Tim Blair

Tim:
The US media has painted Rupert Murdoch a politically right wing. I see him as a business man, who supplies a needed media product (NY Post, Fox News) that's being underserved. His politics is profits for Rupert + Co.

Who's correct?

What I want to know is when Margo & Co. will come up with hard hitting "documents" from the RSPCA proving Mr Howard is a certified rodent!

Tim, you often complain about bias at the ABC. Given that you, too, have a political opinion, surely you're not in a position to complain about bias?

Robert, Tim is not funded by taxpayers who expect objectivity for their buck.

come on slatts, who are you kidding here? since when has objectivity ever existed? by virtue of the fact that we are human, objectivity is an impossibility. anyone claiming to deliver objective and unbias reporting is delusional.

Robert, don't be obtuse. The complaint isn't about the existence of bias, it's about the pretense by the various news media organs that they are free of bias. Also, the argument that someone can't complain about another person's bias because he has bias of his own is just stupid.

That's the professional media, Anonymous. And by the way, you'd be a little more credible -- make that credible at all -- if you'd at least try to come up with at least your own fake name.

2+2 =4.

Is that staement objectively true or not, Anonymous?

Its OK to have a biased view as long as its logical. But commentators like Tim and Andrew Bolt simply spray anyone who disagrees with their right wing rants. Also, wasn't it Tim who once tried to argue that a traffic cop was just as guilty as he for speeding because the cop had to exceed the speed limit to catch him??? Duh.

Ray Sanderson

Wow - I never thought that someone who ran a blogging site would be such a stickler for proper grammar (or should that be 'I didn't ever think . . . '?).

Tim's post above contains multiple references to posts in which he delights, almost obsessively, in picking up spelling and grammatical errors made by Margo Kinston, even going so far as to criticise her sentence structure. And yes, Tim, I used the word 'post' twice in that last sentence - lets call the prose police.

It's all form over substance mate - a shallow criticism of the format of your idealogical opponent's message, rather than a coherent analysis of the message itself. Pretty juvenille stuff - and intellectually lightweight by any objective standards.

I suppose that if you're going to devote your life to defending the indefensible (i.e. Bush, Cheney, the Iraq War) you need to employ every diversionary tactic you can. Anything to stop the punters actually engaging with or understanding your opponents' positions. If they did, they might see through your aggression-filled, but largely empty, rhetoric.

Grow up Tim, and lets try being a bit more substantive in our opinions shall we?

This relates to the story that was run the other day about how the rest of the world would vote for Kerry...the "news" reported by the "free press" in most of the world now resembles what was shut down in the Soviet Union, and exists only in Cuba & North Korea (hint-match Kim Jung Il quotes to Michael Moore's and the fragrant Margo).

I have this vision of a few years from now, dazed people wandering around Sydney , after "the Wall" has been torn down, muttering "why did they lie to us??"...

Mondo -- it's "let's".

And "juvenile" has just the one "l".

So Tim, after making one substance-avoiding post in reply to Mondo, it took you nineteen minutes to find a second spelling mistake?

Your second post could at least have engaged with Mondo's criticisms.

Coherent, grammatical prose is the vehicle by which we express an ordered, logical and rational argument.

Margo's ungrammatical ravings are the outward sign of a disordered thinking process.

To argue that this is not important indicates a impoverished pedagogic education in English ( a characteristic of many people educated in the 1960s and '70s).

Wow, who knew Margo had so many lovers.

Mondo, commas are free. You don't have to pay money to use them.

Seems like SMH's sister newspaper The Age has a Marian Wilkinson counterpart - Michelle Grattan. She's just as awful, obsessed with trying to bring down Bush and Howard, neglecting any mention of Rathergate, and continually highlighting minor "achievements" in the Kerry and Latham campaigns... coupled with an insidiously biased pro-Arab lecture concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict by a junior sub-editor at The Age, I sure won't be paying money for that paper ever again.
As a journalism professor once said to me, "some might call The Age conservative."
Between the mainstream media and university campuses, there is just no escaping the leftist bias in this country.

This is an odd blogsite.
So much rambling on about nothing much at all.

Whatever, freak.

Since the only person to actually engage with my argument was Mr Magoo, I'll address my reply to him. Tim and Andrea might have to keep playing in the sand pit for a few more months before they get to play with the grown-ups.

So, Mr Magoo, I agree with the logic of your position, in principle. I too believe that structured and ordered writing is a pretty good indicator that the writer's thinking process is up to scratch.

The problem, however, is that in practice there are just too many circumstances in which an exception to this rule could apply, e.g. the person is in a rush, or is angry, or hasn't had the benefit of a formal education in English. If you hold to your principle as rigidly as you and Tim seem to, you end up being unable to respect the opinions of about 98% of the population.

For example, if you really believe that 'ungrammatical ravings are the outwards sign of a disordered thinking process', as you claim, then I wonder if you could tell me what your thoughts are on the thinking processes of George W Bush?

He'd have to have the most disordered thinking process in the world by your standards, wouldn't he?

"For example, if you really believe that 'ungrammatical ravings are the outwards sign of a disordered thinking process', as you claim, then I wonder if you could tell me what your thoughts are on the thinking processes of George W Bush?

He'd have to have the most disordered thinking process in the world by your standards, wouldn't he?"

Uh, based on what? The fact that he doesn't give all his addresses in iambic pentameter?

Oh excuse me, I forgot that dumb little kiddies like me aren't supposed to interefere with the "grownups" when they are talking. But since having to deal with pesky brats like me is so obviously painful to you, I'll just ban your IP address so you won't be bothered by the discussion, which is so beneath your exalted position as High Mondo Hugebrain of the Blog Comment Threads.