The ABC’s Media Watch programme loves to preen that it’s a “leading forum for media analysis and comment”. The programme that ‘watches the watchers’, which, it brags, ‘everybody in the media loves… until they’re on it’. But this is something its fellow ABC hacks have less and less to worry about, as the programme becomes less a fearless media watchdog and more a protection racket for its mates.
As I wrote recently, the ABC stands accused of breaching its own editorial guidelines, and wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars, running what amounted to little more than a bitchy hit piece on behalf of one of its own star ‘celebrities’. Worse, the ABC deliberately kept Australian viewers – whose taxes fund the ABC – in the dark about its nasty antics.
Because, when it ran several stories on a trivial neighbourhood dispute over a fence, what it didn’t disclose was that one of the parties was one Myf Warhurst, most ‘famous’ as a long-running guest on the ABC’s music/comedy quiz show Spicks and Specks. The only time the ABC came even close to any kind of disclosure was a single mention that the unnamed “neighbour” of the woman it did name had allegedly assaulted “lives with an ABC contractor”.
Now, you’d think such a clear breach of editorial guidelines, not to say such an egregious abuse of its power, would be exactly the sort of thing Media Watch would eat for breakfast. Rest assured, if a commercial network had pulled such a stunt, Media Watch would have been all over it.
But it refuses to touch its ABC mates.
The ABC’s Media Watch program refused to investigate allegations the public broadcaster covered up star presenter Myf Warhurst’s leading role in a heated suburban feud while allegedly launching a “one-sided” journalistic “hit job” on her neighbour.
The startling revelation comes as the ABC continues to face accusations it breached its editorial guidelines and wasted thousands of taxpayer dollars after publishing a brutal take-down of Warhurst’s next-door neighbour, Karla Martinez, on its website last May.
Although Ms Martinez was pictured and repeatedly named in the withering article, the ABC censored the identities of both Warhurst – best known for her recurring role on the ABC’s music/comedy quiz show Spicks and Specks – and her then-boyfriend, Brian Steendyk.
It’s not as if Media Watch can play dumb on this one, either.
Ms Martinez revealed she contacted Media Watch – “exposing conflicts of interest, journalistic deceit, misrepresentation, manipulation and plagiarism” – about the article “out of desperation” last November but was told it was “not interested” in exploring the matter.
The former El Salvadoran refugee says the ABC has “ruined my life while protecting their own employee”.
So much for ‘speaking truth to power’.
It is understood she spoke with Media Watch after former host Paul Barry farewelled the program on December 2 last year and before incoming presenter Linton Besser started on the program […]
“I called and spoke to a producer at Media Watch about my treatment at the hands of the ABC and everything I had been through last December.
“But they said they weren’t interested in having a look at it. I was very surprised.”
All of which makes a mockery of Media Watch’s self-serving bullshit.
Media Watch executive producer Mario Christodoulou said the program never shied away from a story.
Except, it appears, when it might expose not only their own journalists, but paint one of their favourite stars in an unflattering light.
Although Media Watch had refused to investigate her treatment, she revealed Nine’s A Current Affair had been among a number of programs and mastheads now clambering to tell her story.
Given the ABC’s and Media Watch’s arrogant self-righteousness over the decades, it’s hardly surprising that a swarm of media entities are hurrying to kick the living daylights out of them in return.
And well do they deserve it.
