Labor
DARWINIAN: Body fluid swapping journos, spin doctors and pollies in the Top End in orgy of conflict
Darwin is a wild place, where men are men and stubbies are measured in litres. It’s been a delightful spectacle to watch its politics this week become as wild as happy hour at a Darwin drinkery.
So zany and festive have been recent political events that we have seen Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation owned The Australian and the Darwin daily NT News go at it hammer and tong.
The story so far is that the NT News wrote – not unreasonably – that the conduct of some of the ALP indigenous MPs has left a little to be desired.
One of the MPs concerned Alison “Angry” Anderson took that as a racist attack. And oddly decided to resign from the ALP in protest.
She seemed particularly peeved that the author of the highly critical article is married to the press secretary to the Chief Minister Paul Henderson. In a letter where she announced her resignation from the ALP, potentially forcing the Labor government out of office, she showed an eloquence she had never previously demonstrated as she pole-axed Hendo in the most scathing of terms.
Trouble was, the NT News reported the following day that Anderson’s letter had been sent from the personal email account of her squeeze The Australian’s Darwin based correspondent Nicholas Rothwell who is the de facto partner of “Angry” Anderson. The implication of their report was clear, he’d written the whole resignation and had quite possibly been an active part of conceiving the whole political stunt.
That’s hands-on journalism. Brilliant news publisher William Randolph Hearst used to say the best way of reporting on wars was to start them, an approach thoroughly endorsed by combative members of the VEXNEWS Investigations Unit, so it’s pleasing to see Rothwell get “embedded” in the story in this way.
And yet The Australian was having none of it today, with its former NT correspondent Ashleigh Wilson weighing in, attacking the NT News, defending the virtue of his chum Nicholas Rothwell and pointing out the connection between the NT News and the government’s spin machine. In the interests of fairness he also pointed out the connection between Angry Anderson and Nicholas Rothwell.
VEXNEWS Darwin sources report that Ashleigh Wilson is very much the pot calling the kettle black because when he was in Darwin reporting on politics and other current affairs in the Territory, he was in a de facto relationship with a Labor government media adviser, Nicola Lekias, before leaving her in the lurch to return to the bright lights of Sydney.
How quickly they forget.
The above quote appeared in the NT News this morning
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18 comments for “DARWINIAN: Body fluid swapping journos, spin doctors and pollies in the Top End in orgy of conflict”
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Remember the words of our LORD:
“God wants you to be holy and completely free from sexual immorality.” Thessalonians 4:3
Those in the NT ought to remember the LORD is watching their sinful ways and is ready to pass judgment on their day of reckoning.
Such sinful and unholy sexual promiscuity will result in their souls being damned to hell for ever and ever.
Much chuckling and chortling amongst Darwin hacks at the Oz’s indignation at being outed as a serial offendor when it comes conflict of interests amongst it “journalists”.
Locals regularly amazed out how after five minutes in the seat they seem to morph into opinonated wankers!
The only recent exception to the rule has been Paul Toohey’s stint as the Oz’s Darwin journo. Of course Toohey’s time was cut short when he crossed horns with Alison Anderson and her partner Nicholass Rothwell, leading to his transfer to the Indonesian desk.
As mentioned more than once in Darwin’s media circles Nicholas Rothwell’s ego needs a place as big and as empty as the NT to be accomodated.
Nicholas has never tired of telling anyone who will listen that Rupert Murdoch is his godfather.
Must be irritating for him that no one really gives a toss about his godfather, they just want to get away from his presence as quickly as possible.
We can confirm that follwing an extensive research program that the Oz’s Tash Robinson was not involved in a relationship with an NT spin doctor during her time in Darwin.
It appears she was too busy building up. close and personal relationships with prominent aboriginal rights lawyers, human rights activists and senior traditioanl owners.
Not the first time Nicholas has been caught in a conflict of interest.
Who can forget his rather inglorious role in the Ross Lightfoot Gun running story.
From Media Watch:-
But News Ltd backed it up with evidence from The Australian’s middle east correspondent Nicolas Rothwell:
SENATOR Ross Lightfoot confided during a trip to Iraq in January that he helped deliver $US20,000 ($25,200) in cash to Kurdish officials on behalf of oil giant Woodside as a donation to a local hospital …
The admission, in an off-the-record briefing to The Australian’s Middle East correspondent Nicolas Rothwell, contradicts Senator Lightfoot’s statement to parliament yesterday.
— The Australian, 18 March 2005
Rothwell’s account helped bolster The Tele’s scoop, but was it ethical for The Australian to use an off the record conversation?
Rothwell said that this exchange followed the senator’s boy’s own tale:
“Of course”, said Lightfoot rather edgily, in the style of a man conducting a street drug purchase, “I’m telling you all of this off the record”
“Absolutely” I replied …”Don’t worry about that”
— The Australian, 18 March 2005, pg 4
Why Rothwell would agree to take the Senator’s startling claims off the record after they were made is remarkable enough.
But once he’d agreed, what makes it okay for Rothwell and his paper to report these confidences?
The AJA code of ethics is straightforward:
Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances.
— AJA Code of Ethics, from http://www.alliance.org.au/hot/ethicscode.htm
We don’t think it’s that simple. Journalists must balance competing claims, especially when a politician seems to be giving conflicting versions.
They say truly rotten fruit doesn’t drop far from the tree.
Lets not forget Nicholas’s pedigree when it comes to bringing down Labor governments.
Who can forget his infamous father, Bruce Rothwell of the Australian and his role in bringing down the Whitlam Government when he was editor.
Bruce was faous for setting an editorial tone that allowed no pro Whitlam news to sully the pages of the Australian during those tumultuoes times in November 1975.
***Bruce was faous for setting an editorial tone that allowed no pro Whitlam news to sully the pages of the Australian during those tumultuoes times in November 1975***
Yes.
And for that we are forever in his debt.
Ahh another series of snippy and poorly researched stories from Tash Robinson in the Oz today on the intriging political world of th NT.
Sadly the quality of Tash’s reporting seems to be deteriorating, must be due to the distance that exists between Darwin and Sydney.
Tash was a much better reporter when she was in Darwin. She was always able then to be on top, or below or kneeling in front of her various sources.
Byron in Wahroonga – why don’t you tories start your own blog.
Journalists are welcome to use and abuse me, especially since my Sav can’t raise it for duty.
Fantastic – somewhere I can slag off journos anonymously! This is EXACTLY what the country needs. Keep up the good work, team.
More evidence of rampant body fluids swapping between top end media and the body politic.
Angry Anderson sidekick, ex Labor MP Kerri Sackalotto has been outed as the current rumpy pumpy partner of Darwin CH9 news identity Justin “Action Man” Obrien.
Sources close to the couple’s luv nest at Throb Nightclub suggest Justin and Kerri have been on again, off again, on again off again partners for a while now.
“Man with no name”
Too true
Time to turn the spotlight on the journo’s.
Lets see how they like it
Hello, looks like Ash, Tash and Nicholass have run for cover today.
They’ve sicked the terror of the broadsheets “Jack the Insider” on to the story.
Jack, more commonly known in his home town Brisbane as “Herpes, cause ya can’t get rid of the bastard” has another attempt at fobbing the grwoing issue of the Murdoch Media’s conflict of interest.
This little exchange in the comments thread says it all about the Oz’s attitude to jornalistic standards …
victoria
Mon 10 Aug 09 (06:44pm) Is it true that Alison Anderson is married to a reporter from this newspaper?
Jack the Insider
Mon 10 Aug 09 (07:09pm) I have absolutely no idea and I don’t care to find out, Victoria. It’s not relevant as far as I’m concerned.
Great to see that pissant media outlet crikey has finally turned its blinkered left wing spotlight onto the Oz’s gross conflict of interests in covering the latest NT political tribulation.
A week after the Patriot Portal “Vexnews” outed these inbred bottom feeders who are maswurading a journo’s they put a piece to air.
Sadly it details the demise of Paul Toohey, a journo of great note who finally decided that he couldn’t put up with less than honorable standards of those who he had to work with at the OZ.
It’s all happening in old Darwin town.
After a whirlwind tour of Arnhem Land and the Tiwi’s Tash Robinson has returned to her old stomping ground.
Local scribes expected to be flocking to her one women show at the Darwin Festival titled “Reporting from a prone position, my life as a reporter in the Top End.”
The perfomance has been described as an ecletic mix between the Vagina Monologues, Sex and the City and Boogey Nights.
Guest apperances by well known aboriginal rights lawyers, human rights activists and senior traditional owners are expected.
Fair go, folks! The fluid exchange between journos & pollies happens everywhere. It just happens that Darwin is smaller, and therefore more incestuous, than any other seat of government. But, on the up-side, it makes for intriguing scandals – nowhere else has the exchanging of bodily fluids occurred in the parliamentary speaker’s chair. Or has it?
lol @ “the VEXNEWS Investigations Unit”
Awsome. How do I join up?