Last weekend’s Morgan face-to-face survey echoed other polls conducted at the time in showing little change on earlier polling despite Labor’s leadership turmoil, though as always it failed to echo other polls in having Labor’s primary vote several points higher. In this case Labor’s primary vote was up half a point on the previous week to 37.5 per cent, with the Coalition also up a point to 42.5 per cent and the Greens down 3.5 per cent from an anomalous 14.5 per cent last time. As usual with Morgan (though not Nielsen), there was a substantial difference between the two-party preferred results as derived by respondent allocation (52-48 to the Coalition) and using preference flows from the previous election (50-50).
NOTE: Due to server upgrades which will hopefully put an end to Crikey’s notorious technical gremlins, comments will be closed through the entirety of Sunday morning (i.e. about midnight to about noon).
William, can we use the rest of this article (by GS) or others to ridicule him then?
[It so happens that I haven’t even read the bloody thing]
howie used to say that……………
Just watched Emma Alberici interview dah Poodle on Lateline. Looked to me like she had fun with it. Asked her q’s, actually followed up on Pynes answers, and called him when he spouted bullsh!t. Well done that Lady.
There is hope for ABC yet.
You can do whatever you like, Super, but if I disagree with it, you’ll run the risk of me saying so.
Told you it was worth staying up for, Dan!
I’d expect so,too, William
[….given the facts as they were known at the time….]
Facts were they? Not the sort that any Court of law would recognise, that’s for sure. In fact, they seemed like half-baked and incorrect suppositions to me.
From which, of course, the entire MSM spent the next day or two drawing the wrong conclusions from.
Let’s face it William, if your surgeon came to you with a proposal to operate based on medical ‘facts’ of this caliber, you’d (quite rightly) tell him to bugger-off.
Off to bed.Night all.
Super
Yep.
fulvio
veni vidi vici?
Thinking about it, my understanding of Emma Alberici’s history at the ABC is that she has mainly been involved in reporting on Economics and Business matters?
This could actually make her a very dangerous interviewer as far as the Coalition is concerned since she seems to actually know her stuff. 🙂
Dan
I am still grinning
pyne was obliterated
I noticed his fangs bared towarsd the end
Gus, there’s a saying about sorrow and anger which is probably more appropriate …
Gussy
Lift your game.
gus
Emma Alberici must replace dickhead Toolman on 730. She’s a natural successor to Red Kezza.
vino vidi vici gus
Mathew Ingram @mathewi
Last year U.S. newspapers lost eight times more in print ad revenue than they were able to gain in digital ad revenue
dont ask for whom the bells toll, they toll for thee
shows
U wanta lend me ur truss?
fulv
et tu brutus?
smithe its actually
In vino veritas
😉
So William, what’s your position on how journalists should deal with information of unknown veracity?
Should they write strident pieces about as if it were certain truth?
Should they write carefully, acknowledging what is known vs whatis merely speculated?
The “facts” as they were known at the time were mostly suspicion and rumour – the actual statements from Julia Gillard and Bob Carr were ambiguous at best (and obviously deliberately so), so where did the certainty about what had happened come from?
A confidential source? Surely that should be treated with some suspicion by journalists when basing many column inches of material upon a “confidential source”.
It’s the sloppiness with the truth – what is actually known, and known to be true – versus what is speculation and guesswork. That is why Greg Sheridan and the other journalists engaging in this orgy of confected nonsense deserve censure.
These are parts of the piece by Sheridan:
No equivocation – no possibility of doubt – it’s her concrete rock-solid factual failure.
No doubt about that – she caved in! Or perhaps the word “Bizarrely” before that gives Sheridan an out? Does it indicate to the reader they should treat the claim with suspicion, because obviously Sheridan himself was utterly sold on what he was writing, actual facts be damned.
Yes, she undermined her own authority because … well what was that based on again? Facts? Hardly. Sheridan was pronouncing judgment on something that hadn’t happened and for which he had no evidence.
Not deserving of ridicule? It absolutely was deserving of ridicule for being so confident and certain that Sheridan knew what was going on – he had failed to check what was really known versus the confected media narrative that had become unmoored and floated off into fantasy land.
It’s not a matter of now knowing something for certain – it’s the fact that at the time they wrote these pieces they didn’t have any basis for the “facts” they were analyzing, and as journalists that’s a fundamental failure of their craft. Always keep in mind the source of your information and how reliable the composite impression it gives.
[Emma Alberici must replace dickhead Toolman on 730. She’s a natural successor to Red Kezza.]
That’s what we said about Steve Cannane, and look what happened to him. As soon as he got a regular gig he turned into an ABC droid.
[That is why Greg Sheridan and the other journalists engaging in this orgy of confected nonsense deserve censure.]
well said
and well explained
Jackol, I’ll grant you that Sheridan would be looking better right now if he’d said “apparent failure” rather than just “failure”.
Watched the repeat of the Pyne Lateline interview on ABC 24 Iview.
Alberici sure had a decent go at him and he wasn’t impressed.
He probably expected he’d get the usual opportunity for an uninterrupted rant, and he did start well, with the Libs Trademarked ‘she lied’ meme.
She soon put paid to that, however and got him to backtrack on his assertions as to how the Libs’ paid parental leave scheme is to be funded (initially he said with a 1.5% tax on Big Companies, but when she queried this, admitted the ‘Big companies” were actually any business with a turnover over $5 mill); She then had a go over Coalition policies (as in “your policies-where are they?” And “Dontcha think you should be releasing them if you still want an early election?”).
I suspect Whiney will be reticent about appearing on Lateline if she’s going to be hosting it much in future.
Still, at least she didn’t ask him about Coalition costings black holes and how they’re going to be filled.
That would have induced apoplexy.
bilbo
sorry
u stiil are hiding behind vaguaries
was sheridan accurate or not?
yes or no?
[It’s the sloppiness with the truth – what is actually known, and known to be true – versus what is speculation and guesswork. That is why Greg Sheridan and the other journalists engaging in this orgy of confected nonsense deserve censure.]
I agree with Jackol.
The pundits basically has a few ideas and rumours to go on, and then filled in the blanks with their own opinionated take on proceedings. Funny how it always ends up with “Gillard fails another test” isn’t it? Always.
Even La S based one of her more strident criticisms yesterday on a story she conceded was only “party true”, then demanded that Gillard go through the true and party true aspects of it and rebut or confirm them line by line.
What a cheek!
The basic problem with Sheridan’s article was that he wrote it as the gospel truth, including his opinions as gospel truth, when it wasn’t the truth after all. He sets himself up as an expert, an insider. HIS opinion is worth more than ours, or any of his readers. HIS opinion has the force of truth.
And he was wrong.
That’s what’s wrong with not only Sheridan, but the lot of them. They rarely get anything completely right, usually only half right. They have no right or special privilege to tout themselves and their opinions as being any more believable than anyone else’s.
[ gusface
Posted Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 1:00 am | Permalink
smithe its actually
In vino veritas]
Not the way I drink, puffy.
Just to reiterate, 3CR rated better than MTR.
3CR !!!, that great bastion of Australian communism beat MTR, melbournes “brave new world” answer to Sydney style shock-jock radio.
Think about it for a moment, sums up Melbourne to a T, and its what makes me proud to be a Melbournian 😀
He was inaccurate, Gusface, just as you or I would have been this time yesterday.
Gus, I love Frank like a brother, but Frank … well… he’s Frank. He can’t help saying it as he sees it, and sometimes he’s less than diplomatic. And that’s being diplomatic.
Sometimes he gets called out on it, and I wish it were otherwise.
Nothing I wouldn’t say to his face, and still expect to be his friend.
And he’s never called me stupid, I must admit …
[That’s what’s wrong with not only Sheridan, but the lot of them. They rarely get anything completely right, usually only half right. They have no right or special privilege to tout themselves and their opinions as being any more believable than anyone else’s.]
Once the general public cotton on this FACT, the msm dreamweavers are redundant
hence their descent into farcial and hallucionegenic rhetoric and ramblings
Well,I can’t find tonight’s Lateline, or more accurately on ethat includes the Pyne interview. The Lateline web site has tonight’s show, but the Pyne interview is omitted.
So can someone tell me where it is, even a link?
fulv
Ha
frank has called me worse than he has ever called bilbo
and he has his own website now
a greater warrior I have not met
but his battles belong elsewhere
AFV will be the beacon for ALL labor peeps
Gus the problem is we don’t know who was the source Sheridan relied on and whether he was justified in relying on the source. Also the content of the information provided by the source. However there is little doubt the media exaggerate their reporting for effect and deserve criticism for doing so. We only have to go back to Australia Day to see the result of the media exaggerating a story for impact.
Fair enough.
A small additional aspect to this that I’ve long had a problem with in journalists: when the thing they’re commenting on (in this case the reshuffle) is going to be resolved in a short timeframe (a matter of days), what is the point of writing dozens of column inches on the reshuffle/resolution of the Senate position in the (few) days before decisions are announced?
Do they so need to be first that they can’t all just wait the couple of days for the real announcement, and THEN analyze the hell out of what actually happened?
The Philip Coorey pre-tweet of the numbers on “spill day” are another example of that – why announce something of unkown veracity mere minutes before the official announcement?
I mean really, what is that adding to the sum total knowledge that we have? It’s pointless noise, and yet it seems to preoccupy a lot of our journalists’ time and energy.
bilbo
speak for yourself
the carr thingy was a goer from day one
its who was in on it, that determined what the end result was
[He was inaccurate, Gusface, just as you or I would have been this time yesterday.]
William, he touts himself as an opinion leader, someone who is never inaccurate. There was no doubt at all in his words. He’s the insider, not us.
I don’t know why you have this blind spot about political journalism in Australia. It is so rabidly anti-Gillard that it’s not funny.
WHATEVER she does they find fault in it. Everyone knows it. I don’t know why you don’t just unchain your heart and deal with it. Why this laboured defence of them?
davidwh
I can tell you now
sheridans sauce was bernaise
BB it was on ABC 24 iview.
Because I’m honest enough with myself to admit that even though that one particular sentence of Sheridan’s was wrong, it isn’t a hell of a lot different to what I would have said this time yesterday. And my thought processes are a bit too subtle for me to be impressed by the childlike mentality of many here that the world consists of heroes and villains, and that any comment critical of one of the latter is ipso facto a good comment even if it’s unfair or illogical.
[We only have to go back to Australia Day to see the result of the media exaggerating a story for impact.]
In both directions… both the Abbott “tear it down” beatup and the “Gillard planned the whole thing” beatup.
And then they blamed her for it any. One of them even said that it didn’t matter who’s fault it really was. If it involved Gillard in any way then she had to take responsibility.
It was the equivalent of writing “She’s just bad news. Whatever she touches turns to dross”.
Would that be a professional assessment for a political commentator to make, given that they trotted it out over the Carr business and then had to eat their words?
They were certain they were right both times, but they can’t be, can they?
They just can’t admit they were wrong. If Gillard does anything at all a teensy bit right they always claim it was a “shock”, to cover their WRONG stories.
And my thought processes are a bit too subtle for me to be impressed by the childlike mentality of many here that the world consists of heroes and villains, and that any comment critical of one of the latter is ipso facto a good comment even if it’s unfair or illogical.
Hmmm
that sounds suspiciously like a cop out
[the childlike mentality of many here that the world consists of heroes and villains,]
That’s a bullshit argument William.
No-one here says “the world” is heros and villains. Just that News Ltd, and certain Fairfax journos have it in for the government no matter WHAT Gillard does.
Grattan tonight accused GILLARD of making a “saga” of the Carr business, when all Gillard said was that she’d tell us all on Friday (today) what her decision was and in the meantime go away.
It was Grattan and shanahan who were demanding the line by line rebuttals, parsing every sentence of Gillard’s, and condemning her in column after column, not the other way around.
BB @1622
Good point.
William Bowe –
Ok, there are two parts to this:
* if you’re saying that as (mostly) average Joe expressing an opinion, then do you acknowledge there is, and should be, a different standard applied when writing in the privileged position of being a journalist for something aspiring to be a “journal of record”
* if you’re saying this as someone on the fringes of the journalistic field, do you think that if you had written an article like Sheridan’s that you should have grounded your writing better in facts, expressed more accurately the lack of certainty about what was going on due to the lack of facts, etc.?
I’d also argue that there was a lot more than one sentence wrong with what Sheridan wrote in that brief snippet we’re talking about. Perhaps all stemming from a single journalistic failure, but still…
bushfire
i think we iz cut from the same cloth
Its not hard to see what the MSM dishes up
Its harder to see WHY they dish it up
Gus the problem is some basic parts of the story were true so he must have had a source for that information and we don’t know who that source was and what he was told. It’s possible the basic information he reported was in line with what he was told minus the exaggerated rhetoric.
This is a hello goodbye post as I have to be up early tomorrow and have been working all day:
Excellent and extraordinary day! Confirms many of my opinions about our PM. Fasten your seat belts PBs.
I hope TA has had his weetbix…
That’s all well and good, BB. But I happened to be talking about one solitary sentence from an article written by neither of the two people you’ve just mentioned. I understand how much you’d like for me to be talking about something else, but on this occasion that simply isn’t what I’m doing. It might cheer you up if you went back a few pages and located the quote I pasted from Charles Richardson about the media’s anti-Labor bias, which I cited because I agreed with it.