Miranda Devine probably didn’t envisage she would be forced to assure Americans she “didn’t want grandma to die” when she set off for her 18-month stint working at Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and covering the US election.
But then again, she couldn’t have known she would become one of Donald Trump’s favourite writers either.
After she told Fox News that it was “incredibly selfish of older people” to be “timid and afraid” of the coronavirus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans, the response on social media was scathing.
"It's incredibly selfish of older people or neurotic people who are timid & afraid & won't come out of their basements to confine children & young people to miss out on the most important part of their lives" - Fox News is now straight up blaming old & vulnerable people for Covid pic.twitter.com/mLhiwDHmrN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 6, 2020
“I don’t want grandma to die,” Devine said in her defence. “I want grandma to be protected, unlike what Cuomo did in NY. But we can do both, allow young people to go to school and live a normal life while protecting the most vulnerable. The neurotic just need to pull themselves together.”
Earlier, in her column in the New York Post, which was retweeted by Trump, she praised the president’s handling of his positive diagnosis: “If the president bounces back onto the campaign trail, he will be an invincible hero, who not only survived every dirty trick the Democrats threw at him, but the Chinese virus as well. He will show America we no longer have to be afraid.”
When Donald Trump released my email address to the world, I got a window into the sort of vile abuse and hatred that the unhinged left has for the president, writes Miranda Devine. https://t.co/PtTiboi2GS
— The Daily Telegraph (@dailytelegraph) October 6, 2020
She wasn’t even cross with Trump when he inadvertently included her email address in his tweet about her and she was bombarded with mainly hostile emails. Twitter later deleted the president’s tweet.
Pillow talk
Devine does not seem to have learned from the Quaden Bayles case, in which she agreed to pay $200,000 in damages plus legal costs after she appeared to endorse claims on Twitter he had faked his own bullying.
After the vice-presidential debate on Thursday, Devine wrote “Comment of the night” in response to a claim from Twitter user Kyle Sammin that Kamala Harris would murder Joe Biden to get his job.
“When Trump got the corona, you just know that Pence prayed for him sincerely every day. If Biden sneezes once, Harris will hold a pillow over his face until he stops moving,” Sammin wrote.
But not everyone was critical of Devine’s adventures in America. Sky News Australia host Chris Kenny had Devine on his show and told her she had written a “scintillating” column about Trump and was “kicking goals” in the US.
Tax takeover
Canberra readers of the Australian must have been a little startled to see the words “Tax is good. Tax is an investment in society” emblazoned on the front page of the newspaper on Thursday.
No, the broadsheet had not changed its tune on tax policy after the budget delivered tax cuts. The Australia Institute staged what it called a takeover of the Oz to coincide with the budget and to emphasise the importance of progressive tax system.
➡️ Tax is Good, on the front page of The Australian on newsstands right across Canberra today. #auspol pic.twitter.com/eUz6XVLJpL
— Australia Institute (@TheAusInstitute) October 7, 2020
Australia Institute research shows that Nordic countries that collect the most tax have the strongest economies and happiest populations. Among the 40 prominent names who signed the ad were former Liberal leader John Hewson, former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser, and the head of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie.
ABC austerity
As the dust from the budget settled it became clear that the ABC had suffered another blow to its funding as the government extended the ABC’s indexation freeze beyond 2022. The ABC’s operating budget drops from $880.6m in 2021-2022 to $866.5m in 2022-2023, which represents a 3.7% decrease in real terms from 2020-2021 to 2023-2024.
The budget papers did, however, explicitly state that ABC funding is declining in real terms, something the minister and the prime minister repeatedly denied. In June, Scott Morrison said “the ABC’s funding is increasing every year” and “there are no cuts”.
It was there in black and white in the budget papers: “Expenses under the broadcasting function are expected to decrease by 0.7% in real terms.”
Brain drain
The news of further belt-tightening came as more ABC staff walked out the door, including investigative reporter Quentin McDermott, senior Sydney reporter Philippa McDonald, who has recently covered the bushfire recovery, and Tracy Bowden, who has been on 7.30 for 20 years, after a long career at Nine.
Utterly depressing being at the ABC this week and witnessing decades of experience walking out the door due to budget cuts. Oh, sorry, "indexation freeze". What an absolute fucking waste.
— Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) October 8, 2020
McDermott, who spent 21 years at Aunty, including producing or reporting 50 stories at Four Corners, found himself in the spotlight in 2001 after he produced a story about political dirty tricks in the Liberal party.
The then managing director, Jonathan Shier, who was sacked weeks later, interfered in the editorial process and delayed the program’s broadcast for a week.
Tonight @abc730 farewells our wonderful reporter Tracy Bowden, who has worked on the program since 2000. One of the nicest & most talented people in the industry. We will miss her greatly. Good night & good luck @tabowden pic.twitter.com/RZTNxSE7dh
— Justin Stevens (@_JustinStevens_) October 8, 2020
“Mr Shier berated me about the program at Four Corners’ 40th anniversary party,” McDermott recalls. “It was an extraordinary moment – he seemed entirely unaware, or didn’t care, that we were surrounded by journalists when he was speaking his mind.”
So @Philippa_mc leaves the ABC this week. Thank you for the great work you’ve done. Hug from Dad. (Also the 2020 brain drain from the ABC is horrific.) x pic.twitter.com/mbOgmaOPZw
— Carol Duncan (@carolduncan) October 6, 2020
Historian Ken Inglis later wrote the Shier incident “had jeopardised the political independence of the ABC”.
Paper giants
The Herald Sun celebrated its 30th anniversary this week with a wraparound featuring a cartoon of figures who had been important to the paper.
On 8 October 1990 the first edition of the Herald Sun hit the streets after the merger of the afternoon newspaper, the Herald, with its morning stablemate, the Sun News Pictorial.
Resident cartoonist Mark Knight, who joined the paper in 1987, was there at the start and was responsible for Thursday’s cartoon.
One of the faces featured by Knight on the back of the paper was tennis great Serena Williams, who was famously the subject of a cartoon, also drawn by Knight, that was widely described as racist and sexist but cleared by the Australian Press Council last year. The media watchdog accepted the Herald Sun’s argument that the cartoon was in response to Williams’s “outburst” on the court at the US Open final, and rejected suggestions that the tennis champion was in an ape-like pose.
News Corp’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, and the global chief executive, Robert Thomson, were among the prominent Victorians who contributed their own 30 words to mark the occasion.
“The Herald Sun is going from strength to strength as it celebrates 30 years of agenda-setting journalism and campaigning on behalf of its community,” Murdoch said. “[It is] the voice of Melbourne and Victoria, and this powerful connection with its audience in print and digital ensures Australia’s largest-selling newspaper has a bright future ahead.”
Editor Sam Weir boasted the paper now had 118,000 paid digital subscribers and a monthly Victorian print and digital audience of 2.9 million.
In an editorial, the Hun took a swipe at social media: “In 2020, the world is full of voices in a 24/7 news cycle, where accuracy often clashes with the white noise of many social media platforms.”
Murdoch’s pay pruned
News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch made a thinly veiled reference to Australia’s looming legislation for a mandatory news code in the company’s latest global annual report.
“Our long battle against the big tech platforms – for years a solitary struggle – has finally helped lead to legislative and legal scrutiny of their monopolistic and algorithmic abuses, with some finally providing payment to publishers for premium content,” Murdoch said.
“The fate of a free and unfettered press hangs in the balance of this debate, and I am cautiously optimistic that we will see even more material benefit from this effort in the years ahead.”
The report also documented Murdoch’s pay cut due to the coronavirus, which saw him taking home 33% less than last year but still pocketing a healthy $US3.35m.
Robert Thomson also took a haircut, taking home $US12m.
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