satire
14 Aug 2009
Why Are Journalists So Unkind?
Anyone who saw Kerry O'Brien savage Malcolm Turnbull on Monday night's 7:30 Report might well be asking that question, writes Ben Pobjie
Kerry. Kerry. Oh, Kerry. Come on, Kerry. Talk to me. I want you to look me in the eye, Kerry, and admit that what you did was wrong.Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to berate a fellow journalist in this manner. Particularly one as eminent as you, Kerry.
You've always been a hero of mine. In fact, I modelled myself on you to no small extent. I always hoped that I would one day be known as the "Kerry O'Brien of online satire". Now that I've achieved that goal, it might feel a bit like you're yesterday's man, like the world's passed you by, like there's not a place for old-fashioned journalism and hard-hitting questions in today's instant-gratification society of Twitterers and knife fights and over-diagnosis of autism, but you should not let the grain of truth at the heart of that quite accurate description of your own professional decrepitude get you down.
And in particular, you should not allow your natural resentment at the fact you have been overtaken by younger and sexier media stars like me cause you to run off the rails and rain down such interviewish hellfire as you did on poor Malcolm Turnbull, the gentle marsupial of Australian public life, the other night.
Why did you do it, Kerry? Did you think it would make you look cool? Did you think you'd suddenly be down with the kids, if you could just persuade them that you were the sort of right-on, funky hipster who could humiliate a beloved Opposition Leader on national television as easily as pulling on a pair of stonewash jeans? Or are you the kind of sick pervert who gets his jollies from ruining political careers, like a sort of taxpayer-funded, prime-time visit to a bath-house?
The only conclusion we can really draw is that you are an angry, bitter old man who can't stand the fact that Kevin Rudd would rather go on Rove than trade quips with you, and takes it out on innocent bystanders like Malcolm Turnbull; a man, I might point out, who was only trying to enunciate his bold and exciting new hybrid baseline credit triple-frosted retrofitted Blu-Ray compatible carbon pollution reduction scheme to the Australian public.
He had no idea he was going to be ambushed by a screeching red-haired man-harpy blathering questions about Godwin Grech and Senate Estimates that were not only inane and irrelevant, but that — as Turnbull himself pointed out — he had already been asked last week, and that he had spent much time dealing with.
Had he answered the questions? Well, no he hadn't, because that's how classy he is — he is able to handle questions tactfully and with style, without resorting to sordid and vulgar forays into the world of answers. Which he may not know anyway. Does anyone really know whether Godwin Grech is a mole or not? He's certainly some kind of insectivorous mammal but details are surely unimportant.
It didn't used to be this way, Kerry. There was a time when 7:30 was uplifting television. There was a time when you stood for integrity and ethics and an almost-unbearably sensual way with a biro. And now look at you, taking out your menopausal frustrations on a great Australian who has spent countless hours of his life keeping Tony Abbott heavily medicated for the good of the country.
Happy with yourself?
Of course some people, like well-known media analyst Andrew Bolt, claim that your vicious assault on Turnbull was simply down to partisan politics. Oh how I wish I could believe that. Indefensible bias is nothing new; if that was all it was, we could relax, knowing that you were merely carrying on a proud tradition in Australian media ethics. And it is true you have a history of leftishness, having served as press secretary to Gough Whitlam and been briefly married to Cheryl Kernot.
But sadly, that hypothesis was blown out of the water the following night by your senseless character assassination of Penny Wong, during which you not only lapsed frequently into a mock Chinese accent and shouted "That's the WONG answer!" after every response; you actually suggested to her that Malcolm Turnbull had "a valid point".
Well now that was just rude, Kerry.
You don't simply walk up to someone and tell them that their mortal enemy has a valid point. Would you tell George Pell that Bob Brown has a valid point? Would you tell Jesus that Satan had some interesting ideas? It's called manners, Kerry, something you apparently left behind in the green room.
So no, the problem isn't your airy-fairy leftist principles. It's something else. Innate bitter misanthropy? Yes, that plays a part — there is no doubt, Kerry, that you harbour a deep loathing of humanity, particularly those parts of it that have achieved a high station in life and are therefore not stuck behind a dusty desk in a grotty studio waggling a cheap pen for the 80th year in a row. But there's something else going on here, Kerry, and I think you should confess — you are part of a wider campaign of abuse and vilification among the media.
Because it's not just you, Kerry. It seems like all the journalists are throwing their weight about, insulting and criticising and causing deep emotional scarring to our sensitive and talented political masters. Look at Fran Kelly. Oh sure, she comes on all nice, with that warm avuncular cardigan-y manner of hers, but you can just hear her waiting for the interviewee to drop their guard, and then Kelly pounces upon them, crushing them, savaging them, tearing out their throats in a terrifying sort of journalistic Hound of the Baskervilles moment.
Every morning it happens, poor politicians, trying to use the wonderful tool of the wireless to get their important messages out to the people they serve so selflessly, and Fran harangues them, needles them, questions them. Hurling query after query as if the democratically elected representatives of the people of Australia were a common bunch of train-crash witnesses existing only to answer her petty interrogations.
Frankly Kerry, if this goes on much longer, we won't have any politicians left. "I've had it," they'll all say. "I'm chucking it in. Who needs the aggravation of working your fingers to the bone in the service of freedom and democracy, when you're constantly beset by aggravating weasels wanting to know what you're doing about things?"
Is that what you want, Kerry? The death of politics? I think not, which is why I hope you'll heed me when I say that your repellent display on Monday represents an opportunity to turn it around, to change things, to take journalism back to the old days, when it was about informing the public, and not about embarrassing politicians just because they're not completely across policy details, or because they don't have 100 per cent party-room support, or because they are, technically, criminals.
I want you to take this opportunity, Kerry. Before every interview, from now on, I want you to look in the mirror and say, "Politicians are not the enemy. Politicians have not done anything to me. I do not need to tear others down to boost my own self-esteem. I am a journalist, not Todd McKenney."
Will you do that, Kerry? For me? For your biggest fan? Will you show the way to your brothers and sisters, and bring about a gentler, kinder era of journalism, based not on harassment and adversarialism and facts, but upon friendliness and politeness and healthy platonic love.
Because the alternative, Kerry, is rather awful. Today it's "We've spent more than half the interview discussing that Mr Turnbull"; tomorrow it's "So Mr Rudd ... have you had any experiences other than that?"
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Red Kerry was married to Kernot? Jesus in a hat! Two rangas together.
I normally don’t have much time for KtR (as other posts have indicated!) but Turnbull deserves it. He is arrogant and hopelessly out of his depth! As an alternative leader he just sucks and the quicker he is exposed and we get some decent opposition the better for democracy. The real downside is that people are being conned into voting Green because they have no alternative
HELLO PEOPLE: There are some really decent independents out there who will actually put YOUR INTERESTS before the party ideology…….
But of course neither the commercial media nor our precious ABC will give them any oxygen!
It just requires the voting people the value their vote a little more and look a little further than the ALP or LNP but alas…..
Kerry is a great journo, even though I’m an old ranga journo mate BUT putting on that table thumping Mike O’Neill "the people have a right to know" act was a misjudgment. So, yesterday (last week anyway), as Q&A’s young audience would have informed him. (And no I don’t care a fig about the fate of MT.)
Kerry should have asked Malcolm who he’d turn gay for.
Nice one Ben. I agree, anyone whom Kerry Packer wanted to murder can’t be all bad. Seriously, I suspect that Kerry is beginning to lose his sense of humour; it may be time for him to take a long. long break.
Kerry is a lovely lovely man and I always want to touch that cute little dimple in his chin
This is an excerpt from a letter that I wrote to Malcolm Turnbull following last interview with Kerry O’Brien on ABC/7.30 Report:
Watching 7.30 Report tonight I do wish you had answered Kerry’s question about Godwin Grech - you do not serve your own cause by avoiding it. There is a difference between the audience of Q & A and the adult electorate out here. Some of us are interested in the ethics and distinction between a mole and a whistle blower. To call Grech a whistle blower, a distinctly courageous deed with a preparedness to pay a cost - as your Opposition Party has claimed for Grech - is an ennobling of what has been essentially actions of a sneaky back room operator. Grech is definitely a mole!! You didn’t do your cause any good by not recognising this openly tonight because openly Grech has been claimed by you and your team as a whistle blower. Andrew Wilkie was a whistle blower! There is a MAJOR difference.
I hope you win through honourably and maintain a strong position in your leadership.
Yours sincerely,
Kerry O’Brien’s strategy is to re-establishing his authority as an unbiased, independent, nonsense operator by firstly warming his gavel up hacking the opposition leader, reasserting his skills on his way to delivering much harder blows to the labor government before his repatriation.
"There is a difference between the audience of Q & A and the adult electorate out here"
Are you referring here, Betty, to the completely non-partisan audience of Q&A that was utterly unaffiliated with the Young Liberals and was to no extent a complete and obvious plant, who lapped up Malcolm Turnbull’s powerful performance in a totally impartial and convincing way? That extremely representative cross-section of Australian society?
I am shocked.
I’m talking about the nonpartisan but maybe differences in priorities between younger and older people from benefit of life experiences. My mature years have given me a priority for ethical conduct and honesty, even from politicians!
Malcolm Turnbull had an ethical question to answer that he failed to do!
Betty, what Malcolm should have said was that poor Godwin was going through a delusional phase and he, Malcom(and Eric Abetz) didn’t realise it.
Cowabunga dude, Homer junior!
I’m glad he did’nt ask Julia Gillard or Penny Wong who they’d turn gay for! l.o.l.
Actually I think its about time the interviewers took off the kid gloves with these people.
They are interviewing people who are prepared to bankrupt large sectors of the community for the sake of some favoured group.
Willing to send our young soldiers to wars they cannot win and have a likely chance of dying in.
People who are not actually "criminals" Ben, but habitual and avowed liars most of them.
I say show them up, make them squirm,sweat and even sh*t themselves.
On nine’s sunday program this morning, Laurie Oakes was trying to get Gillard to admit that the gov’t really was only looking towards an early election.
Geez us, how much dumming down of issues can you get.
Chris Pyne the other nite on qanda as good as said, Mr Hewson went to the electorate with the ptomise of GST, higher prices on things, and …well the rest is history.
Why Turnbull even bothers trying to avoid the forensics after GGrech, is beyond me. While everyone was wondering if Bob Brown was going to come in and save the CTS for the gov’t, Rudd was busilly having a night of the long knives to get rid of any other possible godless grechs.
Well done Kev. that’ll show any "mole/whistleblower", "terrorist/freedom fighter", left what can happen if they try anything like that again.
So I don’t think any pollies are going to cry themselves to sleep over a cross examin ation from our over enthusiastic and over caffeinated interviewers.
Any way there are still plenty of millionaires around, and the way this GFC is going there are likely to be plenty more from where they came.
And as for Ms Gillard, I look forward to another sparring match with her and that other firey red head Lee Sales ,or should I say cat fight.
I actually have acquired a liking for old monotone Julia, she was quite unruffled that time the Chaser team sent in a remote control robot with a microphone to do an interview. She touched the mike and said "Oh what a cute little robot we have here".
After the next election there should be no shortage of robots in her constituency, whose vote she is already assured of. Oli
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41336503@N04/3810181770/
It just looks like there is no impartiality because Turnbull is a smug facist pig. Kerry just brought the "inner Turnbull" out into the open for all to see.
What a dismal place is the "World According to Kerry O’Brien"
What a waste of the ABCs time and its potential audience. I don’t mind the reporting but when it comes to the O’Brien Interview segment I shudder that anyone can be so stuck in yesterday and their own opinions.
What is point of asking a question if you cannot accept the answer???
Why doesn’t Mr O’Brien beg Kevin for a safe seat instead of dreaming that he is making an impact at the ABC?
EarnestLee
You have got it in one: KtR is just jealous of McKew and is trying to show his prospective boss his attack technique for Question time :-)
I note another high profile media type (Phelps) has also thrown her hat into the ring in Turnbull’s seat but surprise it’s a red hat not a Green one but then they are all the same colour on the inside :-)
Vive la Révolution
And when cut they all bleed red, except Malcolm who bleeds blue. Unlike Betty I hope he remains dishonourable, loses and is relegated back to the boardrooms where he can only harm shareholders.
Viva la revultion, icedvolvo.
Kerry O’Brien was very effectively ‘neutered’ by 11 plus years of ABC hating Government under JWHoward. He, as also the ABC and SBS, has NOT recovered, and never can whilst still under total Howard supporter’s control. Rudd and Conroy seem to like it as it is.
If he were to show a trace of the long ago vigour in interviewing pollies without principles, he would undoubtedly face early retirement. I no longer expect him to really ask and insist on the hard questions.
I am presuming you are being utterly ironic, Ben, with this paragraph.
"Because it’s not just you, Kerry. It seems like all the journalists are throwing their weight about, insulting and criticising and causing deep emotional scarring to our sensitive and talented political masters. Look at Fran Kelly. Oh sure, she comes on all nice, with that warm avuncular cardigan-y manner of hers, but you can just hear her waiting for the interviewee to drop their guard, and then Kelly pounces upon them, crushing them, savaging them, tearing out their throats in a terrifying sort of journalistic Hound of the Baskervilles moment".
Because the day will never come when Fran Kelly makes a Liberal or National pollie uncomfortable with her questions. She always was and will always be it seems, a lover of things Howard, and a hater of progressives. And Radio National ‘Breakfast’ is now a couple of hours of very forgettable and un-listenable garbage, generally promoting Right Wing pollies and causes.
Unfortunately, ‘Red Kez’ is getting close to retirement age, and can see no real point in hastening that day, but he is still the ONLY journalist on Radio or TV who still asks uncomfortable questions of pollies of all stripes, and tried to get an answer that is not total gobbledegook (pollie speak).
Turnbull is suffering from that old adage, "Always Kick the Dog When He is Down", participated in by all and sundry, following age old rules of engagement of always killing off injured animals once they have become savaged beyond repair.
Asking questions of Wrong Wong must be the most frustrating aspect of a journalist’s life, because you KNOW that you are going to get a monotone brow beating in response, that sarcastic but aggressive voice, those waving hands, telling a story that no self-respecting child of 10 would ever believe. She is a master (mistress?) of saying bloody nothing, but saying it forcefully and brooking no interruptions!
And who watches Q AND A???? That show was put on at Howard Government insistence in order to push Right Wing causes, and has always been stacked with a compliant audience. Utterly predictable.
How faint is that promise of Australian Public Broadcasting now that we have to tely on SBS for all the interesting entertainment including, most thankfully, the Ashes.
Hi folks ! I thought Malcolm did ok , he is still the leader even after that interview, 17% popularity , and putting Mr Gresch in the Rat house and who wants Costello back ,not me ,Bless you Malcolm like the Arnie Car ad YOU CAN DOOO ITT!!!
On Penny Far Thing, I was just thinking the other day, watching another one of her sleep-inducing TV performances, how similar she is to Rudd in her manner of speech and movements, and, of course, what she actually says (nothing).
Was this always the way? Is it a case of birds of a feather? Is she modelling herself on the boss? Intentionally? Or unconsciously? Do these spin doctors know they’re doing it anymore?
How many mutations does this virus have? Can we call it the L Ron virus, with the resultant mutants more crazed than their leader? Maybe he can save your life after all, Peter.
Going Wong is so Right.