Caroline Overington Rings VTAY

About a week ago I wrote a post about L'Affaire Overington in which, entirely as ridicule, I said:

That was written after Overington scrawled a column saying Ecuyer planned to direct preferences away from Newhouse, who it seems she's been sharpening an axe for. Apparently the two of them [Newhouse and Ecuyer] went out for a few weeks, it didn't work out, and now she's back to boil his pets and derail his political career, er, run as an independent. Anyway, here's the money email.

"Too early! My girl, you've got four weeks!!
Please preference Malcolm. It would be such a good front page
story. Also, he'd be a loss to the parliament and George - forgive
me - would be no gain. ;)
— Email from Caroline Overington to Danielle Ecuyer"

How did she manage to type that with the Member for Wentworth's member in her mouth?

I thought it was pretty funny, because clearly I am a very funny man. All twelve of my readers agree with me. It would appear my attempts at humour have fallen flat in the offices of The Australian, hereafter referred to as the Government Gazette. Caroline Overington emailed us today asking to talk with us. She was cagey about what she wanted to discuss, insisting on a phone call. We agreed, reluctantly, because we wanted to find out what it was about. What could we have written on our tiny, barely-read blog to prompt a call out of the blue from a senior writer and columnist with The Australian? A two-time winner of the Walkley Award for investigative journalism (2004 and 2006) and recipient of the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Excellence in Journalism, for a series of articles on the Iraq wheat sales scandal (excellent work, credit where it's due!).

Well, to summarise our conversation: She demanded we remove the statement. First it was because her kids might see it. I replied that we were nowhere near the top 5 pages on a google search. Then it was because she was a married woman and the statement implied she was having an affair with a government member, which just couldn't stand. I defy anyone to look at the context of the statement and come to a conclusion that I was even implying that an affair was going on between them. Of course, she made the statement, not I. Also I note that in her emails to George Newhouse she stated that she was separated. "Not married, me. Separated five months ago."

She repeatedly brought up the marriage thing. She threatened legal action. I replied that I thought we'd be safe for reasons of absurdity of the statement, satire, and comment, otherwise we wouldn't have stand up comics. She claimed such defences wouldn't extend to our 'political' blogs. I asked her whether she'd like to legitimise a non existent implication by dragging us to court. She wouldn't answer, or state that she was in fact going to take legal action. She then implied that Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't be able to let the non-existent implication stand, suggesting he might sue us. I didn't enquire as to whether she had consulted Mr Turnbull or if it was just another click of the ratchet in her attempt to heavy us. Prior to accepting Ms Overington's call google analytics revealed someone had gotten to the post in question via the keywords "Caroline Overington husband" That generated only two hits. In the end I refused to remove the text she requested.

1) There was no implication the two of them were in a sexual relationship. The context of the statement was of her extraordinary attempts (bending over backwards, if you will) to be of service to Mr Turnbull. I did not speculate as to any relationship between them nor did I imply there was one. That she continually brought this up mystifies me.

2) The statement is patently absurd to a reasonable person and was made in a satirical context. There is no way anyone could think I was implying Ms Overington had a sexual relationship with Mr Turnbull. If I said John Howard was 20 feet tall, farts mustard gas and eats Chinese immigrant babies would I be liable to be sued?

3) I believe in free speech. If this is an issue of Ms Overington defending her reputation, why doesn't she go after the people who claim she's biased in her columns? We are defending our right to make fun of her. Certainly, if we're going to start loading the torpedo tubes, we should mention email threats to ruin Mr Newhouse's reputation. Something about houses, glass and stones in there. Also why is Ms Overington allowed to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the electoral act and defend herself by claiming it's all a joke? Why don't we get similar consideration?

4) This is my latest bank statement.



Ms Overington can lawyer up and come get it if she wants. Perhaps she can split it with Mr Turnbull. I won't give up my $43 without a fight. Or my 71 cents.

It goes back to what I said about Australian media personalities constantly trying to insert themselves into their stories. If Ms Overington hadn't been engaged in doing just that she wouldn't be stuck trying to defend her hard earned reputation. It is simply beyond belief that a professional journalist would contact people like us and use legal threats (whose lawyers will she use, News Ltd's or her own?) to shut us up. Not only that but that she would allege that the law makes no exception for satire or comment in Australia. Watch out Crikey, you'll be out of business before long. I also find it odd that a journalist would be so ignorant of the Streisand effect. You know those thrillers where a guy's walking down the street and someone gives him something out of the blue and all of a sudden everyone's trying to kill him and he thinks he doesn't know anything but it turns out he does? I feel like I'm in one.

Rudd vs The Media

Kevin Rudd has declined to appear on the ABC Insiders, choosing instead to appear on Rove. One of the features of this election has been the skillful manipulation of the media by Rudd. Throughout the campaign he's had the whip hand in the relationship, all but directing the media spotlight. First there's the heavy reliance on the internet to short circuit the media. This is important not because it reaches more people than the mass media, it doesn't. What it does do is force the media to simply report a prepackaged message. Instead of paying for advertising or appearing on carefully crafted ambush talk-shows Rudd has been able to control his message by creating a new supply of information he controls, forcing the media to cover it. Several times internet announcements have been used to hijack the media's very slow train of thought. This is significant in part because it shows his team 'gets' the nature of the internet as a medium but also because it recognises how our media behave. We're not ranked near the bottom of OECD press freedom for nothing. Australian media exists largely as a vehicle for the larger ambitions of the personalities within it. As such it must generate constant controversy with each personality vying to bring you the latest bun fight. This is the role they play for Howard. He only sets the wedge, the media hammer away at it.

If you look at the campaign, the media have tried to create the kind of petty squabbling they need to feed off. The strip club incident, the me-too copycat nonsense, the tax policy beat up etc. each time they've tried to turn the campaign into a bitchy scandal and Rudd into just another politician. That's not to say he isn't just another politician but his astute handling of the media has helped him sidestep the wedges Howard has tried. Take a look at the campaign launches. The media were caught flat footed by Rudd's exquisite reverse wedge on Howard. They all thought it would be two competing porkfests, instead Rudd chose the second last week of the campaign to put daylight between himself and Howard. In the context of the polls the campaign launches were meaningless and yet somehow Rudd was on the front page of practically every paper in the country simply for being different from Howard. Even now, trapped in the old media paradigm Howard's calling press conferences to attack Rudd's economic credentials, completely unaware that the battle was fought and lost two days ago, an eternity in Rudd's tactics.

So what does it all mean? When you compare Rudd's mastery of our rather brainless media elite to Howard's hostile, ham fisted approach (cultivate a set of servile, wooden-headed sycophants and give them access) does this mean they'll be less able to hold Rudd accountable for anything? Have we got a Blair on our hands? At least in terms of media management. Rudd is nowhere as cold and dead, as middle management as Blair. It bears thinking about.

Why I Don't Read Or Buy The Australian

Caroline Overington, typewriter monkey at the Government Gazette, was busted yesterday for doing openly what her paper does secretly. Mediawatch got hold of emails of her begging Danielle Ecuyer, Glenn Close to George Newhouse's Michael Douglas, to direct her preferences to Malcolm Turnbull.

"Have you decided how to preference yet??"
— Email from Caroline Overington to Danielle Ecuyer"

"no sweetie it is way too early, let's see what happens on policy
from the major parties- if anything!!!!!!
— Email from Danielle Ecuyer to Caroline Overington"

That was written after Overington scrawled a column saying Ecuyer planned to direct preferences away from Newhouse, who it seems she's been sharpening an axe for. Apparently the two of them went out for a few weeks, it didn't work out, and now she's back to boil his pets and derail his political career, er, run as an independent. Anyway, here's the money email.

"Too early! My girl, you've got four weeks!!
Please preference Malcolm. It would be such a good front page
story. Also, he'd be a loss to the parliament and George - forgive
me - would be no gain. ;)
— Email from Caroline Overington to Danielle Ecuyer"

How did she manage to type that with the Member for Wentworth's member in her mouth?

"I’m disgusted to have been lobbied by a journalist from The
Australian for my preferences.
— Statement from Danielle Ecuyer to Media Watch"

Hilarious! Read the whole transcript to see Overington's pathetic 'i was only kidding!' denials. Of course there's no mention of this on the GG's website and Overington will continue her employment as one of Rupert's flying monkeys but it must mean things are getting pretty desperate in the Liberal bunker if they have to resort to this.

The media as a whole have been absolute rubbish the whole campaign. Take the 'me too' meme for instance. They jump all over Rudd when he copies the government, yet when Howard copies every single Labor party campaign plank at his campaign launch and adds no new policies of his own they don't start chanting 'me too'. How about just reporting the fucking news instead of trying to be part of it?

NewsLtd wear their heart on their sleeve

Nice guys. Really nice.

When you see the following headline, you can't help but assume that Rudd is the rival mentioned:



My next thought was, "Surely they can't be treating the fact that Bob Brown is gay as news?"

But then you look further and it becomes clear. It is a story about Johnny's "Sorry, but I'm not sorry," comments yesterday, with a link to a story about an independent candidate:



If implying that Rudd is gay is their idea of a smear, it's pretty fucking pathetic. Trying to "force" Rudd to say publicly that he's not gay? Wankers.

Reading the headline, it also seems to say that Howard isn't sorry that his rival is gay. Hmmmm...but I thought Johnny hated The Gay? I thought The Gay will cause the irrevocable breakdown of society and anarchy will ensue? Or is the use of inverted commas meant to imply that Rudd is happy? Well, we know that!

But really, tell me - what does the election campaign of an independent who decides to use hot guys to win a vote have to do with the rise in interest rates? Aside from both being dubious ways to try to win votes.


(H/T Hoyden. See also The Orstrahyun)