{"href":"http://player.captivate.fm/services/oembed?url=http%3A%2F%2Fplayer.captivate.fm%2Fepisode%2F05573754-f547-4263-b03b-ec0f0f77ee6b","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Captivate.FM","provider_url":"https://www.captivate.fm","width":600,"height":200,"type":"rich","html":"","title":"Episode 231 \u2013 Media Bias and Ridiculing Religion","description":"
\nThanks to media bias and other factors, politicians can now get away with murder. Plus we look at Australian attitudes towards ridiculing religion.
\nAngus Taylor
\nMr Taylor insisted in Parliament that he relied on a document downloaded from the City of Sydney website when he claimed the council spent $15.9 million on travel for its councillors when the real costs were less than $6,000.
\n
\nStrike Force Garrad
\nFrom Crikey
\nNSW Police have launched an\u00a0investigation\u00a0into Energy Minister Angus Taylor over the origins of potentially doctored documents he used to attack Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.
\nBut comments from deputy Labor leader Richard Marles have left many wondering whether there is more to the name chosen for the operation, Strike Force Garrad.
\nJournalism struggles to have an impact in modern politics
\nFrom Christopher Warren in Crikey
\nA combination of paywalls and click-driven priorities means that any story can struggle to catch fire across the media landscape as it once would have done. At the same time, the domination of News Corp in Australian media gives the government a ready-made fire break. Already the company\u2019s commentariat is out putting out sparks, with fireman Chris Kenny in particular using the very Trumpian \u201ctoo-dumb-to-be-a-crime\u201d defence.
\nBrendan O\u2019Neill
\nBrendan O’Neill in Spiked
\nThere\u2019s a piece of graffiti that sums up the woke left\u2019s view of ordinary people. It says: \u2018When the British working class stop reading right-wing news, we will see progressive change.\u2019 There it is. In black and white. Scrawled on a wall somewhere but frequently shared on social media by supposed progressives. One sentence that captures why so many modern left-wingers, and in particular the Corbynistas, are so obsessed with the press \u2013 because they think it has hypnotised the fickle masses and polluted the plebs\u2019 brains with horrible right-wing ideas. Make no mistake: when the left rages against the media, it is really raging against the masses.
\nAnd on it goes. Corbynistas never tire of moaning about the tabloid press in particular, which they think is pumping backward and racist ideas directly into the masses\u2019 brains. Such leftish media-phobia has been around for a few years now. It really took off in the 1980s, when Labour kept losing to Thatcher. Rather than assess what Labour was doing wrong, and why it was losing so many of its working-class voters, left observers preferred to blame the\u00a0Sun, in particular, for corrupting the little people\u2019s minds. The people who were really being insulted here were not the\u00a0Sun\u2019s owners, editors and writers (if anything, they were being complimented for their powers of persuasion); no, it was the\u00a0Sun\u2019s readers, who were infantilised, robbed entirely of their agency, reduced to mere vessels that can be filled with propaganda by Murdoch and his employees.
\nFrom Jeannette in the Secular Party comments:
\nSo this guy is saying that although the mainstream press in the UK (and Australia) is owned by powerful right wing interests, we are supposed to believe its a left wing conspiracy theory that these media outlets are publishing right wing views. Did he really just say that? How stupid does he think everyone is? The arrogance is astounding.
\nHe’s using the political correctness angle, trying to shame people who might think/say that perhaps those who haven’t had a great education are more susceptible to media manipulation. We only have to look back through history to see that people,","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300,"thumbnail_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/085762e2-797c-4ef4-9b10-434ecde61c07/logo2018v2.jpg"}