August 28, 2003

DOZENS DISTRESSED BY RADIO NATIONAL STRIKE

Latest on the ABC’s Crittenden dispute, covered here earlier:

Several hundred ABC staff walked off the job for 90 minutes yesterday, vowing stronger action if suspended Radio National broadcaster Stephen Crittenden is not reinstated.

Meetings in Sydney and Melbourne also demanded that the ABC drop all action against Crittenden, apologise to him, and develop procedures to prevent the "arbitrary and capricious use" of editorial guidelines.

Next they’ll be protesting about bias. Yeah, right ...

Posted by Tim Blair at August 28, 2003 04:28 AM
Comments

Radio National has dozens of listeners?

This surge in popularity can only be due to heavy metal poisoning. Someone must have spilled mercury in a dam cathcment.

Posted by: Evil Pundit at August 28, 2003 at 01:14 PM

Gerard Henderson's and the ABCWatch's Uncle led me to believe that Crittenden's sin was to support the Huntington hypothesis re possible limitations to the virtue of militant Islam. If indeed that was the reason for Crittenden's suspension/dismissal, then I was ready to join my first street protest.

My sources, which are very good in this case, tell me that his sin was actually that he had his article published without obtaining the approval from above which is specified by his contract. If his sin is one of PROCESS, then it may be easier to accept such disciplinary action than if it was one of political incorrectness.

More interestingly, though, is this whole concept of someone senior reviewing all these publications before they go to print. Are we to understand that the Philip Adams' diatribes in The Australian are first cleared by someone senior in management? If so, what are the criteria which are applied in determining whether the article can be published? Are there a set of editorial guidelines? What if an ABC journalist wanted to support the Howard Government in some regard, would that be allowed? These processes must be on the record; does anyone know where to find them?

Posted by: GeoffM at August 28, 2003 at 01:47 PM

If radio national played some heavy metal they might have dozens of listeners.
I think some "Motorhead" would provide some nice ambience, and Lemmy is smarter and better looking than most of their current on air staff.
"Eat the Rich" should be the theme song for the "Late Show"- Phil could keep several deprived communities going for years, if it was possible to find the refrigeration space.

Posted by: Habib Bickford at August 28, 2003 at 02:23 PM

GeoffM,

The A-B-friggin'-C don't need to clear Adams' articles any more. He hasn't had an new idea since 1975* or so, so why bother choking the bureaucracy with his reams of self-stroking nonsense? It's always the same old crap.

*Actually, that's not quite true. He got one off Paul Davies somewhere around 1995, but he didn't really understand it.

Posted by: Ferg at August 28, 2003 at 06:24 PM

"an new idea"?

Aaarrgh!

Posted by: Ferg at August 28, 2003 at 06:27 PM

I have no sympathy for Crittenden. Far from telling it straight about Islamic totalitarianism, he's just another moral-equivalencing victim-blaming bullshitter.

Stephen Crittenden: One common response to the attack of September 11, particularly in the West, was to say that there’s a problem with all religions, and especially monotheistic religions have a tendency to violence.

Yeah right, Stephen, whatever you say. After all, the plebs are too stupid to realise when their intelligence is being insulted by the superior people on the Left. It's those monotheistic rape gangs, monotheistic dictatorships and monotheistic terrorists that have humans worried.

Posted by: Clem Snide at August 29, 2003 at 12:06 AM