This is the Media Show with Jack.
Outing, Hello and welcome to the Media Show. Tonight we'll take a look at the toxic culture inside the Guardian Australia's newsroom, a war between Anthony Albanesi and Elon Musk, and towards the end of the show, we're going to sit down with media watchdog columnist Jared Henderson to keep
an eye on the ABC. But first, everyone will have seen the heartbreaking footage of the bushfires in California, but not everyone will have taken the time to read about the widespread criticism of California's leadership, which some have argued have made the fires more difficult to contain. Now, one marketing clip which has gone viral does a pretty good job of summarizing the obsession with identity politics which is infected leadership of critical emergency services.
You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you. It gives that person a little bit more ease knowing that somebody might understand their situation better. Is she strong enough to do this? Or you couldn't carry my husband out of a fire, which my response is he got himself from the wrong place if I have to carry him out.
Of a fire.
This woman is a Los Angeles Fire Department diversity chief, and she is making the argument that it is your fault if you are trapped in a burning building and a female firefighter isn't strong enough to save you. Now, that's pretty disgusting and reprehensible commentary. It isn't very inclusive either, as people with disabilities can be caught in fires, and we know the fires are so fast moving in California that simply anyone can get caught out. And this is
what their marketing team proudly published as well. It's their culture, an aggressive victim blaming culture of identity politics above all. And of course this rubbish was called out by many people, including Elon Musk, which prompted media organizations like The Sydney
Morning Herald to criticize him. Reporter Bianka Hall writes disinformation rains as bushfires dev state California, and speaking about Musks, she alleged diversity equity and inclusion DEI investments and hiring processes he has repeatedly said have caused deaths that could otherwise have been avoided if more white men were fighting the fires. Now, he actually never explicitly said that, and if he had, she would have quoted directly what he said.
She just verbaled him. And it is false, And it's an effort to straw man a broader and legitimate argument about these insane priorities and racist hiring practices at some emergency services. In fact, the reporting was so unhinged that one of their own writers called it out in a tweet which has since been deleted SMH. Columbus Parnell McGinnis took aim at her own Masterthead for basically misrepresenting Musk's position. She said that credible outlets make themselves less credible by
making up misinformation about misinformation. Musks suggested that fire services should not preference DEI hires over people who could do the job, a subtle but important difference to what is implied here. Now, either of these reporters such as Bianker Hall, are so stupid that they don't understand the argument, or they simply don't care, And for the record, if it is the latter, then that is a real case of disinformation.
Well.
Joining me on the show this week is the Australians Darren Davidson and Sky News contributor Louise Roberts. Louise, what we saw in that clip from this very senior fire chief telling people that if they're the ones trapped in the building, well they've done the wrong thing. They're the
ones who've got themselves in the wrong spot. I find it astonishing that journalists are somehow defending that and also trying to make the argument that it's almost immoral to point out that that's just clearly wrong.
Well, I do wonder what to Christine Larson's sort of position is It is she somehow all by extension blaming the good people of Los Angeles for the current fire situation, the people who've lost their homes and the businesses have burned to the ground, and the absolute devastation, the multi
billion dollars of damage that's been caused. I do find that when Parnell sort of called out her own paper for whitewashing the issue and sort of somehow suggesting that Musk had made this comment saying there should be more white men being hired rather than more diverse candidates. You know, people are really recognized DEI as being a major factor in why these fires are not under control and why the priority has been for training firefighters and not enough
water in the fire hydrants. I mean, from my point of view, it's a campaign, a three year campaign within that fire department, which should.
Be stopped now.
Yeah, And I think there's Darren, Let's bring you in here, because there's clearly a cultural element in the fire department as well, which is important to talk about, because it's not like journalists went sorting through archive footage and this
was leaked from their internal serve internal training material. This was published by the fire servers as part of this identity politics propaganda push what they do when they're all trying to be pro identity politics, they've published this commentary out there. It's come back to bite them. Obviously it was an older video, but it goes to show how they think about it.
It does.
I actually lived in the area from twenty twenty one until twenty twenty two where the fires are happening right now. My son was born there, so I had a very good exposure to the way that local resources are managed. And I think a lot of the commentary in some of the commentary referenced, it's just a clear attempt to distract from the failure of state and local government to contain fires that often accompany the Santa and A fires,
which are part of the climate in that region. Look, no question, human activity impacts climate, but you often have dry season following wet seasons. That's very very common. That's been happening in California for hundreds of years. What's actually happened here is that Gavin Newsom and the Democrats have mismanaged local resources. They've underinvested in water storage and land management.
If you look at the federal budget the state budget for California coming up, they've slashed resource management for Cow Fire by half, which is a huge, huge reduction, and that's why these fires are happening. It's very very sad someone that lived there. It's actually devastating to see what's happening to those people's homes and those community communities which
actually devastated. And I really do hope and we see some a change in how those local resources are managed and how the state is led by Gavin Newsom, who is an absolute he's a disaster. And we've seen this around the US in recent years, and it's one of the reasons why Trump's back in the White House. Which is that a lot of these cities have been really, really grossly mismanaged at the state on local level in somes of resourcing.
Yeah, well said, well, let's move on, because as we go to air tonight, the world was still waiting for confirmation of a ceasefire deal in Gaza which would.
See the release of hostages.
Now it is expected to be formalized this weekend, and the good news has led to both sides of politics taking credit. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump claimed credit for the deal because both parties were involved, and for the most part, the media coverage around this was fair. The New York Times called it an extraordinary act of collaboration between outgoing and incoming presidents. Biden and Trump defy
the history of animosity to seal Gaza ceasefire. The two presidents directed their advisors to work together to push Israel and Hamas over the line for an agreement to halt the fighting that has ravaged Gaza and release hostages who have been held there for fifteen months, and Biden himself explained this for reporters pretty clearly at the press conference.
This deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but terms will be implemented for the most part by the next administration. In these past few days, we've been speaking as one team.
But just one minute after those comments, Biden went to turn around and he was baited by a reporter.
Thank you looks.
Credit for this, mister President?
You or child?
Is that a job? Oh? Thank you.
Media pundits and so called esque experts will continue debating who should be praised for the deal if it goes ahead. But over at MSNBC, the conspiracy started to festa. It could not possibly be that Trump did something good. Host Joy Reid had a different theory.
And Prime Minister Benjamin Netsanyahu has made it no secret that he prefers Trump and wanted to deliver him a win. The Washington Post reporter that Israel would gift something to Trump, but it was believed to be a deal on Lebanon.
This is supposed to be a legitimate news service, and Joy read is just making up theories that the entire war being halted was because of a secret deal between Israel and Trump. Well, Louise, those kind of conspiracy theories get very close to the Jews are controlling the media, and they're controlling the government.
My problem with this.
There's nothing of substance that she possibly could have other than reports that they've had conversations. Of course they're going to have conversations. He is the incoming president of the United States. They're going to be talking. But she's actually gone to air alleging that he has waited. So it's by the way that the onus is then on Israel. It's all Hermas was coming to the table, but Israel was waiting, and Nanayu was waiting to give Trump a good present for him to start.
It's so absurd, it's absurd.
It's actually offensive to Jewish people somehow, allowing hostages to remain in those times and suffer while a little tidy deal was done to make Trump look good once he gets into the White House. And also the way that Biden sort of throws that nasty comment over his shoulder, you're joking, even in a situation where he's leaving the Oval office, he cannot give Trump any sort of, you know,
credit for pushing this deal. In fact, it was Trump's Middle East envoy who actually got Benjamin mcnawhu to actually agree to the deal, So there was no harm in Biden actually saying yes, it was truly bipartisan approach and thank you mister Trump for your help. But he couldn't bring himself to do it, which says everything to me about his administration and leaning towards a very left conspiracy theory.
Yeah, and I would have liked to see both leaders. Actually, you know, Darren, let's bring you in. I would have liked to see both leaders probably praise the other person because there were two parties involved in that. If it does go ahead, and it will be a wholly good thing for everyone involved. The other element to this story, though, is you've got these organizations. The left is very quick to talk about misinformation and regulating against this fake news,
et cetera. They publish this absolute nonsense, CaAl conspiratorial. It's just conjecture about something they think Trump might have done. I think it's going to get much worse as he takes offers. What do you make of it in this situation.
I agree Biden's touting his record on foreign policies he leaves office, but it's it's a really questionable track record over the last four years. I mean, on Israel itself. He opposed nearly every single military decision that Israel made and it's really only Israel that's established de terrence against Iran in that region. You know that, I think the greatest failure of Biden's foreign policy is that so many adversaries around the world have kind of moved in to.
Feel this vacuum.
You know, we have we had so many conflicts around the world during during Biden's term. I find it really hard to buy into this attempt to kind of paint this picture of a really strong foreign policy record. I think it's quite the opposite. In fact, par securely in the Middle East.
Yeah, it's a really good point.
And the other element to this is if it was all Biden, as his supporters are suggesting, then why didn't he do it six months ago? Why has it coincidentally taken up until he's about to take office.
Interestingly though, that the New York Post did a great coverage of this, and they actually got some quotes sort of off the record from Biden's admin who said that Trump's influence was very important to actually securing this as well. So while everyone around him acknowledges it, he still wants to sort of take full credit for something, as you say, he could have done six months ago. And ended the suffering of many hostages.
Yeah, and in Biden's scripted statement, he does actually reach out and say, you know, this was a team effort, so that there was a bit of bipartnersan.
Commentary body language when he leaves elector and I think says it all.
He was told he doesn't know what he's saying, you know, it doesn't know where he is.
I don't think it's authentic. He's been told be magnanimous to mister Trump.
But in his heart there's a script and then there's what he actually wants to say. But look, let's move on. Because Mark Zuckerberg has finally dismantled the corrupt and biased fact checking system which polices his platforms in the United States. He spent hours explaining the decision in a podcast with Joe Rogan.
We tried to put in place, you know, a system that would deal with it, you know, and early on tried to basically make it so that it was really limited. We're like, all right, we're just gonna have the system where the these third party fact checkers and they can check the worst of the worst stuff, right, so things that are very clear hoaxes that there's like it's not like, like we're not parsing speech about whether something is slightly true or slightly false, like Earth is flat, you know,
things like that. Right, So that was sort of the original intent we put in place the system, and it just sort of veered from there. I think to some degree it's because some of the people whose job is to do fact checking, a lot of their industry is focused on political fact checking, so they're just kind of veered in that direction, and we kept on trying to basically get it to be what we had originally intended, which is just you know, it's not the point is
and to like judge people's opinions. It's to provide in this layer to kind of help fact check some of the stuff that seems the most extreme.
But it just, you know, it was just.
Never accepted by people broadly. I think people just felt like the fact checkers were too biased, not necessarily even so much and what they ruled, although sometimes I think people would disagree with that, a lot of the time, it was just what types of things they chose to even go in fact check in the.
First time in the first place.
Zuckerberg also shed light on how political censorship had become. He revealed when he pushed back against Joe Biden's team, his company started getting investigated.
These people from the Biden administration would call up our team and like scream at them, and and it's like, these documents are it's all kind of out there.
Did you record any of those phone calls? I don't know. I don't think.
I don't think we were, but I think, oh, listen, I mean there are emails, the emails are published, it's all it's all kind of out there, and they're like and basically it just got to this point where we were like, no, we're not gonna We're not gonna take down things that are true.
That's ridiculous.
Now, it is all very well for Zuckerberg to say that his fact checking system is corrupt and biased, so he is fixing it in America, But what about for us here in Australia. We've been locked in very public disagreements with activist fact checkers here in Australia which have been paid astonishing amounts of money by Zuckerberg to sensor journalism.
And these activists will still have the power to censor your thoughts at the upcoming election in a few months, we asked Meta about how it could possibly justify keeping the Australian industry going and allowing r MI t back onto Facebook's payroll, and they gave.
Us this statement.
No changes to Meta's third party fact checking program in Australia will happen before the federal election. We are beginning with rolling out community notes in the US. Building this type of community takes time and we will continue to improve it over the course of the year before considering expansion to other countries. In addition, before rolling out any changes to our fact checking program outside the US, we will carefully consider our legal and regulatory obligations in each country,
including Australia. R MIT's Lookout is a Meta third party fact checker in Australia. R MIT have undergone some changes, including management, and their renewal application has been approved by the IFCN. On the new website they detail a code of practice which includes commitment to impartiality and fairness, etc.
Etc.
We all know that they never did that. Let's bring the panel back in. They did have a code of conduct r MIT, they didn't adhere to it, which is why basically we got them shut down and Russell Skelton was sacked. That's the change of management we're talking about, but it's still the same core team that's running it that've been allowed back there into Facebook. They're going to be able to censor content during the federal election. So, Louise, my problem with this it's how can these two things
be true. You've got the CEO of a company saying this system's flawed. It's so flawed that we lost control of it. It's become political. In that podcast and other sections we didn't play, they discussed it being paramount to election interference as well, and the example given was, you know the Hunter Biden laptop, which they obviously took off Facebook. How many more votes would that have impacted during the referendum. We were prevented from reporting about the length of the ULARU document.
By this group.
Now this impacts how people vote because one there is an argument that it's misinformation.
Wasn't misinformation. They were wrong.
They were too uneducated to understand the argument that there was a bundle of documents. It just was what it was, whether they like it or not. These people, how could on one hand.
This scheme not be fit for practice in the US.
But don't worry about those people in backwater Australia and their elections.
It's offensive, isn't it, Because you would think that with an election coming up and the fact they've mentioned electoral interference before and it's been an issue for them in their fact checkers. I don't see why they can't just stop the service right now. I mean, it's a digital platform, so why does it take so long to roll it out and test it an America and see about how that works and figure it.
I think he is very scared of Trump because I think that if he can get hauled before some congressional inquiry and all these emails, you know, it's all very well for him to say, oh, the Biden administration made us do it.
Well, you did it.
Well, they did it.
You know you're not you're complaining about it. Now that there's a new administration, right, it would be very easy for them to get hauled over the coals.
Yeah.
I'm think you're right there as well. But I think it's bad news for young voters, perhaps young people who are voting for the first time in a federal election and are going to platforms like Facebook and Instagram to get their election coverage and to work out what the candidates stand for, that's going to be corrupted and skewed.
And you know, Darren, let's bring you in.
What do you make of Mark Zuckerberg's just more broadly the moves to get rid of it in the US, but the inconsistency that we still have to deal with this scheme that he says is bad.
Yeah, unfortunately, And it's consistent with Facebook's behavior and actions in Australia over many, many years now. They just show a complete disregard for values and Australian law and we've seen that with the Bargaining Enterprise Code that was introduced a couple of years ago and their actions over that,
which is still yet to be resolved. I find it really amusing that Mark Zuckerberg goes on the Rogan podcast and seems astonished and outrage that a politician or his staff would call up and complain and scream at them. And you know, this is a daily occupational hazard for journalists, as you know, Jack, we get that all day long from politicians and contacts and other stakeholders in the publishing business and we just get on with it. And that's
part of the job. And it's just another example of why you know, Facebook is a publishing platform, is the world's largest publish publishing platform, but it's not fit for purpose.
I mean, we're one of the most heavily regulated media environments in the world where Akmo oversees us from a broadcasting point of view. If we ever make a mistake, we've got corrections, policies and everything. I don't need some twenty two year old indigenous rights activists who's wormed their way into a university to tell me and my team whether a document is six pages or one page. But that's what was happening, and that's the flaw with this
whole thing. He's admitted it's not fit for purpose, but we're still using it. It's crazy to me. We're going to take a quick break, but when we return. An investigation into The Guardian has shed light on the toxic culture inside the Woke news room.
Welcome back.
Joining me now as you will each and every Friday is The Australians Media Watchdog columnist Jared Henderson. Now, Jared, you've done some fantastic investigatory work.
It's something that.
You've come across the ABC is their proclivity to maybe give their mates a few softball questions. Can you tell us a bit more about that.
Yes, Zebbie Daniel was one of my ABC fabes when she was on the ABC and then she zipped off the ABC and then she became the Teal Independent for gold Scene, which is not far away from ABC headquarters at South Bank. And what I've noticed is over the two and a half years she gets an awful lot of runs on the ABC for someone who is not important, because if you're if you're an independent in the Senate with a vote, you matter because you've got the balance
of power. If you're an independent in the current House of Representative, you have no power at all. But she may after the next election or she may not. But she got a very soft run the other day with Karlie Morris, which I think there might be a clip off here.
Let's have a listen.
Finally, Zoe, your set of Goldstein is home to a significant number of Jewish Australians. During his rally on the weekend, Peter Dutton highlighted the spike in anti Semitic incidents that we've seen in Australia and again blamed the Prime Minister and Labor for playing a role in that. Do you believe the government shares any responsibility.
The spike in antisemitism in this country and across the world has been caused by a horrendous terrorist attack followed by a horrendous conflict in the Middle East. It should not be politically weaponized. It's terrible and it should not be happening. And it is of great concern to me in regard to what's happening in the community of Goldstein and antisemitism towards Jewish Australians. We should all be working together to resolve that, throwing fuel on it for the sake of politics.
Well, what you've got there is a leading question by the interviewer as if and was the only question asked about Israel and Gaza on that segment in spite of the fact that the Zoey Daniels electorate of Goldstein has many Jewish Australians in there.
So you have a.
Suggestion in the question the only question that does on the topic that the essential problem with any Semitism in Australia is the fact that the Opposition leader Peter Dutton has expressed concerned about it. And then Zoey Daniel comes back and says, well, it's the only person she points her finger at is Peter Dutton. So talk about a soft question for a teal who may want to be part of minority government with Peter Dutton after the next
election or may not. But I just think it's very unprofessional. I mean, it's if you're going to talk about Israel Gaza, there are more things to talk about than what an opposition leader has said. I mean, you might want to talk about what a government leader has said more important. But they're sort of mates.
I mean.
The other point there is that someone should have said, well, Zoe Daniel, who's now the Member for golds See, there's a long time ABC reporter. We were colleagues because Karli Morris is on the ABC, were colleagues and that would be reasonable. But to suggest that somehow there's no relationship between the two, or that Zoey Daniel's coming on the ABC because she's a teel independent. Well, in the House of Representatives, I think all up there about thirteen independents.
None of them get the coverage that Zoe Daniel gets. She gets it because it mates essentially no. She was a good journalist and she's a good performer, but she might get a tough question occasionally. Wouldn't do any harm, you know.
I think it would give them more credibility if they asked a tough question, and supposedly if she's such a good operator, she could be able to handle it.
Well, it's run through this whole week. I mean there was a there was a soft interview with Adam bant on one day, a tough interview with the liberal senator Joan Hume, a soft interview this morning with a Palestinian representative who spoke quite well, but he was a selft interview with him, tough interview with Simon Birmingham, who's the Opposition shadow Foreign Minister. So what you've got is these sort of soft interviews with your ideological mates and sometimes your personal mates.
And quite scathing when it's someone on the other.
Side, and a tough one of somehow Peter Dutton gets in there.
Well, let's move on now, because you've also had a look at the ABC seven thirty report, yes, where they've taken swing and Mark Zuckerberg.
What do you make of it?
Well, there was a late last night and at the end of the program last night there was a special mention about Zuckerberg and how Zuckerberg has now realized that Facebook was being biased, that he has said this, that the fact checkers I've covered this in my column and the Weekend Australia tomorrow, that the fact checkers have been biased against right of scent of views, and he's coming back to his more libertarian past. So the ABC does a program on it, a brief one in seven point thirty,
A reasonable thing to do. But the two commentators they have on are both various strong critics of Zuckerberg, including Lizzie O'sche, well known left wing lawyer from Melbourne. But you know, if you're going to get a comment from her.
Could have had a comment from us. Those fact checkers came after us during the referendumness came after Peter Kredlin. And you've got these twenty two year old activists trying to rule on how long a document is. Is it one page, is a six page? Doesn't matter?
I mean the ABC presents misinformation and disinformation as if there's only one view on it, but matters that some people classify as misinformation are classified is true by others. And so you've got a lot of young left wing people working around censori Essentially and zuckerb. Zuckerberger said, after a number of years, he said, look, we're not going to do there's anymore. We're going to do a different way of looking at it. But on the ABC last night, you wouldn't have any idea about that.
Yeah, And there's a lot of nuance with that as well. Now, we often get some very vocal and strong predictions in the media, but I know there's one particular journalist who's quite bolshy with her predictions, who maybe something from the past has turned out to be not so true.
Well, I think there's one clip on this, and I think I think there's something I've put up. I mean, as someone who's followed the Liberal Party for many decades, too many decades, I guess I can at least go back to the nineteen eighties when journalists and commentators were predicting the end of the Liberal Party. But Laura Tingle this as recently as twenty eighteen that when Malcolm Turnbull got turfed out, she basically said, look, this is the end of the modern Liberal Party as we know it.
I think we've got a grab And there's another graph of what she said. Later on, when the Voice was on, she also made a similar comment about Peter Dutton and the Voice.
Let's have a lesson.
I don't think it's necessarily going to do any good for Peter Dutton if the No case wins in the long term. Well there you are the ABC's television designated expert on politics, which were taking the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Nationals, the Greens, the Independence and whatever else. So in twenty eighteen you predict the party is going to die because you make Malcolm Turble's not there anymore.
I mean there's a group of ABC reporters who will tolerate a coalition government providers led by someone like Malcolm Turnbull, but not like Tony Abbott or like Peter Dutton. So you make that prediction the modern Liberal Party is at its death rows, but under Scott Morrison wins the next selection.
And then you come up to the Voice referendum where Peter Dutton takes a controversial view and says he's going to support No, and virtually I mean I can't think of anyone in the ABC who would have voted No, although sixty percent of Australian instead. But as the lead up comes to the referendum and all the polls are indicating NO is going to win. Laura Tingle says that if No does win, it won't doing Dutton any good any rate. No No, we know whether you agree with
the yes case or you don't. We know that Dutton's opposition to the No was very successful with the support of dissenter Price and Warramundine and others, and send it Laddell from South Australia was very successful. But there's Laura s engleson was if No wins or Night, it won't
help Dunton. Well that's just profoundly wrong. So it seem to me if you're making all these profoundly wrong predictions about the Liberal Party, perhaps you might retire from the Liberal Party and just talk about the Greens or something for change. But no one's predicted at the end of the Greens.
But there you go, brilliant Jared Anderson, thank you so much for taking us slips all of that. That's all the time that we have for tonight. But up next is Newsnight.