Media Watch Dog: Peter Dutton, the IDF in the ABC's impartial crosshairs as Media Watch ignores evidence of anti-Semitism in caravan terror plot hoax
The ABC's activist journalism was on full display as it ran softball interviews with Jim Chalmers and a left-wing Israel antagonist alongside withering criticism of an ex-IDF officer, writes Gerard Henderson in this week's Media Watch Dog.
STOP PRESS
ABC SENDS REINFORCEMENTS AS JOHN LYONS GOES TO WASHINGTON TO “TRANSLATE” PRESIDENT TRUMP TO AUSTRALIANS. REALLY.
It has now been confirmed that John Lyons, formerly the ABC Global Affairs Editor, has now been appointed to the comfortable position of ABC Editor Americas based in Washington DC.
This seems to be in addition to the ABC’s existing staff in the United States.
This is how the appointment was confirmed on ABC News Breakfast on 18 March – early in the program.
James Glenday: Overseas now, and the Trump administration has denied accusations that it defied a federal court order by carrying out deportations of hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador over the weekend. Our America editor John Lyons has been following his developments over the weekend, and he joins us now from Washington. John, first of all, I mean, we've had you on this show many times, but congratulations on your new appointment.
John Lyons: Well, thank you, James. It's great to be trying to translate the Trump presidency to an Australian audience.
James Glenday: Yeah, you do have a big job over the next couple of years.
This is somewhat condescending don’t you think?
John Lyons, a well-known Israel antagonist, has now been given a plum job of “trying to translate the Trump presidency to an Australian audience”.
As if Australians are not capable of understanding the United States without John Lyons.
In any event, followers of US politics in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election would have got a better idea of what was going on by following Sky News or Fox News.
Before John Lyons’ position was formally announced, he appeared on ABC Radio National Breakfast from Washington and was interviewed by Sally Sara on Monday 10 March.
The ABC’s new man in Washington told listeners (if listeners there were) that The New York Times had run an article by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman the previous Friday (US time) about how senior members of the Trump administration – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio – had clashed with Elon Musk at a cabinet meeting.
It was presided over by President Donald Trump and covered staffing levels in the State Department.
In the end, the president sided with Rubio – without deserting Musk.
An interesting story, to be sure.
But anyone in the ABC team already in the United States could have covered this.
And so, could a reporter from a café in Sydney’s inner-city Ultimo, near the ABC headquarters, who had access to a New York Times subscription and a computer.
The taxpayer-funded broadcaster is always banging on about how it needs more funding.
However, when Lyons was not appointed to the key position of Head ABC News, now headed by Justin Stevens, he attained the new position of Global Affairs Editor and, now, Editor Americas.
He seems to have been travelling around the world since then – at some expense to the taxpayer.
And now he has taken on the task of translating Donald Trump to Australians – whatever that might mean.
[Interesting. As I recall, in January 2024 your man Lyons was involved in a meeting of the ABC Staff Collective in which a vote of no confidence was passed against (then) managing director David Anderson.
Members of the ABC Soviet said that the ABC had shown a pro-Israel bias and Lyons said that he was embarrassed by his employer.
Clearly, the taxpayer funded public broadcaster is an organisation in which their senior staff can publicly criticise the chief executive – and subsequently receive great perks. But there you go. MWD Editor.]
FEMINIST LOUISE ADLER CALLS LIBERAL PARTY SENATOR CLAIRE CHANDLER A “NOVICE” AND “HOPELESS”
Louise Adler’s column in The Australian Financial Review on Friday 21 March is titled “Who pays the price for arts philanthropy that comes with a catch?”.
Ms Adler is described as “a former publisher with a long career in the arts”.
What’s not mentioned is that Comrade Adler is the director of the 2025 Adelaide Writers’ Week.
She held a similar position in 2024.
The column commences with a three-paragraph account of an occasion “many years ago” when the Victorian College for the Arts attempted to gain a donor but he/she welched on the deal and it all fell through.
In any event, it was a mere $10,000.
Who cares?
Well, the AFR editor, clearly, for the piece was published.
Adler seems to be saying that if philanthropists want to donate to the arts, they should not make any demands.
In other words, money should be handed over to artists and arts managers.
Likewise with government funding.
Liberal Party Senator Claire Chandler criticised Creative Australia’s decision (now suspended) that Khaled Sabsabi, who has produced previous work which was soft
on al Qaeda’s attack on the US on 9/11, should be Australia’s representative for the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Adler described the senator as a “novice” and “hopeless”.
This is just abuse.
Louise Adler’s message seems to be that the arts can only be pure with hands-off government grants.
The kind of taxpayer funded occasion like the Adelaide Writers’ Week – which, under Louise Adler’s artistic direction, is a leftist stack.
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
- NICK BRYANT PRAISES THE LATE ERIC HOBSBAWM WITHOUT MENTIONING HIS SUPPORT FOR LENIN AND STALIN
It was Hangover Time on Saturday 15 March when ABC Radio National’s Saturday Extra interviewed Bettany Hughes about her book The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Dr Hughes is visiting Australia as a guest of the Sydney-based Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation.
It was getting up towards 8 am when the following exchange took place:
Bettany Hughes: … Memory exists as a network, called the default mode network, right across our brains. And that's also where imagination and future ideas sit. So, we cannot have an idea about the future. We cannot have a new idea unless we access a memory of some kind. So physiologically, we're creatures of memory. So, if we deny the past, it's not just that we kind of denude what happened before. It's that we physically deny our potential as a species. So, we deny our future as well. So, it's not as kind of cliched as “you need to look backwards in order to look forward”. We can't operate unless we access memory and history.
Nick Bryant: I think you're going to quote the great historian, Eric Hobsbawm.
Bettany Hughes: Yes.
Nick Bryant: Who once warned that without history, we run the risk of living in a permanent present.
Bettany Hughes: Yeah, we do…
It was Comrade Bryant who threw the switch to Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012).
So, it is worth examining the historian’s view that, without history, we run the risk of living in a permanent present – with respect to his own personal history.
Sure, Hobsbawm wrote some important books during his long life.
But he was a long-time member of the Communist Party of Britain.
As the obituary in The Times on 2 October put it:
Long a loyal member of the Communist Party, Hobsbawm wielded enormous influence during the 1960s and 1970s, when his ideas helped to provide the intellectual underpinning for Left-wing revolutionary activism in the West. But though the scope and grasp of detail that pervaded his many beautifully-written books won praise across the political spectrum, there was no getting around the fact that he persisted in defending the record of totalitarian communism long after it ceased to be fashionable or, indeed, defendable.
Hobsbawm became a communist in 1939.
He supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 which effectively commenced the Second World War, under which Germany invaded Poland from the west and the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east.
He also backed the Soviet Union – under the rule of Josef Stalin – when it invaded Finland in November 1939.
Unlike many communists of his generation, Hobsbawm did not quit the Communist Party when the Soviet Union crushed the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.
Later in life, he had something positive to say about such eastern European communist dictators as Erich Honecker in East Germany and Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania.
The Marxist historian lived a prosperous life in Britain but identified with the proletariat.
Reviewing Richard J Evans’ biography in The Telegraph, Simon Heffer wrote that, while Hobsbawm awaited the communist revolution, he became “an Olympic class hypocrite” with two houses, many stocks and shares and a bit of tax avoidance on the side.
From the time Hobsbawm joined the Communist Party in 1939 until his death in 2012 he never renounced Vladimir Lenin or Josef Stalin or condemned their murderous communist dictatorships. Yet this is the man who, without qualification, Nick Bryant describes as a “great historian”. Can You Bear It?
[No. Not really, now that you ask. I note that while the interview canvassed the importance of memory, your man Bryant (formerly of the BBC) appears to have no recall of Hobsbawm’s Stalinist past. Fancy that. – MWD Editor.]
ABC’S DIGITAL EDITOR BRETT WORTHINGTON GIVEN FREE REIN TO BAG PETER DUTTON ON ABC ONLINE
Lotsa thanks to the avid Media Watch Dog reader who drew the attention of Ellie’s (male) co-owner to the article on 18 March on ABC Online.
It was titled “Peter Dutton made a pre-election cost of living edict, only to find himself repeatedly breaking it”.
The author was Brett Worthington. Who is Brett Worthington? – MWD hears readers cry.
Well, your man Worthington is, wait-for-it, a senior digital correspondent with ABC News based in the Canberra Bubble, C/- Australian Capital Territory.
Worthington’s oh-so-impressive CV advises readers (if readers there are) that his life highlights include presenting the ABC South Australian Country Hour and “baking scones with the CWA (Country Women’s Association) live on the radio”.
Little wonder, then, that the powers-that-be at the ABC Soviet have decided that Comrade Worthington is well-equipped to write about the Liberal Party.
After all, many a rural Liberal Party MP has baked scones with CWA folk.
It turned out that Comrade Worthington tipped a full bucket on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
He bagged the Liberal Party leader for various (alleged) policy areas, including insurance, national security, immigration and more besides.
Worthington even ran a Labor Party attack line and then continued his criticism of the Opposition leader:
Dutton went to ground after it emerged he'd left his electorate, which was sandbagging ahead of the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Alfred, to attend a harbourside Liberal fundraiser in Sydney.
That brings us to this week, when Dutton dug deep into his political playbook and flicked the switch to national security.
National security has long been the policy of choice the Coalition turns to when things get tough politically. It's usually viewed as a political strong suit, unless you find yourself advocating for a referendum that is never going to happen.
Forget what Labor thinks about Dutton's desire to gain unconstrained powers that currently only rest with the courts, his own side of politics have dubbed ministerial citizenship stripping "insane".
And so it went on and on with many links – eight in all – to ABC reporters.
Worthington overlooked the fact that Dutton (like Anthony Albanese) did a fundraiser in Sydney on 4 March but arrived in Brisbane four days before Cyclone Alfred, in diminishing form, reached land.
And Worthington declared that Dutton’s “own side of politics have dubbed ministerial citizenship stripping ‘insane’”.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Dutton’s “side of politics” opposes him.
And the “insane” comment was from an anonymous source – which makes it all but useless.
How unprofessional can an ABC digital scribbler get?
Why does ABC management run such political sludge?
And here’s another question: Can You Bear It?
- NINE’S PHOTOGRAPHIC CONFUSION
As avid Media Watch Dog readers will recall, Nine Newspapers’ gossip column – “CBD” usually written by the Sydney-based Kishor Napier-Raman (he belongs to what former prime minister Paul Keating used to call the “hyphenated-name-set”) and MWD fave, the Melbourne-based Stephen Brook.
As mentioned in MWD last November, Comrade Napier-Raman detected a “glaring error” on the program of The Sydney Institute’s 2024 Annual Dinner.
In one part of the program the wrong year was printed – that was it.
Ellie’s (male) co-owner said nothing about this until – lo-and-behold – in recent times CBD published a dinkus of the two CBD scribblers but replaced your man Brooks’ pic with that of someone else.
Here’s what occurred:
Could there be a Gremlin in Nine’s works?
Thanks to the avid reader who saw this pic of what was said to be Michael Fullilove in the Sun-Herald on Sunday 9 March below a heading which started “Free world leader doesn’t believe free world”.
Here it is:
Except that’s not Michael Fullilove.
It’s a pic of NSW Professor Colin Mendelsohn.
Here’s a pic of Michael Fullilove which can be found on the online edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Now we all make errors – even if MWD’s errors are of the “John Laws Style Deliberate Mistake” genre.
But CBD seems to regard minor errors as “glaring errors”.
Except when they are printed in Nine newspapers. Can You Bear It?
- ROSS GITTINS TELLS READERS THAT DEFICITS & DEBT DON’T REALLY MATTER
While on the topic of Nine Newspapers, did anyone read the article by Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 March?
As avid readers will recall, it was not so long ago that the SMH saw fit to devote 8 pages – or was it 80? – to celebrate Comrade Gittins’ 50 years at the SMH. [Is that all? It seems like 75 years. – MWD Editor]. It was the day when the Sydney Morning Herald became the Sydney Morning Gittins.
But MWD digresses, once again.
On 17 March the Sydney Morning Herald carried a comment piece by Comrade Gittins headed “All voters care about the cost of living – not budget deficits”.
Gittins essentially ran the line that deficits and the resultant debt don’t matter much.
In any event, he reckons that voters don’t care about them.
Here’s how it commenced:
According to the business press, Anthony Albanese was desperately hoping for an early election so he could avoid next week’s budget and the drubbing he’ll get when Treasurer Jim Chalmers is forced to reveal projections of a decade of budget deficits.
If you think that, you don’t know much about budgets. But, more to the point, nor do I expect to believe the budget’s forecasts for the economy in 2025-26. The first reason I don’t believe Albanese was living in fear of having to reveal a decade of deficits is that, although the business press may be shocked and appalled by budget deficits, the voters have never been. That will be particularly so at a time when all they care about is the cost of living.
What’s missing from this analysis is a recognition that to an extent deficits contribute to inflation which increases the cost of living.
And then there is this.
Comrade Gittins bagged the “business press”.
Yet his 17 March article was published in the SMH’s Business section.
Can You Bear It?
YOUR TAXES AT WORK
This hugely popular Media Watch Dog segment looks at how taxpayers’ money is spent by governments and councils – along with the various institutions they fund.
Of particular interest to Gerard Henderson – a published author who never gets invited to literary festivals, which obviates the need for him to respond to any writers’ festival RSVP in a negative way – are the various taxpayer funded writers’ festivals.
MWD defines a literary festival as an occasion when a soviet of leftist activists and bureaucrats gets hold of a bucket-load of taxpayer funds and invites members of the leftist intelligentsia to rock up to festivals (speakers’ fees, travel and accommodation costs all paid).
There they meet fellow panellists of like mind and participate in forums in which everyone agrees with everyone else in a leftist kind of way.
Each year, MWD focuses on various writers’ festivals – in particular, the taxpayer funded get-togethers in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra.
THE 2025 SYDNEY WRITERS’ FESTIVAL – ANOTHER TAXPAYER FUNDED LEFTIST STACK WITH ONLY TOKEN VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY
Ellie’s (male) co-owner wrote about the leftist stack that was the 2025 Adelaide Writers’ Week (director Comrade Louise Adler) in MWD on 31 January and 14 March.
The program of the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival has just now been released by its artistic director Ann Mossop.
Here’s MWD’s “little list” of Australian “writers” involved in discussions on political issues:
Waleed Aly, Julia Baird, Lech Blaine, Josh Bornstein, Nick Bryant, Jane Caro, Barrie Cassidy, Robert Dessaix, Jeremy Fernandez, Anna Funder, Helen Garner, Nikki Gemmell, Richard Glover, Rebecca Huntley, Linda Jaivin, Erik Jensen, Malcolm Knox, Benjamin Law, Andrew Leigh, John Lyons, Jacqueline Maley, Paddy Manning, David Marr, Thomas Mayo, Kate McClymont, George Megalogenis, Rick Morton, Rhys Nicholson, Amy Remeikis, Micaela Sahhar, Niki Savva, Emma Shortis, Anne Summers, Norman Swan, Virginia Trioli, Michael Williams, Clare Wright.
Not a conservative among this lot.
Not even the SWF’s Great Debate which it is said will be an “hilarious festival favourite that gets provocative, pithy and personal”.
The topic is “True Friends Stab you in the Front”.
Participants are Annabel Crabb (ABC), David Marr (ABC), Matilda Boseley (The Guardian), Rhys Nicholson (comedian) and lawyer Justine Rogers. [Sounds like a hoot, I can barely wait. – MWD Editor.]
Hendo’s fave session will take place at Sydney Town Hall on Saturday 24 May.
Here it is:
Barrie Cassidy and Friends: State of the Nation
On this side of another election, where do we stand?
Assess the state of Australian politics in this special post-election wrap-up edition of Barrie Cassidy’s panel discussion, featuring award-winning journalists Waleed Aly, George Megalogenis, Amy Remeikis and Niki Savva.
So, it’s the former ABC TV Insiders presenter and Labor Party operative Barrie Cassidy and his left-of-centre friends.
MWD is no prophet but expects that Barrie will essentially agree with Waleed who will essentially agree with George who will essentially agree with Amy who will essentially agree with Niki who will essentially agree with Barrie who will essentially agree with himself.
Or something like that.
It is notable that Comrades Cassidy, Megalogenis, Remeikis and Savva are all Peter Dutton antagonists.
As to their background, Cassidy is ex-ABC, Remeikis is with the leftist Australia Institute and Savva and Aly write for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. Enough said.
And what about the Israel-Hamas War? – MWD hears avid readers cry.
This is what Caroline Overington had to say in her “Come Writers & Critics” column in The Weekend Australian on 15 March:
The program includes Stories of Palestine, featuring Sara Haddad, whose novel The Sunbird, is about a Palestinian refugee, and Hasib Hourani, whose latest work is about Palestinian displacement.
They will be hosted by Micaela Sahhar, an Australian-Palestinian writer.
There will be a performance by Palestinian poet Plestia Alaqad, hosted by Bilal Hafda, who organises pro-Palestinian literary protests.
Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian human rights activist and writer will attend, as will the British lawyer who represented Palestine in the International Court of Justice, Philippe Sands.
The festival will also feature Jumaana Abdu, discussing her debut novel, Translations, which “explores Palestinian-First Nations solidarity” and Sara M Saleh, whose book Songs for the Dead and the Living, is described as a “coming-of-age tale from Palestine to Australia” as well as Samah Sabawi, whose book Cactus Pear for My Beloved, “brings a poetic perspective to displacement, resistance and life in exile”. Michael Mohammed Ahmad, a co-founder of Writers and Thinkers for Palestine, will attend, as will Peter Beinart, whose book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, “challenges readers to rethink history, belonging, and moral responsibility”.
Ann [Mossop] said she had also invited two Israeli writers, one of whom will be on video link, and another who lives in Holland. The former editor of The Age, Michael Gawenda, will be there to talk about his book, My Life as a Jew.
How’s that for balance?
In a session devoted to Israeli-Palestinian issues, there are 12 Israel-antagonists on the 2025 SWF program – but only three invitees who support Israel.
By the way, Michael Gawenda’s book was published in 2023.
He did not score an invitation to the 2024 SWF and was ignored by the Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2024 and 2025.
So, there you have it.
The 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival is another leftist stack.
But Ann Mossop told Caroline Overington that she did not think it was particularly one-sided.
Comrade Mossop added: “We’re not putting on some kind of political discussion designed to represent every single point of view.”
You can say that again.
There is only one point of view at the 2025 SWF – it’s overwhelmingly the left-of-centre view with a couple of token exceptions.
Your Taxes At Work.
FLANN O’BRIEN GONG FOR LITERARY OR VERBAL SLUDGE
As avid Media Watch Dog readers are aware, this occasional segment is inspired by the Irish humourist Brian O’Nolan (1911-1966) – nom de plume Flann O’Brien – and, in particular, his critique of the sometimes incoherent poet Ezra Pound.
By the way, your man O’Brien also had the good sense not to take seriously Eamon de Valera (1882-1975), the Fianna Fail politician and dreadful bore who was prime minister and later president of Ireland for far too long.
The Flann O’Brien Gong for Literary or Verbal Sludge is devoted to outing bad writing or incomprehensible prose or incoherent oral expression or the use of pretentious words – or a combination of all of the above.
BANKER SATYAJIT DAS’ STREAM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT DONALD TRUMP
You’ve heard about what William James described as the “stream of consciousness” – namely, a literary style in which a person’s thoughts are random and continuous but are interpreted as meaning something.
Well, Ellie’s (male) co-owner reckons that Satyajit Das – who presents as a former banker and global market analyst – is into the stream of unconsciousness mode.
In that his loquaciousness is at such speed and incoherence that it tends to put listeners (if listeners there are) into a Zzzzzzz.
Your man Das was on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live on 18 March talking about President Donald J. Trump, the American economy, Australia, tariffs and more besides.
At considerable pace.
After raving on about President Trump’s demand that Europe and Taiwan do more with respect to their own defence if they want help from the US – Comrade Das turned to Australia.
Let’s go to the transcript:
Satyajit Das: So, the question is, what do we have to pay? Does he want our minerals? Does he want Darwin? Does he want Pine Gap? I don't know. Maybe he wants to turn Australia into Trump Land.
Turn it up.
But there was more:
Satyajit Das: …Our vulnerability… It's not in the tariffs, it's in what are known as secondary sanctions. And let me explain what I mean by that – he can put, you know, tariffs on us. We are small potatoes. They're our fifth largest basic trading partner. And I guess if he wants us to, we can buy more cheeseburgers, Coca Cola, Kentucky Bourbon, Harley Davidsons, Boeing planes that don't fly, nuclear subs that won't be delivered, dreadful US sitcoms and Marvel movies. We can buy all of that stuff. But that's not the problem. At some stage the hegemonic battle between Australia and China, I beg your pardon, the US and China will surface in this tariff process. And the real issue there is, this issue that I call secondary sanctions. Now, let me explain how that works…
Groan.
So, there you have it.
Australia is small potatoes (“spuds” in the vernacular)
But Australia can buy from the US cheeseburgers [they might be stale on delivery. – MWD Editor] and “Boeing planes that don’t fly”. [How would they be delivered? – MWD Editor] and “nuclear subs that won’t be delivered”. [I guess the US will not accept COD, i.e. Cash On Delivery – MWD Editor.] and Marvel movies and Zzzzzzzz.
At the end, even David Marr declared a stop to the fortunate author of Fortune’s Fool.
David Marr: Enough. Enough. Enough for the moment, for the moment. I've been talking to Satyajit Das, distinguished former banker and author of many things amongst them, amongst them, "Fortune's Fool: Australia's Choices"…
LITERARY CRITICISM
By Flann O’Brien of Ezra Pound
My grasp of what he wrote and meant
Was only five or six %
The rest was only words and sound –
My reference is to Ezra £
* * * *
LITERARY CRITICISM
By Ellie
of Satyajit Das
My grasp of what he said or meant
Was only five or six per cent
Australians as spuds – what an ass
The reference is to Comrade Das
A MARK HUMPHRIES MOMENT
- COMRADE HUMPHRIES RETURNS TO THE LOVING EMBRACE OF THE ABC SOVIET
MWD has often compared the ABC to the Eagles’ song Hotel California, as in you can check out but you can never leave.
The point being those who come to work for the public broadcaster have a habit of spending decades in the place.
Often bouncing from one ABC job to the next, with only the occasional brief foray into being paid by someone other than the taxpayer.
The only requirement for continued employment being that you fit in with the left-leaning politics of the staff collectives who really run the place.
For a while it seemed like self-described satirist Mark Humphries had managed a rare escape from Aunty.
After his gig producing sketches for ABC TV’s 7.30 came to an end, Comrade Humphries made the unusual step of getting a job in commercial media.
Starting in July 2024, Humphries appeared near the end of 7 News Sydney’s 6pm Friday bulletin, in a comedy segment titled the 6:57pm News.
The hope was Humphries’ brief monologue poking fun at the news of the week would prove so popular it could be rolled out to 7 News broadcasts nationally.
Alas, this was not the case, and the segment was not brought back for 2025.
Around the same time another experimental segment updating the 7 News audience on astrology horoscopes was also dropped.
Perhaps viewers tuning in to see the news want to see the news? Just a thought.
Luckily the ABC is always willing to welcome wayward disciples back to the fold.
On Sunday 5 January 2025, Humphries stepped in as one of the rotating cast of presenters on ABC Radio’s Weekend Evenings.
After starting on Sundays, your man Mark seems to have settled into hosting the Saturday edition of the show.
Humphries’ first show as a radio presenter began with an interview of his father, Allan Humphries, himself a former ABC radio presenter and weatherman.
So, perhaps at the ABC it’s actually a case of: you can check out but you and your children can never leave.
Now happily back in the fold, Humphries also popped up on the Talking Pictures segment of Insiders on Sunday 16 March.
Predictably the discussion consisted mostly of Humphries and presenter Mike Bowers sniggering at drawings of Donald Trump, Peter Dutton, Gina Rinehart, etc, etc, etc.
For his part, Ellie’s (male) co-owner is happy to see Mark Humphries return to his natural environment.
After all, during his stint on 7.30 he always provided plenty of copy for Media Watch Dog.
AN ABC UPDATE
LAURA TINGLE IGNORES LABOR AND WEIGHS INTO PETER DUTTON IN HER DAILY REPORT
On 18 March, Treasurer Jim Chalmers received a soft interview from Sarah Ferguson on ABC TV’s 7.30.
Here’s how it commenced:
Sarah Ferguson: Now, you’ve described the $1.2 billion hit from Cyclone Alfred as, a quote, “big new pressure” on the budget. As important as this is, with government spending forecasted about $730 billion this financial year, is emphasising this a form of misdirection ahead of the Budget?
Jim Chalmers: Of course, it isn’t….
The Treasurer continued.
But Sarah Ferguson did not ask any additional questions – despite the fact that escalating deficits in next week’s budget is one of the Albanese government’s major economic problems.
Soon after, the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson interviewed the ABC’s Laura Tingle.
Tingle spent the entire interview criticising Peter Dutton but made no reference to Jim Chalmers.
Early on Tingle claimed that Dutton’s “language has a real Trumpian feeling to it” and this is how the session concluded:
Laura Tingle: It's sounding really much like policy on the run and that's making his colleagues very nervous. We're only maybe a week from the election being called and Peter Dutton is still saying don't worry, we'll announce our policies in the election campaign.
Sarah Ferguson: Laura Tingle, thank you very much indeed for coming in to explain today's events. Thank you.
Laura Tingle did not explain the day’s events – she just criticised the Opposition leader.
That’s what activist journalists of a leftist bent do.
Laura Tingle on ABC’s 7.30
SALLY SARA ATTEMPTS TO VERBAL FORMER IDF OFFICER OVER GAZA
The left-wing Australian Chris Sidoti got a soft run on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast when interviewed by Sally Sara on Friday 14 March.
Currently, Commissioner of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sidoti reported to the United Nations Human Rights Council about the situation in Gaza.
Needless to say, Sidoti’s report was highly critical of Israel – accusing it of genocide.
This is how the interview ended:
Sally Sara: Just finally, the Israeli government says that your office is anti-Semitic, and the allegations in these incidents are false. Did the Israeli government take part in the investigations behind this report?
Chris Sidoti: The Israeli government, from the very beginning of our Commission in 2021, has refused to cooperate with us in any way. On the contrary, it obstructs our work at every opportunity… They lie constantly, and this is another example of it.
Last Monday, Jonathan Conricus got a right of reply, of sorts.
He is a senior fellow at Foundation Defense of Democracies in Washington and a former Israel Defence Forces officer.
Unlike with Sidoti, Sara adopted an aggressive approach to Conricus – accepting the account of the United Nations Human Rights Commission headed by the chair Navi Pillay – an Israel antagonist.
Let’s go to the transcript:
Jonathan Conricus: - what it fails to mention – yeah, the UN Report – what it fails to mention is why was there fighting in Gaza to begin with? Why were Israeli troops forced to fight in densely populated urban terrain? If you read this report –
Sally Sara:– does that justify a sexual reproductive violence? Going into Gaza and carrying out those acts?
Jonathan Conricus: I categorically – I do not accept that allegation. I think it is preposterous to say that it was an intentional targeting of any medical clinic.
And then Sara repeated the same allegation:
Sally Sara: Does that justify the use of sexual violence in your view?
Jonathan Conricus: There hasn’t been any sexual violence, and that allegation is false. It is based on nothing but thin air and hatred for Israel.
Sally Sara’s tone was dramatically different.
Friendly and accepting towards the United Nations operative Sidoti.
And hostile to the former IDF officer Conricus.
LINTON BESSER’S SERMON ON THE MOUNT
LINTON BESSER’S MEDIA WATCH IGNORES EVIDENCE OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN ATTACK ON JEWISH PROPERTY IN SYDNEY
Presenting his Media Watch program on 17 March, Linton Besser continued the program’s tradition of lecturing others.
This is how the program commenced:
Peter Overton: It was labelled terrorism, the discovery of a caravan at Dural ladened with explosives, targeting Sydney's Jewish community. Today it’s been revealed the whole thing was one big hoax …
- Nine News (Sydney), 10 March, 2025
Hello, I’m Linton Besser, welcome to Media Watch.
And a fake terror plot, with a caravan bomb at its centre, that left Sydney reeling six weeks ago.
Besser ran the line that the reaction to the discovery of a truck laden with explosives and containing the addresses of Jewish organisations was variously a “sham”, a “fiasco” and a “cruel hoax”.
Besser focused on the police finding that anti-Semitism was not a motivating factor behind a series of attacks on Jewish property in NSW.
But, rather, that it was an attempt by criminals to get softer sentences for revealing information to the police.
Now, Media Watch airs on ABC TV’s channel at 9.15 pm on Mondays.
Moreover, when last revealed, the program has a staff of around ten for a 15-minute program once a week.
Even so, Besser overlooked this report in the Weekend Australian on Saturday 15 March by Stephen Rice and Will Seitam.
At a press conference on Monday police said the mastermind of the attacks – who they have still not publicly identified – was hoping to leverage a lenient court sentence by providing fabricated information to police about the explosives-laden caravan and the other attacks.
The attacks were carried out by low-level criminals and drug addicts who had no anti-Semitic views and were being led by criminals for personal gain, police said.
AFP Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the caravan plot “was never going to cause a mass-casualty event, but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit.”
Ms Barrett said “within hours” investigators had determined that it posed no threat, calling the incident a “criminal con job” and “fabricated terror plot”.
NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Dave Hudson was asked specifically: “You don’t have evidence that it is being driven by hate, you say it’s alleged that it’s organised crime?” “Correct”, Mr Hudson replied.
Asked again to confirm that anti-Semitism was not an ideology “for anyone higher up, pulling strings”, Mr Hudson avoided a direct answer, simply stating that: “I think these organised crime figures have taken an opportunity to play on the vulnerability of the Jewish community.”
In other words, NSW Police did not seem as sure as Besser about whether anti-Semitism was involved in the attacks.
However, The Australian located posts by the alleged organiser of the terror caravan plot, who left Australia after being charged with drug importation offences and is living overseas.
The post includes praise for Adolf Hitler and criticism of Israel.
Sounds somewhat anti-Semitic.
All this was published on Saturday morning.
And what did Linton Besser say about The Australian’s story on Monday evening?
Nothing.
Besser just ignored it – presumably because it did not fit the Media Watch narrative.
So, Media Watch viewers were not told of the views of the person police regard as the mastermind of the attacks in Sydney.
Don’t expect any change this Monday.
Media Watch is not into on-air corrections or clarifications.
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Until Next Time.
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Gerard Henderson is an Australian columnist, political commentator and the Executive Director of The Sydney Institute. His column Media Watch Dog is republished by SkyNews.com.au each Saturday morning. He started the blog in April 1988, before the ABC TV’s program of the same name commenced.