Hello, Welcome to the Media Show. I'm Caroline Russo filling in for Jack Howton. This week big show ahead as Kamala Harris finally fronts of media with less than a month to the US election. But it proves just one thing, the left's protection racket is truly alive and well. We'll also take a look at the sanctimonious tials rolling out the gender card and in exchange with the AFR. But first, the conflict in the Middle East continues to change, expand and intensify.
It's covered in the various.
Media daily and it isn't just a substance of the conflict itself, which is subject to analysis, but also the veneer given to it by the media. In the lead up to October seven, many of us were queering how that day would be commemorated or unfortunately celebrated. Similarly, as the war begins to focus on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, there's a responsibility to make.
Clear that the history of that part of the.
Conflict is quite distinct from the otherwise year long focus on Gaza. In their wisdom, our friends at the National Broadcast provided an updated guidance to journalists about how to describe the fastly.
Heading up battlefront in southern Lebanon.
Manager of Editorial Policies for News, Mark Mayley wrote to employees on the Middle East Conflict Guidelines with visions explaining how to correctly report on ongoing conflicts, confirming that we are now describing the current actions of Israel on the Lebanese side of the border as a land invasion an invasion. Peter Whiteheam CO Chief of the Executive Council for Australian Jury, said that the word land invasion was a perverse twisting of the truth. He said, the Israelis don't seek to
conquer Lebanese territory, as the word invasion falsely suggests. Their ground campaign is a limited incursion to clear his Bla out of southern Lebanon, as was ordered by the UN Security Council Resolution seventeen oh one in two thousand and six. You'd think the ABC would tread a little more carefully using such loaded words to describe an action which is pretty clearly defensive and which has taken place after a barrash of fire from his Bola which started on October
eight and twenty twenty three. Now the left love to talk about context, but when they say context, they mean convenient and expedient context, not necessarily objective context.
But that's not the end of it.
On the seventh of October, Soviet Ellsworth published a piece in The Australian regarding findings made by the ABC on Birdsman Fiona Cameron in relation to the Israeli attack in Lebanon. It's reported that the ABC has made multiple changes to a story about Israel's attack on Lebanon after receiving complaints claiming the article was too sympathetic to his Blah and
that it omitted relevant context and perspectives. ABC on Basman Fiona Cameron received sixteen complaints about the article titled Lebanese Australian community heartbroken over Israeli attack on Lebanon, which prompted her to examine whether the story I met the avc's
editorial standards for impartiality and accuracy. Now In her report, she assessed the grievances made by complainants and they argued that the article didn't stipulate that his Bala was a list of terrorist organization and that the context for the escalation of the conflict in Southern Lebanon was unclear.
The OBBOS had said in her report that it was critical.
In a standalone article that when it included comments considered sensitive or contentious, the reasonableness standard requires relatively extensive efforts being made to achieve accuracy. Ms Cameron requested that the story be changed to reflect accuracy.
Now.
This, of course follows an enlightening episode last week, when an ABC journalist embarked on a stunning display of false equivalence in asking Opposition leader Peter Dutton why his BELA was a list of terrorist organization and its flag not allowed to be flown and wasn't that hypocritical given Israel's actions had resulted in forty five thousand deaths and its flags still allowed.
Those are her words, not mine here.
They are groups have commented on the hypocrisy of that situation because there are no bands currently on Israeli flags being raised, despite forty five thousand people charging at the parents.
Of us any well, Israel is a democracy, It's not run by a terrorist organization. Has Blow is a terrorist organization, They're a listed terrorist organization and if people are in favor of a terrorist organization, they should declare it and the authority should deal with it.
What determiness.
What determines the fact that as well as a terrrist organization, even though.
The men, where are you from? I'm sorry which organization?
ABD?
ABC? So what's the question from the ABC? Just to be very clear, what was the question you asked? I want you asked the question about the listing, So I just want I want you to just ask that question again.
I just sort of.
Explain what what terrors?
Well, I had presumed up until this point at least that the ABC supported the government's laws, and the government has passed laws supported on a bipartisan basis, but not by the ABC. It seems in relation to the prescribing or the listing of a terrorist organization. HESBLA under Australian law is a listed terrorist organization. Now, if the ABC doesn't support that, they should be very clear about it, because I think that's quite a departure. But you asked
me why why why our country has listed hesblah. They're a terrorist organization that they organized terrorist attacks. And if that is not clear to the ABC, then I think the ABC is in greater trouble. And even I first imagined.
That was a great question.
That was extraordinary.
But what is clear is that there's an activist for you within the ABC that is actively anti Israel and sympathetic apparently to anyone who isn't Israel, and it appears.
To pollute its reporting.
Joining me on the panel this week is The Australian's Darren Davidson and Sky News contributor James Bolt. Darren, I know there are occasionally circumstances where guidelines are given around the publication of certain types of information. You know in your experience, what's really important to consider when you're putting together those sorts of guidelines.
The objective should be neutral, balanced, facts based journalism, objective reporting. Unfortunately, the ABC has a pretty patchy record on the conflict in the Middle East, and there's been a series of incidents, the one with Peater Dutton being the most recent, and in fact the ABC actually distanced itself from that interview at that event and said it wasn't a piece of reporting and they didn't take that position that reported Turkey
in the interview Repeater Dutton. But too often I think what we see is that the obc's reporting is very sort of sympathetic to a narrative on one side of the conflicts and will too easily, you know, take the side of sympathizers, boosters and media outlets and add least like Olgazera for example, which quite partisan, and the social media accounts of journalists that are quite pro one side
of the conflict. And it's something that we've seen time and time again over the last twelve months or so now just over twelve months.
And James is such a new once set of circumstances in southern Lebanon. But using a word like invasion without the context and the history sitting behind it really feels like fuel on the fire.
Yeah, it's the kind of reporting you do when you think there's only one side to a conflict. And I honestly feel that conservatives and liberals are just we just end up playing whack a mole with the ABC. The mole of ABC bias pops up, we whack it and it disappears back into a machine, biding its time until it can show itself again. And I think the only way out of this situation is if the coalition front
up and say we should privatize the ABC. There's simply no reason for it to keep going because of the buyers it has and also just the media landscape is completely different. We're just destined to just have these stories come up of us getting angry at the ABC, them going away, coming back with even more biased until we can finally start to privatize the ABC.
Yeah, I think there are plenty of people at home nodding their heads in agreement the James Now. Last week, the AFR published a side story to the AFRs Afar magazine's Power List Now. The yarn related to a legrispender apparently attending the afr's officers in Parliament House to request that Simon Holmes the Court be removed from the list because he didn't want to be on it. Apparently that didn't come as a surprise to our friends at the AFR, because a staffer of Zoe Daniel had already run the
AFRs officers with the same request. AFR declined, obviously, but it didn't end there. Later, Miss Daniel released a missive about the incident, in which he takes a swing at the AFR, suggesting that the call was made out of a concern that the paper plan to imply in its power liss that Simon Holmes the Court holds a position of male power over female community independence on the crossbench.
It goes on to say it's a sexist.
Trope that fails to recognize the rise of independence is a reflection of powering communities or power of communities.
My apologies, and I.
Would encourage the media, particularly the male reporters at the AFAR, to update their attitudes to women in leadership. Well, the irony is that everything that is apparently implied by the paper is what the rest of us can see with our lying eyes. The reporters at the AFAR don't need to necessarily update their attitudes to women.
The teals just need to go easy on the revisionism.
This would have to be one of the most self serving and stunning uses of the gender car I have ever seen.
Anyway, here we are, Darren. Look, we've all watched the rise of the tials. Look this carry on.
About local gows winning their seats off their own steam and gold coin donations.
It's a bit cute, isn't it.
Yeah, Look, your gender discrimination is a really serious issue, and I think the antics of the tials risks turning issue into a laughing stock. I think the other point to make about all of this is that the irony of the intervention about a secret list that the Financial Review rightly keeps it as a closely guarded secret until they actually publish that list. It's that some people may now be more prone to thinking that the Tills we're doing the bidding of a rich man than they were before.
And they kind of inevertently you put a spotlight on something that would have been missed by everybody else ordinarily, so bit of an amateur hour kind of intervention from them. And as I said as well, I think you know it's a serious issue gender discrimination and it's not exactly modeling good behavior for one gender by behaving like that, and you know, kind of chrome wolf about sexism at the first hints of criticism.
James, Look, there's a whole heap of carry on in the statement about miss Daniel apparently not knowing the call was made, and that it was made by a former staffer who's now a casual consultant.
That doesn't really make it go away, right, it's still a yarn.
No, No, Zoe Daniels, Right, this is all a complete coincidence. We have this casual consultant, out of the goodness of their heart, calling up the AFR and just saying, hey, can you do this donor to my boss a favor, completely coincidentally. And then when they get told and an even bigger coincidence, Alegraspender herself comes down and says, can you please get Simon Holmes Accord off the list? These
are just all complete coincidences. They're great coincidences. It's as big a coincidence as all of these independent MPs linking together in a way that kind of often reflects the values of Simon Holmes the Court and voting against the
interests of the Liberal Party also completely coincidental. And to be honest, I hope this is a coincidence because if it isn't, Simon Holmes at Court wanted to downplay how much covert power he operates in Australian politics by asking a democratically elected member of Parliament to go to a paper to ask them to change reporting. Not exactly how I would say you should downplay your power by having
a federal MP save you a phone call. But I'll tell you what if Simon Holmes the Court does want to say, look, I'm not powerful, You're completely overcooking it. I'm not the kind of guy, you think I am. I think the best thing for him to do would be to stop donating to any tl MP in the next election. Let them show that they can get elected on their own merits and their own work in the community, and that will show that Simon Holmes Court is a complete nothing.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Look, we'll take a break and when we're back, Kamala Harris finally fronts the media, but it just proves the left protection racket is alive and well, welcome back. Now the US presidential election is fast approaching and Kamala Harris is finally out and about doing interviews. Well, I say interviews, but they're more like word cuddles on camera, like this one with Stephen Colbert.
You first became the nominee and named Tim Walls as your vice president nominee. People are calling it the vibe election. Every Well, the vibes were all good, but elections I think are one on vibes because one of the old saws is they just want somebody they're can have a beer with. So would you like to have a beer with me? So I can tell people what that's like. Okay, this was Now we asked ahead of time, because I can't just be given a drink to the vice president.
I says, let's ask me. You asked for Miller Filo. I'm just curious.
Okay.
The last time I had beer was at a baseball game with Dougs.
There you go, ooh, it's like a beautiful city of Milwaukee.
Give me strength, hardly hot hitting. Well, this one with the view.
Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years? There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact. The work that we have done, For example, capping the cost of insulin at thirty five dollars a month for our seniors is something I care deeply about about allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and bring the cost of prescription medication down for seniors. But my intention is to
expand that for all Americans. The work we have done to invest in American industries, whether it be in terms of manufacturing and creating almost eight hundred thousand new jobs around manufacturing, those are all a shared priority.
Nothing she would have done differently, huh not?
The wide open southern border, spiking illegal immigration, the flood of fentanyl, or the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Interesting flex.
I assume she's just hoping the audience isn't that politically engaged and hasn't noticed the fact their standard of living in the US has nose dive in the.
Last three years.
But to be fair, in the interview Kamala Harris did with sixty minutes, there were parts where she was pressed for answers and it just shows her like a match fitness.
I've been covering the border for years and so I know this is not a.
Problem that started with your administration, correct, But there was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your administration. As a matter of fact, arrivals quadrupled from the last year of President Trump. Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did.
It's a long standing problem and solutions are at hand, and from day one, literally we have been offering solutions.
What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?
Say, the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem.
Okay, but the numbers did quadruple, and.
The numbers today because of what we have done. We have cut the flow of illegal immigration by half. We have done the flow of sentinel by half. But we need Congress to be able to act to actually fix.
The problem.
That was on Toddy.
I love how it's now well Congress's fault anyway, That said one savvy observa.
I noticed these, but.
It seems that Prime Minister net and Yah who is not listening.
Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.
But it seems that Prime Minister net and Yah who is not listening.
We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.
That looks like a big mess. James, you're a producer. How does that even happen?
It happens because CBS appeared to have put their personal advocacy at such a center point of their thinking that they're very happy to become Kamala's PR team. But there's a bigger issue here, which is that even with what appears to be selective editing, and even with the friendliest interviews that she can possibly have, these are still awful answers from an un serious candidate. I mean the clip
you just played there, I wrote it down. The work we have done has resulted in movements that sounds like an AI generated LinkedIn influencer, and you wants to play the view clip and the Colbert clip. And I thought that view clip was very telling because she's asked, very clearly, what would you have done differently in the last four years? Now, keep in mind Kamala Harris is trying to put herself as the change candidate. Her phrase is we can't go
back now. For her to say that she wouldn't have done anything differently over the last four years is a complete reversal of that entire thinking. So she's given a couple of hours to reassess, Okay, what else do I want to say? What else would I have done? And she goes on Stephen Colbert and she's asked again, what would you have done differently and she still can't come up with anything. It is mind boggling how bad she is at friendly interviews.
The thing is there, I suppose, James, is you know, she's trying to pitch herself almost as if she's been in opposition and she's going to be new and different. When you say things like I wouldn't have done everything anything differently, and I was involved in that decision making, it becomes very very difficult then to try and frame yourself as this new fresh frat face Darren. As James said, Look, she's not great at interviews. She can do the fluff,
but I thought it was really interesting her face. She just looks terrified when someone presses her.
She really does. I mean, this is kind of her version of Biden's twenty twenty basement campaign, safe appearances, feel good vibes, kind of vague generalities and platitudes. It worked for a time in reassuring that Democrats after they were so demoralized by what was happening with Biden towards the end there, but it's clearly not working anymore. You know, you're seeing in the battleground states that Trump is starting
to make some gains. She looks like she's plateaued in the polls for the first time after having that nice, big spike after she became the nominee. I think what it kind of shows is that she's captive to the hard left of the party and her party's policies, much like Biden. And that's a big flaw because many of those policies are very unpopular. We're voters. So I think
this is a bit of a turning point. And as you say, it's incredible that she you know, she can't even answer these questions with her sympavisers in the American media, which is most pretty much most of the media in America. It's incredibly left leaning.
Absolutely.
Now, before we finish up, I want to quickly get to your stories of the week. It would be remiss of me if I didn't have tip talk back Titan John Laws, who want announced his retirement at ninety one years of age.
That man has had an unmatched innings. Now, Darren, let's start with you. What's your story.
It's a story from one of my own journalists. Sorry, so it's a bit self serving, but it just shows the power of having someone on the ground in the Middle East. We've got two journalists, Yanni and Liam, who
actually returned last night from Israel. They were over there for the anniversary, and much like Shariot Sky, they've done some incredible on the ground reporting and this is a story that Yanni did with this tragic story, this poor father who was in the historic southern Israel city of Yaffa, really really sad tale, but there are some sort of bright spots and positive things in the story, and it's just an incredible piece on the ground reporting from Yanni
and Liam, and well done to them for the incredible work they've done. And I was at Sky over the last few weeks over there on the ground in the region.
And James, Yeah, so my story comes from within Hurricane Milton, which is obviously a very terrible thing, and I don't want to be making light of it, but sometimes just media stories pop up and you have to follow it. So Lieutenant Dan is a character that's gone viral on TikTok recently, and he's gone viral for a very stupid reason, and I want to make it clear I'm not endorsing the reason he's gone viral, very very stupid, but he decided that he was not going to get evacuated from
Tampa in the middle of a hurricane. He was going to ride it out in that boat. You can just see behind him. Again, very stupid. Don't want to be saying that that was a good idea. But this is incredible because after the hurricane, the sorry, just before the hurricane hit, the Tampa Tampa Bay Mayor got on TV and had this to say about Lieutenant Dan as a message to everyone else.
The Tampa Police Department this morning, just save Lieutenant Dan. He has been rescued and he is now in a shelter as well. So if we can get Lieutenant Dan to go to a shelter, we can get anybody to do that.
But unfortunately for the Mayor of Tampa, a reporter, Brian Ensign happened to be right near the Lieutenant Dan's boats and had this to say. He said, I know, the mayor of Tampa just setting a new press conference and Lieutenant Dan went to a shelter.
He didn't.
I'm standing right here and shared this incredible photo. So you know, just again, you should you should have got evacuated. But that photo that's just media. That's that's a perfect shot.
Yep.
Yeah, and you can't hide that, can you.
Darren Davidson, James Bolt, thank you so much for your time this evening.
And that's all we have time for on the show.
The Media Show will be back next Friday at the same time.