives like these two girls?
Your self description is more bravado than fact.

Anonymous said...

Now that you are the proud owner of a media outlet in the shape of this vanity blog, consider your own basic decency is very much absent.

Anonymous said...

Bob, in the interests of accuracy please tell your CAPTCHA overlords that motor scooters are not motor cycles.

Anonymous said...

Bob, you were a reluctant serviceman 50 years ago.
I'll bet you obeyed all orders then despite your alleged subversion.

Anonymous said...

The self-styled "aging subversive" is now against subversion he doesn't agree with?
Covert assaults on Australian society from newspapers is something Bob should support, not criticise.
But consistency has never been Bob's long suit. It's too hard a row to hoe.

Anonymous said...

The Daily Mail front page is an absolute scorcher of defamation - if it ever was printed.
Show us where it really existed. You using an obvious spoof as a click bait lure.
As you often do, presenting imagination as facts.

Anonymous said...

Your comment about basic decency of the press raises the issue of Your ABC allowing a convicted terrorist to have air time on Q&A.
No moral decency there at all.

Anonymous said...

Funniest thing I've seen all day.
Bob accuses newspapers of being hyenas to sell papers, but uses a fake headline to attract readers to his vanity blog.

Anonymous said...

Bob, how do you go from describing the two girls as "apparently .. responsible " to "They should be condemned"
Your lack of logic is palpable.

Anonymous said...

Talking about hyenas, the ABC's premeditated attack on Australia's live cattle export trade was morally repugnant.
It also destroyed many livelihoods.
Not that a government-funded employee like you Bob would understand the trauma of self employment being smashed.

Anonymous said...

Emma Alberici's infamous "he's crazy finger swirling" was definitely an example of moral depravity on our national broadcaster.

1735099 said...

Bob, how do you go from describing the two girls as "apparently .. responsible " to "They should be condemned"
Your lack of logic is palpable.

Very logically.
Read the post again.

1735099 said...

Bob accuses newspapers of being hyenas to sell papers, but uses a fake headline to attract readers to his vanity blog.
Worked for you:)

1735099 said...

Bob, you were a reluctant serviceman 50 years ago.
I'll bet you obeyed all orders then despite your alleged subversion.


You'll have to buy my book to find out.

Anonymous said...

"Worked for you:)"
That's a very evasive way of admitting to the use of a fake front page.
You should have said so in your original article.

Anonymous said...

Yet another example of "rags" promoting lies and disinformation, from Instapundit:

"Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard), was the New York Times’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Man in Moscow.” Duranty was fond of saying the Soviet experiment required sacrifice — omelets and broken eggs and all that — and spent his decades-long career lying to the people of the United States about the extent of Soviet atrocities in Ukraine and elsewhere."

Anonymous said...

"You'll have to buy my book to find out."
Says the man who supports communism. You should be giving it away for free.

Anonymous said...

Bobby, you did obey that one order to get on the boat. Had you not done so your"subversive" nature would have been noted, probably internationally. Merely coming out after the event and calling yourself "subversive" doesn't hold water. Unhappy, attention seeker would be a more accurate description.

Anonymous said...

Any ads for your book in the "local rag"?

Anonymous said...

Of course the most damaging long-term immorality of the press was the totally discredited support for the "Russia collusion" against President Trump.
Lies and distortions beyond control shows us that the MSM is in the tank for leftist politics.
Just as well Fox and Sky keep some perspective on the situation, with The Spectator an important ally in the search for truth in political reporting.

Anonymous said...

What have you got against the blogger, and why do you call him "Bob"?
You must be a sick and sad person, or maybe jealous.
Maree

1735099 said...

That's a very evasive way of admitting to the use of a fake front page.
It's about as "evasive" as claiming that Obama wasn't born in the USA - something that Trump circulated widely until he was forced to take it down.
And then, of course, there's the fact that a large percentage of Americans believed for years that Obama was a Muslim.
Fake news is the stock-in-trade of the American Right.

Anonymous said...

"What have you got against the blogger, and why do you call him "Bob"?"
I have nothing against Bob. I just like to call out bullshit when I read it.
I call him Bob because it is more polite than "Plagiarism Bob", 'Commo", or "Liar".

Anonymous said...

Dear Maree, there is more than one person here using the same pseudonym as yourself. I call Robert Bob because it is a form of endearment and a shortened version for Robert W....
His name is no secret, Maree and after all it is his blog.
Are you one of the perpetually offended persons that are becoming the norm in these days of social media, one who takes offence where the person, who may or may not take offence, does not give an indication that it is warranted? (norm is a shortened version of accepted form of normal.) Bob is an educated Greens voter, war hardened infantry veteran who can give as much as he gets and thrives on the challenge. Unless you are a family member you really have no right to ask such a frivolous question or insult me with your inane comment.

Anonymous said...

"You must be a sick and sad person, or maybe jealous.
Maree"
Thank you for the gratuitous psychological analysis by remote detection, Maree.
My analysis is that you are just a sock puppet of Bob's.

Anonymous said...

Fake news was invented by the left, and ridiculed mercilessly by President Trump.
He has a great ability to tear down false stories with just a few words.
No wonder he tests as mental giant.

Anonymous said...

Bob, your role as a teacher and principal sits uneasily beside your self-declared role of subversive.
I fear you were subverting the children in your care all those years.
I can only imagine with horror the thought process you instilled in your charges - communism is great, capitalism if horrible, America stinks, and Cuba is the greatest country in the world.
Poor kids.

Anonymous said...

"I then made a formal complaint to the Australian Press Council. "
Darren confirmed.

Anonymous said...

Obama not a Muslin - then explain why he bowed so deeply to the king of Saudi Arabia.

Anonymous said...

“The future must not belong to those who slander The Prophet of Islam”.
President (I am not a Muslim) Obama.

Anonymous said...

After Nidal Malik Hasan massacred 13 people at Fort Hood while shouting “Allahu Akbar” so as to become a martyr for Islam, the Obama administration refused to classify his action as “terrorism” and instead deemed it merely “workplace violence.”
But he's not a Muslim.

Anonymous said...

President (I'm not a Muslim) Obama relied on an Islamic fundamentalist militia group called “The Martyrs of the February the 17th Revolution Brigade” to provide security at the American mission in Benghazi — and they not only failed to prevent the attack but perhaps even joined in on it.

Anonymous said...

President (I am not a Muslim) Obama had a strategy of unconditional engagement with America's enemies combined with a relentless penchant for apology-making.
Yet you think his denials of his Muslim faith carry weight.

Anonymous said...

President (I am not a Muslim) Obama apologised for American actions post 9-11.
That was disgraceful and remains a blot on his record.

Unknown said...

Yet you think his denials of his Muslim faith carry weight.
He is a Christian, and as such, his behaviour reflected Christian teaching.
For example -
Acts 10:28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.

Unknown said...

President (I am not a Muslim) Obama apologised for American actions post 9-11.
Again, that is the mark of a Christian.
And given the absolute chaos that ensued after the Americans "got square" for 9/11 by invading Iraq, destroying all its infrastructure, and setting the scene for the rise of ISIS, an apology was necessary.
It should have been made by Bush, not Obama, but there you go.
Bin Laden, in the end, got everything he wanted, including the deaths of tens of thousands of US service personnel, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Kurds, the displacement of millions of refugees, and the spread of terrorism across the world.


Unknown said...

Fake news was invented by the left, and ridiculed mercilessly by President Trump.
The term was actually coined by Trump.
But never let the truth get in the way of a good meme.

Unknown said...

Obama not a Muslin - then explain why he bowed so deeply to the king of Saudi Arabia.

You're displaying your ignorance.
That's a cultural convention.
I guess in your book that makes Julie Bishop a Muslim because she covered her hair in the presence of Islamic leaders.

Unknown said...

Poor kids.
No, they were great kids.
They were kids with severe intellectual and physical impairments.
I was teaching them to communicate, move, and to take care of themselves to the point where they could live independent lives without round-the-clock care.
Political indoctrination (which you seem to believe happens in schools) was never an issue. In fact, none of these kids (or their parents) would have had any idea of my political affiliations.
You are displaying an almost unbelievable level of ignorance if you think that indoctrination happens in special schools, or in any schools, for that matter.
Teachers are far too busy simply managing teaching and learning and the curriculum.
The only time I came across indoctrination was on the website of a teaching resource dealing with conscription and Vietnam.
read all about it here - http://1735099.blogspot.com/search?q=conscription

Anonymous said...

"That's a cultural convention"
Show me any other American president who has bowed so low to a Muslim.

Anonymous said...

The actual concept of lying, hiding facts, and posting opinion as news is the left's invention and is called Fake News.
Trump popularised the term.

Unknown said...

Show me any other American president who has bowed so low to a Muslim.
Both GW Bush and his father, for starters.
Bush also held hands for good measure.
Read all about it here -https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/05/22/bow-saudi-arabia/

Anonymous said...

Snopes? Really!
Next time find an independent outlet to support your rantings, not an Obama support site.

Anonymous said...

Obama's Christianity was very much a cover for his real intentions.
He belonged to Rev Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Methodist Church, famous for black liberation theology not the teaching of Christianity.
Wright also famously said “God damn America”, not a very Christian thing to do.
Given that Obama aligned so closely with Marx and Lenin, it is easy to see that Obama was actually anti-Christian.

Anonymous said...

"That's a cultural convention."
Yes.
Bowing low is an Islamic convention.
Obama was simply following his religion and its conventions.

1735099 said...

Bowing low is an Islamic convention.
It's also a Japanese convention.
Does that also make Obama Shinto?
He's obviously a busy man, simultaneously Christian, Muslim and Shinto.

Anonymous said...

Remember when Obama was caught on a “hot mike” promising the President of Russia that he would cave in to their demands for a weaker missile shield — after he was re-elected and no longer had to keep up the pretense that he sought to defend America.
The hyenas of the press shielded him from the fallout so they certainly have their uses.
For the political left of course.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of the hyenas of the press, look at the regular contributors to the Sydney Morning Herald and see how full of leftist journos it is.
Supporting Clinton and Shorten certainly gave its prejudices away.

1735099 said...

Remember when Obama was caught on a “hot mike” promising the President of Russia that he would cave in to their demands for a weaker missile shield — after he was re-elected and no longer had to keep up the pretense that he sought to defend America.

And look where we are now -https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/02/trump-putin-nuclear-treaty-greenham-common

1735099 said...

Supporting Clinton and Shorten certainly gave its prejudices away.
And when Newscorp editorializes for the LNP, is that "prejudice"?

Anonymous said...

Of course it's not just left wing media who distribute fake news.
China does it too.
"China Bans Cell Phones in Granaries after Video Shows Mouldy Corn" This tells you all you need to know about transparency and honesty from the CCP.

Anonymous said...

here is another left wing country using fear to stop the press reporting the truth:
"Venezuelan socialist authorities reportedly arrested Deivis Pacheco on Monday for filming firemen in the country’s Trujillo state pushing along an ambulance that had run out of gasoline."

Anonymous said...

I see the sneering hyenas of our leftist press in Australia (Peter FitzSimons, Zoe Daniel, and Michael Rowland) have refused to apologise for wrongly attacking Nicholas Sandmann – the Covington Catholic High School student vilified by leftist media last year in what became known as the Lincoln Memorial confrontation.
Two US media outlets have settled defamation cases out of court.
The only question is - can our Australian hyenas be sued too?

Anonymous said...

I see you quote Thich Nhat Hanh.
I'm surprised you didn't want to support such a famous advocate for peace when you went to Vietnam.

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