The Media Show | 13 December

This is the Media Show with Jack houting Hello and welcome to the final media show of the year. I'm Jack Houghton, and tonight we'll discuss Times new Person of the Year, a war between labor and big tech, and much more. But first, last week we discussed a radical leftist journalist who justified the murder of a health insurance CEO. Former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz made headlines around the world for saying, people wonder why we want these executives dead.

Why would you be in such a celebratory mood about the execution of another human being. Aren't you supposed to be on the caring sharing left, where you know you believe in the sanctity of life.

I do believe in the sanctity of life, and I think that's why I felt, along with so many other Americans joy. Unfortunately, you know, because.

Seriously, I mean execution.

Maybe not joy, but certainly not no, certainly not empathy. Because again, we'll.

Watching the footage, How can this make you joyful? This guy's a husband, is a father, and he's been dumb down in the middle of Manhattan.

Why did that make you joy?

For the Americans?

Remember when the Left used to be about compassion and nuance. Well, when given a chance to walk back her comments about feeling joy, Lorenz doubled down. Now watch the eyes in this clip. They give a whole new meaning to the word crazy.

Should they all be killed?

Then?

Should they all be killed these healthcare executives? Would that make you even more joyful? I?

No, that would not. And uh I think because yours? Because it does, It wouldn't fix it. To find the whole thing hilarious, I find your your questions.

Be murdered in this. I don't find it funny at all.

I don't find it funny that tens of thousands of Americans die every year and because they are denied life saving healthcare from people like.

This year, Taylor Lorenz, seemingly advocating for murder as a solution to societal issues, came at an awkward time for our ABC here in Australia. Remember a few weeks ago when their dopey chair Kim Williams attacked podcast to Joe Rogan as a repulsive extremist.

I personally find it deeply repulsive, and to think that someone has such remarkable power in the United States is something that I look at him disbelief.

The ABC sought to cover that story in a podcast, and they decided to lean on the expertise of old Crazy Eyes Taylor Lorenz to inform viewers at the taxpayer's expense, of course, why Joe Rogan was so dangerous.

I mean it, look, I do think that he's that Joe Rogan has tapped into something, and I do think it's fair to say at this point that he does prey on people's vulnerabilities and sort of fear. Joe Rogan has pushed a lot of sort of extreme rhetoric and a lot of the episodes of his show are built around sort of fomenting fears. He's pushed a lot of

How humiliating for the ABC. The ABC's tech expert in this case, says that Joe Rogan is dangerous and spreading fear, and then she went on to say she felt joy when a man was gummed down in the street. Now, this is why people are losing trust in legacy media, and this is why the ABC is quickly making itself irrelevant. Well, joining me on the panel this week is Sky News,

What are your thoughts?

Well, Tanner goes after Joe Rogan, saying that he's spreading conspiracy theories in dangerous messages, but he's not going out in the street and saying it's okay for a CEO of a healthcare company to be gone down because somehow vindicates the trauma of thousands of Americans and maybe not their health claims.

Through as if it would impact the industry, as if he's not going to be replaced tomorrow by somebody else, as if it would have any kind of impact whatsoever.

That's right, and peace absolutely skews her brilliantly because this man was a father, and he was a husband, and he ran a company. So if you don't agree with the way the company deals with healthcare, the solution is not to murder him in the street, but to for her to indicate that and say that that's somehow a great message and American supporter, which.

They clearly don't.

Americans were horrified by what she said, and they were horrified by what happened to the CEO.

Yeah, completely agree.

And the other element to this is our taxpayer dollars have gone to getting this person, propping her up as some kind of a tech expert. And the irony of this is that she says that Joe Rogan is dangerous.

Yeah, so let me tell you who Taylor the Rends is, because there's probably a lot of people watching that have thankfully never heard of her.

And now we've had to break the eye.

So she had already left the Washington Post by the time this interview aired, and she has also this month lost her podcast with Box. She doesn't have her mask head to her name, So clearly she's not a.

Big mover and shaker in the industry.

And if we go back a couple of years, she's also the woman that docks the libs of TikTok So libs of TikTok Twitter account creator she rocked up at her house, says to creator, knocked on her door and said, I've got some questions to ask Now, she says, there Joe Rogan for men's fear, What could be more fearful than if you're an anonymous account user a journalist knocking at your door and saying, we're some questions, so I have I'll take my like she walks around with a

Yes, there's nothing more fear.

It does strike that the ABC journalist the book than was more interested in just getting a yes and just carrying on rather than thinking of themselves. Did I get someone good to talk about that?

Well, But just what they're saying is here's some very vocal left wing person to talk about this evil conservative podcast. By the way, Joe Rogan isn't even you know, an orthodox conservative podcast. He started off on the left. He endorsed Bernie Sanders film community. You know, he's someone that was driven to endorsing Trump because of this absurdity that we're seeing playing out.

In an eating hours and hours interviewing him, and that was one of the key factors, as we know, apart from obviously what happened in when Trump was shot, in actually getting him into back into power, getting him back into the White House. People listen to the nuanced interviewing that Joe Rogan did with Trump and thought, actually, I'm.

Going to vote for this.

And that's why Kim Williams, who's supposed to be the head of a media organization him not understanding that point, I don't see how he's fit. I think he's far too daton to be running an organization. If he doesn't understand that point, he doesn't understand why people interested in Jie Rogan. But let's move on, because Elon Musk has hit out at the CEO of Axius Media, who had a meltdown a few weeks ago, angry about the rise of citizen journalism. Now, if you missed the comments, have a listen.

Everything we do is under fire.

Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X Today, saying like we are the media, you are the media. My message to Elon Musk is both, you're not the media.

You having.

You, having a blue check mark, a Twitter handle in three hundred words of cleverness doesn't make you a reporter. You don't do that by popping off on Twitter. You don't do that by having an ape. You do it by doing the hard work.

The clip was lapped up by MSNBC's Morning Joe, which gave it a round of applause.

Come on, so clap.

First of all, I've got to say extraordinary content.

It needed to be said. It continues to need to be said when all of.

The garbage is flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors do, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts, but alternative set of facts about.

What people like you do. Or if social media people lying.

Every day, every hour, every minute about the news, what you do matters.

If you say it confidently enough, maybe it becomes true. Responded to that video this week, saying you are the media. Now they are the past. Let's bring the panel back into discuss. Luise Musk obviously has made his position with the legacy media very clearly. He's also a bit of a troll in good fun and good jest agitate.

But the thing is it works.

So this axious CEO going up there and having a temper tentrum or put Joe Scarborough, the host of Burning Joe and his little tantrum to one side. Why how embarrassing to let the trolling impact you when you're a professional boss, when you're a CEO and you're swearing on stage and having a meltdown about citizen journalism.

This is where maybe sat an older subset of trained journalists really present themselves as dinosaurs and not willing to adapt to the new media and the way people are consuming media. I mean, citizen journalism is fantastic user generated content, whatever.

You like to call it.

It really resonates with the community people. That's how they communicate with it.

A lot of reporters are also quoting things that are said on X. You know, there is that reverse paradigm as well, where here's reporters. I bet if you go to their website you can find a lot of instances of content which has been generated on that platform by these citizen job.

I members of the publicer'll talk about, and certainly John the pandemic, we found it super useful where people were swapping information with each other globally about how coronavirus was affecting us. So I think that panel should be embracing it and getting citizen journalists on their show rather than shooting them down and saying, oh woe betide us, our industry is in decline.

Completely agree.

I mean more communication between people the better. But what do you think of this story?

What James Vander heis the actually as guy you played.

He said, journalism isn't about having three hundred words of cleverness and an opinion.

That is what it is like at the end of the day. That's what it's been for six hundred years. I thought.

I thought it was a ten word headline, like we don't pick up anvils and go to war, Like we just sit there and we come up with words of clever list and the irony of MSNBC going on a rand saying what we do matter is well like hemorrhage viewers every single show is hilarious. Yeah, I think there's definitely a little bit in that which is like, I think we still matter. I think there's a little bit

I agree, And it was great to see the editor of Time, Sam Jacobs actually make that point that there was no other choice, and the story of redemption and victory is fabulous. And I thought there was a really nice piece in that where he talked about Trump being almost wistful because he's won the fight. So what's next for Trump? Because he's very comfortable as a pugelist, He's very comfortable taking things on, as we know when he was shot and he said fight, fight, fight. That's been

To be was a rare case of balance, right, it was, yes, James, your thoughts?

Yeah, I was going to say, I know John's already won in twenty sixteen. But does it seem that there's less anger at the Trump victory from the left than there was in twenty sixteen?

Less outpouring.

I haven't seen as many people threatened to move to Canada. I haven't seen plans for a women's march on Washington as we did in.

Twenty Well, the outrage doesn't match the pre election rhetoric, No, which is really weird as genuine Well, you must have lied, Yes, you're lying now?

Did you lie?

Then?

If you genuinely thought you had just lost to Hitler, you wouldn't be taking it as line down as the left ear and.

So they knew all.

But also are they going like, hang on this kind of clown show, cartoonish outrage At every single step of the way, people switch off, like it's good for the coastal leads, and it's good at dinner parties. And I told Trump this, and I tweeted out that. But for the people in you know, Wisconsin, Michigan, Philadelphia, the places you need to win, they just zone out and they go, Actually, the other guy, it seems more fun.

Well said, well, we're going to take a quick break, but when we return. Inside Labour's war with big tech, welcome back. The Labor government has made another move in its war against big tech.

Well, it's a big day for the Australian media landscape today, with the federal government set to announce plans to force big tech companies to pay local publishers for news now. Under the planned companies such as Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram could face financial penalties for breaches.

Media organizations were fast to back in moves by Labor, making the point that these platforms have become an intrinsic part of how Australians consume news.

Imagine, at the height of the bushfire season, property being destroyed, lives being threatened, and the news bullets that so many rely on through their phones and tablets.

What is the latest there this evening were suddenly blocked by the big social media companies. That's what happened in Canada last year after the government demanded Facebook pay for news content.

And the ABC was quick to point out that the disruptive presence social media has had on regional newsrooms.

After printing for more than one hundred and twenty five years, Broken Hills independent newspaper Barrier Truth close down this year. Sadly, it's a common sight in regional Australia as vital advertising money is lost to social media platforms.

Let's bring the panel back into discuss Lewis. It's obviously a second stage. The Coalition brought in the News Media Bargaining Code, which would have involved having to designate these platus forms, which is this whole other process. But this is an interesting tactic because this is hitting them with tax dollars and offering incenters. How do you think Labor's done on this, Oh, pretty well.

I think if they can get it through and actually get big tech to pay, because if they're in the space and using our content, then they should be paying for it. And I don't like their argument. I don't buy it when they say, well, we amplify your content, but the fact is that they're not journalists themselves. All they are is a kind of an amplifier, as they say. So if the federal government can actually push you through, I think it'd be a great idea, because you know

Yeah, definitely.

And look, the way that I view this from a digital perspective is you've got these companies that are scraping up eighty percent of the AD revenue in Australia and they're not really giving back in the way that other companies or other industries have to when they have this exceptional influences on resources or people's lives. Here, for example, mining companies, when they have to pay royalties. It's a very clever way to go at it though from a tax point of view, because it will be very difficult

Yeah.

I just think the bigger issue here is that the dance between big tech and Australia is always going to be a pretty ugly one. Until we have a government more committed to freedom speech. I can't imagine that a lot of Meta and the other social media companies reaction to Australia over the last year hasn't been informed by what was in Labour's Misinformation Bill or what they said

To do business with.

Yeah.

I think the other unknown here is what will Donald Trump do. He could see this, perceive this to be an attack by Australia on these great American companies, and he is in the middle of slapping tariffs on a lot of different countries, and that could be something which

Sex base rights.

Now, Pursuna was found to have defame Deeming, which was obvious to anyone who knew the facts, and Deeming spoke outside the courthouse about the pressure she faced.

This judgment is a public acknowledgment that there was never any justification legal, moral or political for what was done to me and to my family. One Liberal party value was honored or furthered in Victoria by this relentless and remorseless campaign to discredit me and everybody who stood by me. But I was never going to let it go unchallenged in this state.

Let's bring the panel back in Luiz.

You've got this situation here where yes Pursudo put out these statements saying that she was a Nazi sympathizer.

Absurd that he did it.

He partly fell for a trap that the likes of the Guardian and the ABC set by letting them. You've got a man there who, instead of fighting it and defending his people, threw her under the bus, listened to the media which was.

Lying about this, and he's lost.

I think the thing that has gone unset in all of this is all the journalists that republished that, all the journalists that looked at that, and you know, she's not a Nazi. She's there talking about the transgender issue, and they deceptively pushed that through. There hasn't been accountability for that.

No, and I think anyone who uses that term to describe some it is such a less lazy, lazy and abhorrent, and particularly in the current climate that we've experienced the last two or three weeks as well. And he's the leader of the opposition and he makes comments about this and about this a Liberal Party.

Colleague in intellectually bankrupt and mature cruel.

I mean, she's able to campaign and talk about whatever issues she's want, she's an MP. But for him to use the Nazi word, it was just disgusting. And it's good that he's you know.

I don't believe they haven't kicked it.

Well he's refusing to resign, of course, but I mean, would you vote for him again in the next st election?

Absolutely not. There's no integrity there.

I mean, James, let's bring you in because this issue obviously is a political issue. But I do strongly think that the media played a role in this, and a very deceptive role some outlets and the way that they amplified that message. What do you think do you think there's been enough accountability there?

I just think that, yeah, as we say, the word Nazi is just such a go to insult to discredit itself one and it loses a lack of like the absolute power that that word should have when describing someone. And yeah, if this is something that says to the media eight just because you disagree with them doesn't make them a Nazi, doesn't make them a fascist, doesn't make them a communist, then we're.

Getting to a good place in the world.

But to John Pursuto, because this is a political point, I mean, he put all of his chips into the middle of the table when he went on more redeeming like that, he said, this is someone I want to get rid of. I know the parties against it, but here is my big play. He's now completely lost. I don't see how he can hold on. I don't think people want to vote for him, even though in polling the coalition is ahead.

Because labor is that toxic. They need to get rid.

Of and replace him with someone that can people can vote for, and we might actually have a Victorian Liberal government, which no one would have thought of five years ago.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. Let's move on there now. Stories of the week, what do you have for us?

I was interested in the story about the McDonald's employee, the one who found Luigi Mangioni in the restaurant, the McDonald's restaurant in Pennsylvania, who actually phoned in nine one one to say, I think we've actually found the man. Apparently he's in line for a massive reward. I think it works out at about ninety five thousand dollars Australian. Wow, it's a massive reward. It's when I say here, we actually don't know whether who the identity of the McDonald's

Depend on a conviction.

Luigi has to be convicted in order for this employee.

To get That's difficult.

No, no, but I thought that was a great thing. I mean that you go to work just flip burgers and then the next thing you've found a suspect and you may be in line for a life change.

Very strange that he's carrying all that stuff with him.

Yeah, and in such a public place and men and McDonald's where people are going to be milling around and go yeah in a way, yeah, yeah, just.

On that while he is heroic and the actions of speaking up and seeing what he saw. I can't believe that the McDonald's itself got review bombed by the internet. It's a place of snitches, they really, It's got yeah one star reviews like terrible McDonald's.

Like the interest is weird defense for this killer. Yes, it's very cult around talents a show.

Because I've got this whole thing about this that could go on forever. But in the interests of the producers, I will move on to my story of the week, which is the Queensland government has said that they're not they're banning any debate on abortion for the next parliament a couple of years, four years.

And look, I'm.

Someone that doesn't want to see the Catterparties reforms get through, but you can't ban elected representatives from debating something.

We have enough.

We don't have any good protections on freedom of speech in the public square for people to debate in society. But now we're seeing people that we elected to represent our interests being told they can't represent our interests on one particular issue because it's a thawn for the government.

That's disgusting.

James Bolt, Luise Roberts, thank you so much for joining me. That's all the time that we have for tonight. Thank you for joining us the media show. We'll be back next year.