On the thread http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/mercury-report-card/, woodworker speculated “Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that in the days leading up to the vote on the pulp mill, Philippa Duncan was pestering Lin Thorp to tell her how she was going to vote. Lin Thorp’s reply was “why should I tell you?”” 

Later on, poster “arthur brain” wrote “If Lin Thorp really needs the importance of the media in a healthy democracy explained to her, that D is looking pretty generous, actually.”

I was going to point out at the time that the media can always report Thorp’s vote after she makes that vote, and as such, pestering Thorp for a response in advance (if that is what occurred, which I have no way of verifying) would not be part of “the importance of the media in a healthy democracy” at all. Rather, it would be part of the way journalists report on “events” they manufacture, “events” that would not exist without journalism (such as a pre-emptive comment in a one-on-one interview about an upcoming vote), and that they should not be taking for granted. 

That point returned to my mind when I saw Duncan’s backflip on the earlier David Bartlett story and continued pressing of speculation about it.  I’m not sure if Duncan has realised that it is not the peanut gallery that will decide who is the next Premier of Tasmania (and in my view it is overwhelmingly likely to be a Labor Premier). 

Duncan’s previous story about Bartlett’s impending promotion based on a so-called cabinet source turned out to be a crock.  The backpedal version now suggests that the plan was changed to avoid giving the game away, but that the plan is still covertly on.  But there is no evidence for any of it - it is all just speculation linked to the comments of sources who are not named and hence not verifiable, and who knows what games such a “source” may be playing anyway?

More real political news please, and less creation of shadowy unverifiable pseudo-news non-events that serve no apparent purposes (intended or otherwise) other than the entrenchment of the journalist as an actor in the story, and the driving up of newspaper sales figures.

The usual disclaimer applies.

Pity Duncan did not write the previous story about Bartlett’s impending promotion.  Good one Kev.

That’s funny. Sue Neales wrote the original article before the cabinet reshuffle. Philippa Duncan wrote the article after it happened. It undermines your thesis that someone’s done a backflip somewhat when they’re two different people expressing the two different opinions.

As Sue or Philippa might tell you, not getting the basic facts right can really bugger a story.

Whoops, it was Sue Neales who was the author of the initial Bartlett rumour story.  My apologies; so hard to remember one from the other when they’re all flogging the same kind of rope.  ;)

David Rumbens is quoted by the Mercury as saying: “Tasmania should look to its strengths such as forestry..”

Clearly The Mercury is up to its usual propaganda.  It is very probable that this newspaper is owned by the same corporations that have shares in Gunns Ltd.  AMP for instance.

Of course, it stands to reason, that if you systematically destroy small scale enterprise then what’s left must therefore be either large scale or nothing at all. 

God help Tasmania!  what with these nasty adult children running the state and no electoral way to oust them.

Did you read the bit in the Australian Financial Review today about farmers not having enough funds to plant this year’s crop.  And then the next story about diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds into ‘forestry’ (forest destruction) Managed Investment Schemes?

thank you, once again, Dr. Kevin, for a beacon of enlightenment in a sea of pathetic bullshit. I will communicate with you privately with evidence in verification that I know you will enjoy… cheers, woodworker…

(1)
  Whoops is right !  as with his post (5) (vigilantes), bonehead !  won,t ever let the truth get in the way of a good story , as usual! he stoops to any lengths to please his master,s.
                        d.d.

By the way my correction in #4 was submitted before #2 and #3 appeared on site.  As for “two different people expressing the two different opinions” I must take some issue with the second “different”.  ;)

Actually I think my suggestion that Neales and Duncan are ultimately running the same sort of line deserves a little more detailed support, so here goes:

While one of Duncan’s reports correctly points out that Neales’ previous speculation based on anonymous ALP sources proved groundless, Duncan starts her other article (unless someone higher-up tweaked it that way) with the rather excitable: “SPECULATION that Premier Paul Lennon is preparing to resign will not subside and his vision for 2008 has been panned.” 

Firstly, “will not subside” reads both like a statement of the present and a prediction for the future.  “Has not subsided” would have been more appropriate if it indeed had not subsided, but has it or hasn’t it?

The original speculation from Neales was based on an internal ALP source.  Without that source, the “resign” theory reduces to nothing but the predictable gibes of the opposition parties. 

To say whether speculation has or has not subsided, it would be necessary to assess the reaction within the ALP to the latest developments.  Yet Duncan’s story provides only comments by Hodgman and Putt to support the “resign” theory, and the reaction of ALP insiders, to the extent that it is reported at all (again, unverifiable references to “many of his Labor colleagues” is all we get) is in the *opposite* direction to the initial theory.  So it would seem on the face of it that speculation about the Lennon resignation may well have subsided ... if it existed at PLP level anyway.

However, “many of his Labor colleagues” is less than informative anyway.  Does “many” mean all who could be contacted?  All who could be contacted except some who declined to comment?  All who could be contacted except some who held a differing view?  It would be useful to know.

It is my view that there is a culture, not necessarily intentional, of agitation for the resignation of Lennon within the Mercury. 

I do want to repeat my apology in #4 - it was indeed extremely slack of me to not check my incorrect memory of who was responsible for the previous piece, and no excuses I offer should take away from that.

However I’m also very tired of the Mercury’s speculating kingmaker attitudes (not that they appear to have much actual affect on political reality anyway).  If we must be subjected to such threadbare nonsense for much longer, I will be regrettably compelled, despite my remaining libertarian inclinations, to argue for Federal Government intervention in the Tasmanian newspaper market to obliterate the regional monopolies held by the Mercury, Examiner and Advocate.  ;)

Don, re #7, there is an obvious difference between us.  Far from not letting the facts get in the way, on those very rare occasions when I screw up on an issue of fact, I fess up to it immediately (in this case noticing and correcting the error before I had been informed by anyone else that it was there).  If TT had an edit function that permitted me to repair my original post (as exists on many forums) I would have done so.

You, however, when proven wrong on issues of fact (something which happens more or less incessantly) generally prefer to attack the messenger than to admit that you were wrong.

PS typo in #9 - I put “affect” when I meant “effect”; yech, how horrible!

Christ ! i wish they were biting as well in the Tamar !
   
  Methinks ! he doth protest too much ! appears to know his name too !    besides ! how can anyone who reckons “stupider” is a word” dare to pull someone up on their punctuation!

  Iv’e never claimed to be scholarly ! that would be dishonest ! having had to leave school at the age of fourteen, which is a scenario most of his generation have never had to suffer , beside’s i have been printed in every rag of note in Australia over the past twenty years and guess what ! not one has ever complained !
                    d.d.
 
   
   

                  d.d.

Ah, Don dishes out his usual bulldust and then pretends in retrospect that he was trolling.  Another lame, desperate and extremely familiar tactic. 

Yes Don, I’ve seen your scrawlings in plenty of rags of dubious note, including the one discussed on this thread just yesterday.  Most of those letters you have published actually read pretty well.  It would be interesting to see what your letters are like in their original form. Either you’re making an effort for those but not here, or else editors are making a biiiiiiig effort to fix up your efforts.  Having edited a student rag for a couple of years, I know the struggle involved when one tries to polish semi-literate junk into something resembling the English language. 

Of course being published in every superficial newsrag in the country only makes you even with such dubious specimens as Arnold Jago of Mildura; it’s not really anything to be proud of. 

As for “stupider”, I checked half a dozen of the bulkiest dictionaries I could find in the reserve section of the Morris Miller, and three of them explicitly included it, including one from 1965!  It’s a word, Don; deal with it!