January 22, 2004

DISSENT CRUSHED

The Age received several emails praising yesterday’s column by Caroline Overington. But the letters editor chose to run only this negative comment from Carlton’s Matthew O’Keefe:

Caroline Overington states that any student of history knows America saved the Western world from communism, and also saved Australia and France. Astonishingly, she suggests that America's motivation was a desire to stand up for freedom. Any student of history also knows this is absurd. America has always been motivated by its own, usually financial, interests. It didn't join World Wars I and II until directly attacked. It would not have saved Australia if it wasn't in its interests to do so.

If America was motivated by freedom, it would have invaded many countries with oppressive regimes before Iraq. In fact, it created many of these oppressive regimes during their fight against communism by installing or supporting despots in Iraq, Iran, Cambodia, Indonesia, Congo and much of Central and South America. America's puppets are collectively responsible for the murder of millions. These innocents have paid for our freedom.

What a strange, sad place must be The Age. It prefers to trash the US even at the expense of its own writers. Remarkably, The Age’s letters gatekeeper decided not to run the following, which was sent by the opinion page editor of rival broadsheet The Australian:

Congratulations to your New York correspondent Caroline Overington for an excellent piece on how Americans regard George W. Bush. She takes Americans and the national social psychology seriously and, unlike most Australian newspaper correspondents in the US, she doesn't treat mainstream Americans or their President as unsophisticated and ignorant bigots. More power to her and your opinion page editor for publishing it.

Best regards,
Tom Switzer
Sydney, NSW

Praise from The Age’s hated Murdoch rival! What a coup! And they ignored it!

UPDATE. Bernie Slattery writes:

The Age ran five notes of praise for the article in its And Another Thing section. They don't run these on the web site.

Well, good. Consider the above criticism withdrawn. The Age might consider some revisions to its online strategy, however; reader feedback is kind of important. Don’t restrict it to the print edition.

Posted by Tim Blair at January 22, 2004 11:54 AM
Comments

Who is The Age’s "letters gatekeeper", Tim? I want to put a name to the bias and incompetence.

Posted by: Byron_the_Aussie at January 22, 2004 at 11:59 AM

The letters pages of the Fairfax papers are notorious for their bias. They only print reader opinion that suits their agenda, and sometimes change the wording of letters to reflect this.

I speak from experience as someone who used to write letters to the Herald. If I was lucky enough to get one printed, it often didn't have much resemblance to what I had sent in.

I cancelled my subscription to the Herald some years ago, and hardly ever read it anymore.

Posted by: EvilPundit at January 22, 2004 at 12:11 PM

You'll notice that SMH hasn't picked up Overington's column. They're probably trying to have her recalled and put on trial for UnFairfax Activities, ie. being fair.

Posted by: superboot at January 22, 2004 at 12:13 PM

What's the bet Overington will get the sack for this?

Posted by: EvilPundit at January 22, 2004 at 12:15 PM

The Age is slowly dying instance of an obsolete technology.

The staff all know that. And what business they retain is slowly being eaten away by the Herald-Sun.

Work at The Age, work in an atmosphere of depression, resentment, and petty politicking - all overlaid with a corpse-like sheen of PC.

Don't be angry with people at The Age - God has already punished them for their once and future sins ...

Posted by: Arik at January 22, 2004 at 12:50 PM

I have long been very suspicious of the balance of letters printed in the SMH. If the balance of views of the writers of letters printed were in any way typical of the Australian electorate, we would have a Green government, as simple as that. John Howard would get just a few percent of the vote. Bob Brown would be the most powerful man in the country, with 70 plus percent of the vote. He would occasionally listen to the views of, say Carmen Lawrence, but no-one to the right of her.

I have also noticed on occasions a controversial issue being discussed on a Fairfax online comments page, and seen that the balance of views expressed is roughly 50-50. Then just a day or two later in the printed letters column, the views printed will be 9 to 1 against the Federal Government! Very strange indeed. Either the people who write the letters to the print edition are a very different bunch of people to the online writers, or some very suspicious selection processes are in place.

The letters editor occasionally claims that the letters printed represent the balance of letters received, but can I believe him/her?

I actually think that in the interests of balance and fairness the SMH should publish ALL non-defamatory letters it receives on its website, where there are NO space limitations. Then we could see for ourselves whether the print edition is as unbiased as the letters editor claims.

I would make this proposal directly to the Herald, but fear that it would lead to my being forever black-balled from the letters page, where I have had one or 2 (non-controversial) letters printed.


Posted by: Tom at January 22, 2004 at 12:52 PM

I don't see why the age or smh shouldn't slant their letters anyway they like. Its their paper afterall. I don't think rewriting people's letters is very ethical though. Eventually readers will turn off and that will be the end of it. I must say I have never read the SMH (I'd never heard of whatsername Kingston until I read this blob) and hardly ever look at the Age. I can't see there is much point getting annoyed at them and their practices. They are private profit making institutions that within the libel laws etc can say what they like.

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 at 01:02 PM

You poor sad people. Years after the cold war has ended, you're still seeing reds under the bed and everywhere else. Grow up.

Posted by: vanda at January 22, 2004 at 02:35 PM

I have to side with the poor letters editors here. Are the letters in Fairfax papers are so different to those I read in the alledgedly right wing Australian? I think by nature your average writer to newspapers in this country is a pinko chatterer.

Posted by: James Hamilton at January 22, 2004 at 02:39 PM

Everyone who's totally ashamed of their wicked red-seeing ways by vanda's immature comment, raise your hands! Count: one -- no, vanda, you can't raise your hand... Well, so far no one else has raised their hands. Oh well, vanda, better luck next time!

Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 22, 2004 at 03:08 PM

Wait!?! We had *puppets*!?!

Cool!!!

What happened to them?

Oh, you say that when the Cold War ended and it no longer was necessary for the United States to ally itself with loathsome regimes in order to defeat an even bigger evil, much as it had to do when it allied itself with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany in WWII, the US withdrew its support for authoritarian anti-communist regimes and, as a result, former "puppets" like the Indonesia and all of Central and South America now enjoy liberal democratic regimes, except for Cuba?

So...no puppets??

DAMN!

Posted by: KevinV at January 22, 2004 at 03:19 PM

"To the average newspaper reader, it's an invisible job. But nobody gets as much feedback -weird, wild and wise - as a letters editor. The Herald's Sam North explains."

[Man of letters - SMH]

Posted by: Johnny at January 22, 2004 at 03:43 PM

"It didn't join World Wars I and II until directly attacked."


When was the US directy attacked in WWI? Did the Hun secretly invade America without anyone knowing, except Age readers.

Posted by: Mike Hunt at January 22, 2004 at 03:47 PM

Mike -

I think the comment was referring the Germany targeting US flagged ships prior to our entry in WWI.

Which, as you know, was followed by American planting of puppet states throughout Europe for our financial gain. Then, in WWII, we did the same thing. Puppets, puppets, puppets. That's what we leave in our wake.

Not free but ungrateful prosperous nations. Nope.

Posted by: KevinV at January 22, 2004 at 04:05 PM

It didn't join World Wars I and II until directly attacked.

From the same people who claim US and Australia shouldn't have attacked Iraq because "it never threatened us". Can't have it both ways, girly.

Besides, Britain didn't enter WWI at the start, either, only after Germany invaded Belgium.

What about Australia's unilateral* (with British, Canadian, New Zealand and India's troops) invasion of Gallipoli?

No blood for ANZAC Day!

*Yes, I know that's not unilateral. But according to the left, if Germany and France don't join in, its unilateral. Besides - no League of Nations mandate!

Posted by: Quentin George at January 22, 2004 at 04:11 PM

Didn't the Germs sink the Lithuania and bring the yanks in? Smart move, Herr genius.

As for that leftist pod-person, Christ I am so unutterably tired of those fucking people. They are like a record, a very boring record, that got stuck in an endlessly looping groove back in 1968.

America saved the world from vicious genocidal communist dictatorship, but they didn't have completely pure motives, unlike our wonderful communist fifth-column left, so it dosn't count.

America turned out to be totaly right, and the commies utterly wrong and evil and murderous, but the Americans were forced to ally with ugly regimes during the course of the war.. so they're the bad guys, not Mr Stalin and Lenin and Pol Pot and Castro, and the scum who stuck their tounges up their asses and supported them in every way from the safety of leafy western University campuses and Hollywood mansions, while the glorius comrades of the Worker's Revolutionary Paradise turned half the planet into a fucking mass grave.

So tired of them, so fucking tired of them. It's 2004, it's all come out, the tyranny, the Gulags the corruption, the brutality, the terror. What don't you understand? You lecture US on history, you fucking imbeciles?

And yet they bleat on, these fucking leftist sheep, and now they're lining up to support the Islamists. Christ, what a monument to the invincible, eternal power of human stupidity they are.

Posted by: Amos at January 22, 2004 at 04:17 PM

Tim, Please help! I've been trying to get the Australian Financial Review to publish its Letters page on its website for the last 2 years. The constant response I get is, "We're working on it." I have no idea what "it" is because no one tells me. Any chance of you starting a campaign?

Posted by: TN at January 22, 2004 at 05:03 PM

I can't see there is much point getting annoyed at them and their practices. They are private profit making institutions that within the libel laws etc can say what they like.

Can't agree with that!
The Age markets itself as a serious newspaper.
It should be true to label.


Posted by: Peggy Sue at January 22, 2004 at 06:35 PM

Astonishingly, she suggests that America's motivation was a desire to stand up for freedom. Any student of history also knows this is absurd. America has always been motivated by its own, usually financial, interests.

Is this guy a fuckwit or what. If I know someone is going to burn down my house and kill me, and I could take steps to stop him doing it, of course it is in my interest (financial or otherwise) to do so .

Age journalists must really be getting paid peanuts to write this snot. I heard a more convincing argument last time I blew my nose

Posted by: Johnny Wishbone at January 22, 2004 at 07:22 PM

America's puppets are collectively responsible for the murder of millions.

I guess that would be the muderous regime of Jim Henson and his evil little despots on Sesame Street.

Sorry if I seem somewhat flippant, but I just can't take shit like this seriously anymore.

Posted by: Johnny Wishbone at January 22, 2004 at 07:28 PM

Anyone who remebers Colonel Kermet El Frog's ruthless 1973 coup in El Salvador and the brutal consolidation of his power by his feared chief of police, Ernesto Portunas Fozzy Bear, would not so lightly mock. Shame!

Posted by: Amos at January 22, 2004 at 08:06 PM

Actually, I think Lou Zealand bore a stark resemblance to Saddam Hussein, minus all the fish

Posted by: Johnny Wishbone at January 22, 2004 at 10:05 PM

"by installing or supporting despots in Iraq, Iran, Cambodia, Indonesia, Congo and much of Central and South America. "
Where does one get one of these "despots"? They sound quite useful. Do they come with an installation manual?

Posted by: Victoria at January 22, 2004 at 11:29 PM

Amos:

Stupendous rant, dude. Best of the day so far. Keep up the good work.

Posted by: Tongue Boy at January 23, 2004 at 01:43 AM

Amos -

That was the best post I've seen in ages!

Posted by: KevinV at January 23, 2004 at 01:53 AM