Howdy dear avilees...apologies for the temporary hiatus in this 'ere blog, but I hit a bit of a wall with all the Sexual Assault stuff and the re-traumatising nature of that...my stuff relates mostly to what I and other families and our kids have been subjected to by a Pro-Paedophile Corrupt System/State regarding the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up...as part of that we parents have been routinely attacked as 'the problem', from SAPol (police) blaming us for their deliberately failed faux-investigation, through to politicians like the rancidly corrupt Rory McEwen, via the front page of The Border Watch newspaper, accusing us of being 'conspiracy theory' nutters who had "actually hounded the teacher"...we received similar treatment from the ABC and The Advertiser (Murdoch)...so in context, I do find it oddly amusing watching the media rip into each other...not so hilarious is the clearly 'gendered' nature of the conflict as it's developing over the multiple 'Sexual Assault Scandals' spewing out of Federal Parliament...
So here's the farcically misogynist 'attack' piece on Samantha Maiden from career stooge Aaron Patrick...apparently the 'activist sisterhood' have got it horribly wrong in having a go at poor ol' Scummo...I've followed that (below) with a thread to some very pointed Twitter chatter, and below that, today's response piece from The Guardian, identifying how hilariously pear-shaped things have gone for our mate Aaron...***
PM caught in crusade of women journos
Anger at the government over the abuse of women is being led by a powerful group of female journalists.
When Scott Morrison inexplicably threw back a false account of sexual harassment at a Sky News reporter last week, his unlikely target was sitting a few metres away: a woman making a professional comeback by holding the most powerful man in the country to account. Him.
Samantha Maiden’s run of scoops had left Morrison’s government, and the Prime Minister, in disarray.
The political editor of News Corp’s free news site had exposed intimate and compelling information about the high school debater whose life fell apart after a teenage encounter with Attorney-General Christian Porter, who was removed from the position on Monday.
She broke and led coverage of Brittany Higgins’ claim of rape in a minister’s office, and the young adviser’s feelings of being abandoned by a government she served.
The ABC promoted her on its most prominent platforms, including Insiders, Q&A and RN Breakfast, where she became the surrogate voice of her victim sources.
On Four Corners, Maiden accused Morrison of operating a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about Higgins’ 2019 alleged rape in the office of Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds.
“Their first instinct is to protect the institution, to protect the office and to ensure that there is a nice clean couch for Linda Reynolds to sit on when she returns to work on Monday,” she said on the show.
In taking up the stories – and causes – of women who believed they were abused by entitled men, Maiden may have done more than any other individual, journalist or otherwise, to define the Morrison government as indifferent to sexual harassment, assault and rape.
She isn’t alone. The Higgins and Porter stories cleaved a schism through political journalism, exposing a shift in the centre of gravity from the male perspective to the female.
Angry coverage that often strayed into unapologetic activism came forth from a new, female media leadership: Laura Tingle and Louise Milligan on the ABC, Katharine Murphy and Amy Remeikis at The Guardian, Lisa Wilkinson on Channel Ten, Karen Middleton in The Saturday Paper and a cameo by Jessica Irvine on the Nine Network.
Maiden was probably the most influential, and restrained. Based on copious facts, rather than opinion, her copy was devastating. At every step, as the government tried to staunch the stories, it seemed Maiden was there with a new angle to propel them along.
Morrison’s frustration at his loss of control was evident last Tuesday. In a briefing room in Parliament House’s ministerial wing known as the Blue Room, the Canberra press gallery was summoned to hear a prime ministerial mea culpa.
Vowing to do a better job protecting women, Morrison seemed rattled. He teared up. He swore. He apologised.
Samantha Maiden on Sky News on May 24, 2018, when she was a political reporter on the channel.
Having arrived too late to get one of the few seats, Maiden sat on a ledge on the far right of the room, vying with the ABC’s Andrew Probyn for Morrison’s call.
About 20 minutes in, one of her Sky News successors, Andrew Clennell, said: “Prime Minister, if you’re the boss at a business and there had been an alleged rape on your watch and this incident we heard about last night on your watch, your job would probably be in a bit of jeopardy, wouldn’t it? Doesn’t it look like you have lost control of your ministerial staff?”
Morrison displayed a flash of what sounded like anger.
“I will let you editorialise as you like, Andrew, but if anyone in this room wants to offer up the standards in their own workplaces by comparison I would invite you to do so,” he said.
Clennell didn’t back down: “Well, they’re better than these I would suggest, Prime Minister.”
“Let me take you up on that,” Morrison replied. “Let me take you up on that. Right now, you would be aware that in your own organisation that there is a person who has had a complaint made against them for harassment of a woman in a women’s toilet and that matter is being pursued by your own HR department.”
If Maiden realised the Prime Minister was referring to her, she didn’t show it.
Within hours of the news conference, News Corp Australia’s executive chairman, Michael Miller, issued a rare and detailed written response. There was no toilet incident. Sex was not involved. Two journalists had exchanged words, and one was later ticked off by the human resources department.
Miller’s involvement was initially puzzling. Even though Sky News is owned by News Corp, the broadcaster usually speaks for itself. People began to wonder: had something sordid happened at one of News Corp’s papers?
After a few days, word filtered through the press gallery. The Prime Minister had messed up the details, but was referring to a confrontation at the end of 2020 between Maiden and Jade Gailberger, a young reporter in Canberra on News Corp’s internal wire service.
Gailberger had decided to run for the federal parliamentary press gallery committee, which liaises with Parliament House bureaucrats on behalf of journalists who work in the building. The committee was useful for networking, and, in a place where gossip is professional currency, was a step closer to the heart of the Canberra media establishment.
Another News Corp journalist, Herald Sun reporter Tamsin Rose, also stood. Contested elections for the committee aren’t rare, but they aren’t common either, and Maiden had decided, without being asked, to help Rose get elected, according to a person involved.
A year ago, Maiden joined the news.com.au website, which has some 10 million monthly readers, from The New Daily, an online news service funded by industry superannuation funds.
At the New Daily, Maiden had been unhappy with the Parliament House office allocated to her, and had unsuccessfully lobbied the press gallery committee for a better location, according to a source who is not a committee member.
I think every journalist in the gallery is wary of her.
— Former female colleague of Samantha Maiden
One day, after joining news.com.au, Maiden ran into Gailberger in a corridor, according to a person briefed on the encounter. She forcefully told the younger reporter that, by standing in the press gallery election, she was potentially splitting the big News Corp voting bloc. Maiden urged her to drop out.
Gailberger was so shaken that she felt unable to attend work for several days afterward, according to a Press Gallery source.
Morrison and his aides resented that they were being criticised by someone with her own blemished record, according to a source.
(The first account of the confrontation was published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald CBD column. Gailberger and Rose didn’t respond to requests for comment. Maiden wouldn’t discuss what happened.)
Maiden already had a reputation in Canberra’s clubby reporting circles as a difficult colleague and spiky competitor.
“I think every journalist in the gallery is wary of her,” a former female colleague says.
Before joining the New Daily, Maiden was an on-air correspondent at Sky News.
At Sky, Maiden brought a newspaper-like ability to work political sources that was different to the broadcaster’s line-up of polished presenters. Her political knowledge strengthened the bureau, and she brought in guests beyond Sky’s regular stable of talking heads, giving viewers a broader perspective on the news.
Maiden could also be challenging to share an office with, according to fellow journalists, who said she did not prize teamwork and intimidated younger reporters, male and female.
Journalists who cracked a joke were sometimes met with a withering put-down. In the office, Maiden didn’t always couch her words to protect other’s egos.
In June 2018, Maiden abruptly quit.
Revealing her resignation on Twitter, Maiden disclosed that she had been diagnosed the previous year with anxiety and depression.
Other colleagues reported positive experiences. Neil Breen was editor of the Sydney Sunday Telegraph when Maiden was the chief political reporter for his paper and News Corp’s other Sunday tabloids. He is now a 4BC radio broadcaster in Brisbane.
“In all the years she worked with us I never ever had an issue, and no one ever had an issue,” he says. “In all that time no one ever said a sideways word about Sam Maiden.”
Maiden’s boss, news.com.au editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy, says: “Sam is an extraordinary journalist and Walkley winner who has once again broken a story of great importance. She continues to lead the coverage and I am proud of her achievements.”
In the press gallery elections late last year, Maiden’s involvement seemed to backfire. Her candidate was defeated, a loss that other journalists in the ballot saw as a measure of Maiden’s popularity not hers.
In private, Maiden complains about what she saw as a years-long smear campaign by jealous rivals. If she were a man, she argues, she wouldn’t be criticised as intimidating or outspoken.
Maiden doesn’t seek sympathy – what she refers to as a “pity party” – but may deserve some. Her single mother struggled to pay the fees for St Peters Girls’ School, one of Adelaide’s best, and the Maidens lived with a fear of debt collectors knocking on the door.
From time to time, Maiden has described being expelled from St Peters and invited back as a guest speaker after achieving professional success. In the story, she refuses on principle.
In reality, Maiden was suspended for disobedience. When the principal said she could return, she was rude towards him. When she met him again, at an awards ceremony for the state’s top matriculating students, she refused to acknowledge him.
Last year, Maiden won a Walkley journalism award for scoop of the year for revealing that Morrison went to Hawaii for a holiday during the bushfires that ravaged Eastern Australia.
This year, she may be in contention for a Walkley for the Brittany Higgins or Christian Porter scandals. The Porter allegations were broken by Louise Milligan on the ABC, but Maiden, who attended the same school as the alleged victim, followed up with important information and developments.
Porter has responded by suing Milligan and the ABC over the story, a step roundly criticised by the ABC’s defenders. Most journalists do not believe, if they act in good faith, that defamation law should be used to try to silence them.
When I contacted Maiden on Friday to tell her about this article, she issued a threat of her own.
“The AFR has published many lies about me and I have accepted it in good grace because I do not believe journalists should sue,” she wrote. “I may be prepared to change my mind over this.”
***And here's an example of what people are saying, and the relevant Twitter thread...***
https://twitter.com/search?q=maiden%20hit%20piece%20afr&src=typeahead_click
***And here's today's The Guardian article, effectively in response...***
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/apr/02/afr-hit-job-on-samantha-maiden-backfires-spectacularly
AFR hit job on Samantha Maiden backfires spectacularly
Journalists rally in support of news.com.au political editor. Plus: Michael Stutchbury defends Aaron Patrick’s ‘reasonable’ article
Last modified on Fri 2 Apr 2021 10.25 AEst
When the Australian Financial Review and senior reporter Aaron Patrick set their sights on Samantha Maiden for what is known in journalism as a “hit job”, one could have been excused for expecting it would do the seasoned reporter some damage. Dig up her work history, delve into her childhood, fling around words like “challenging”, “spiky” and “difficult” and the reporter who revealed allegations that Brittany Higgins had been raped in Parliament House might be cowed.
What the editor-in-chief, Michael Stutchbury, and Patrick didn’t foresee was that what many believed amounted to the bullying of a top female journalist, who has led the coverage of harassment and sexual violence against women in politics, would backfire so spectacularly.
The only people damaged by Wednesday’s article, “PM caught in crusade of women journos”, are the men who wrote and published it.
As the artist Jon Kudelka said: “Did the AFR seriously just run a comically transparent hit job on Samantha Maiden for being a journalist while female?”
In an unusual show of solidarity, journalists from across the media rallied in support of Maiden, the political editor of news.com.au who honed her steely reporting skills in the rough house of News Corp: at the Australian, the Sunday Telegraph and Sky News Australia.
Journos from Nine Entertainment (publisher of the AFR and its sister papers the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald), News Corp, the ABC, Guardian Australia, Crikey and the Saturday Paper all spoke up.
There were the likely allies in support of Maiden, such as the journalism academic Margaret Simons – who said it was a “nasty and ill-judged piece” that, in her view, “breaches ethical codes on several levels” – to the highly unlikely ones, such as the UK singer Lily Allen. By the end of the day tweets in support were trending on Twitter.
‘Activism’ or public-interest journalism?
The ill-judged piece started off musing about how a pack of female reporters had made the prime minister’s life difficult with their “activist” and “angry” journalism and then veered into a deeply personal examination of Maiden’s character, childhood and family circumstances.
“Anger at the government over the abuse of women is being led by a powerful group of female journalists,” Patrick wrote.
“Angry coverage that often strayed into unapologetic activism came forth from a new, female media leadership: Laura Tingle and Louise Milligan on the ABC, Katharine Murphy and Amy Remeikis at the Guardian, Lisa Wilkinson on Channel Ten, Karen Middleton in the Saturday Paper and a cameo by Jessica Irvine on the Nine Network.”
As Murphy has pointed out, this cohort of reporters is not “new”; some, like Maiden, Tingle and Murphy, have been reporting on politics for decades. Their work is not “activism”, it’s public interest journalism.
Politicians who spoke up include Labor’s Penny Wong, whose words were backed up by her Senate colleague Kristina Keneally: “In these last weeks we have seen extraordinary work by many women journalists, keeping a focus on issues which have too long been unspoken. Dismissing this as a ‘crusade’ or ‘unapologetic activism’ undermines their work and deliberately misses the point.”
Some of the detail in Patrick’s article was so grotesquely inappropriate it can’t be repeated. The AFR had removed the worst line from the online article due to guidelines relating to reporting mental health issues, Stutchbury told Beast.
Patrick did admit that Maiden “may have done more than any other individual, journalist or otherwise, to define the Morrison government as indifferent to sexual harassment, assault and rape”.
On this point Higgins herself agreed, saying that Maiden, who gained her trust over weeks, carefully listened to her and fact-checked her story, was her “personal hero”.
The ABC Melbourne radio host Raf Epstein called it “revolting & revealing”.
It’s not the first time Patrick has been accused of bullying female journalists on the pages of the financial daily. He ran a long campaign against the former ABC Lateline host Emma Alberici, calling her “a woman of considerable self-belief”.
To this accusation, Patrick said: “Absurd and ridiculous claim that ignores tough coverage of powerful men.”
‘Filling in some details’
Stutchbury told Weekly Beast he had received some email complaints from readers and he understands there is “a fair bit more criticism on Twitter”.
He defended the story as an attempt to fill in an under-reported aspect of Scott Morrison’s “damaging News Corp diversion in his mea culpa press conference last week”; and the fact that the PM had been talking about Maiden when he made the comment.
“Apart from abuse, some complainants don’t seem to like the idea that the overall ‘enough’ phenomenon has been led by female journalists fed up with the harassment of women,” he said. “That same point has been made by others who are openly supportive of the female journalists.
“Others similarly don’t like the suggestion of ‘activism’, even though that seems a reasonable observation of journalists who speak at rallies, even those in aid of good causes.
“Aaron has written more about the need to combat sexism in the Liberal party than most journalists, and before it all blew up, such as here.
“It reports that Samantha Maiden is a fearless and admired – but in some circles controversial – journalist. Filling in some details on Samantha, and observations from her supporters and critics, aims to help readers, particularly those outside the Parliament House bubble, understand this overall very important story and the overdue efforts to improve the status and lives of women.”
‘Twitter fuss’ warning
One editor who took a different approach to many journalists was the relatively new editor of the Age, Gay Alcorn, who responded to some staff tweets about the Patrick article – which was in the Age’s sister paper – by sending a note to all staff warning them not to comment publicly.
“I know there’s a Twitter fuss about a particular piece today, but be really careful adding opinions criticising other journalists,” Alcorn said on Slack.
“And NEVER make a generalised comment about ‘Canberra’ coverage because that includes our own bureau, which is extremely unfair and will not be tolerated – it would be like someone in Canberra carelessly tweeting about how hopeless ‘Melbourne’ coverage is on a particular issue. I am talking to a few people but this applies to you all.”
***So there you go...I've shaved-off the last unrelated paragraph about Nine getting 'hacked' just to shorten this post...I hadn't realised that when Scummo (incorrectly) attacked the 'NewsCorp journo' in that bizarre press conference, about 'an incident in a female toilet', etc, that it was Ms Maiden he was attacking...I'll get into this 'gendered attacks' stuff a bit more when normal TMGI services resume...
Tomorrow: Scummo Does A Li'l Sacrificial Laming
And yes, that is spelled correctly, I'm referring to that choice piece of work, LNP Member Andrew 'All Done In The Best Possible Taste' Laming...oh, and 'Ed' will make a long-awaited return...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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