A supporter of Mr Gilham, Jill Gatland, agreed to sign over the surety. "It's a momentous day," she said.

A phalanx of about 40 Gilham supporters earlier walked into the NSW Supreme Court to learn his fate.

As she walked into the court, Mrs Gilham told the waiting media: "We are very hopeful for justice this morning."

Hi Gus,

Yes, & also in the public interest.

Cheers,

John.

Gus: It is often interesting to compare information that is published — printed in ink in newspapers and what is posted on the net by the same stable — or the same writer... Sometimes, there are some differences that are glaring, other times the differences can be very subtle. Sometimes there is no difference...

One needs to be alert anyhow. I HOPE I have retyped faithfully the copy and have not added an extra dimension or mistake in this...

---------------------

A case study:

POSTED ON THE NET
Opinion
TV's media watchdog owes journos apology
by: Miranda Devine
From: Herald Sun
December 08, 2011 12:00AM

NOW that convicted family killer Jeffrey Gilham has won a retrial, Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes owes an apology to the Australian Story journalists he savaged.
The show's exclusive interview with Gilham's loyal wife, Robecca, in October included extraordinary details about the legal case he would make to prove his innocence.
Last week three judges of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal thought the evidence compelling enough to quash his murder convictions for stabbing to death his parents and brother in 1993.
But it wasn't enough for Justice Holmes. He knew better than his Australian Story colleagues, who had worked for a year on the report. He found their evidence neither fresh nor compelling.
"However much Australian Story may deny it, the fact is it did question the jury's verdict reached after a seven-week trial," Holmes said.
"As I've said before, only compelling new evidence justifies a TV program doing that and, in my view, we didn't get it."
Now Gilham's friends have asked Media Watch for an apology and I say they deserve one.

-------------------------------------
PRINTED IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Miranda Devine

Gilham apology is elementary for TV "Sherlock" Holmes

NOW that convicted family killer Jeffrey Gilham has won a retrial, Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes owes an apology to the Australian Story journalists he savaged after they scooped everyone on the story.
The show's exclusive interview with Gilham's loyal wife, Robecca, in October included extraordinary details about the legal case he would make to prove his innocence.
Australian Story screened an exclusive interview with Gilham's loyal wife Robecca in October, including extraordinary details about the legal case he would make to prove his innocence. The program was a two-part tale of overlooked fingerprints, witness U-turns and circumstantial evidence.
A court is yet to determine whether Gilham, 41, is innocent of stabbing to death his parents and his brother in 1993. But last week three judges of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal thought the evidence compelling enough to quash his murder convictions and release him on bail to spend Christmas with his wife and daughters.
But it wasn't enough for "Justice" Holmes. He knew better than his Australian Story colleagues, who had been working behind the scene for a year. He found their evidence neither fresh nor compelling.
"The fact is it did question the jury's verdict reached after a seven-week trial... Only compelling new evidence justifies a TV program doing that and, in my view, we didn't get it."
Gilham's friends have asked Media Watch for an apology. They deserve one.
-----------------------
Gus: There are quite a few small changes here between the two version of the same piece by Miranda — the same author.
Often this is due to editors and headline writers in the papers or the people doing the posting on the net... I have seen some glaring changes once where the writer's piece was packaged by the netters in a way that meant something totally different to what the writer intended, possibly because the people posting stories on the net had a different "opinion" about the subject matter...

Nonetheless, Jonathan Holmes is still due to apologise to the Australian Story team and to the Gilham family for having had a foul "opinion" that was proven to be total crap — which he should have known in the first place... Many serious journos around the traps know that Jonathan goofed big time on this story and in one single bloody-minded blurt has taken the reputation Media Watch into a smelly garbage dump...
But no rumble from the ABC bunkers so far. 

Meanwhile one has to also correct Miranda: Jeffrey admitted to killing his brother after, as Jeffrey claims, his brother Christopher had killed his parents... For this murder Jeffrey got a suspended sentence in 1993-4(?)...

In his stupid venomous blast against the very fair and 100 per cent correct Australian Story on the Gilham appeal case (Bad Blood), Jonathan of Media Crap punched himself in the left eye by stating with grandstanding ignorance that Australian Story questioned the jury verdict and it should not do that — you naughtly little program... But in his wisdom and knowledge of the law, the judge who presided with two other judges on the Gilham appeal case (the result of which squarely punched Jonathan in the gonads) now says:

• Top judge [Justice Peter McClellan] says evidence too complicated in criminal trials
• Justice Peter McClellan says there's a growing reluctance to serve
• Trials without juries "far less time consuming"

JURIES should be dumped from criminal trials as forensic and medical evidence gets more complicated and reluctance to serve grows, one of New South Wales' highest-ranking judges believes.

Justice Peter McClellan, who recently presided over the murder conviction appeals of both Jeffrey Gilham and Gordon Wood, said: "If there are difficulties for a judge in resolving disputes between experts, these will be greater (for) lay people".

During a speech at the University of NSW law faculty, the judge suggested an alternative to juries in criminal trials could be introducing one or two assessors to sit alongside a judge, or the use of a panel of judges, as is currently the system at appeal level.

"A trial with only a judge or multiple judges will be far less time consuming and would result in significantly reduced expense to the state," he said.

THE real mystery of the Azaria Chamberlain case is why, after the royal commissioner Trevor Morling released his finding on June 2, 1987, it has taken the judicial system so long to get round to pronouncing that a dingo took the young girl.

Gerard Henderson has been complaining about the ABC's ''leftish drift'' for as long as I've been in Australia - 30 years come April. Apparently he still finds the topic fascinating.

However, when the former ABC chairman Maurice Newman complained about ''group think'' among ABC journalists, he was not talking about left-wing bias, real or supposed. He was discussing how they report climate change science.

Mr Newman thinks his own doubts about the scientific evidence for anthropogenic global warming should be better reflected in the ABC's coverage of the topic. I think its reporting should reflect the views of the majority of qualified experts.

That was the substance of our disagreement, which took place in a supposedly private forum at which Mr Henderson was not present. His column misrepresents both what Mr Newman said on that day, and me.

Jonathan Holmes presenter, Media Watch ABC TV, Ultimo

Not from Sherlock Holmes...:

It's perhaps a bit late to be contributing my mite to the discussion of Ray Finkelstein's Independent Media Review.

As The Drum's useful wrap on the topic demonstrates, a lot of media heavyweights have already dropped a bucket on the notion of a government-funded News Media Council.

For my money, the most cogent comment so far has come from Michael Gawenda (former editor-in-chief of the Age) in last Monday's Media section in The Australian. I agree with his scathing description of the status quo:

It is my experience that editors and journalists are more interested in burying complaints from readers than addressing them, that mistakes and ethical lapses are acknowledged only grudgingly and that most media organisations have wholly inadequate mechanisms for dealing with complaints by readers, viewers and listeners.

I agree that Mr Finkelstein's proposed solution, a government-funded council, with its ability to demand retractions, apologies and rights of reply with the sanction of a court order lying behind them:

is absolutely alarming.

And I agree with Gawenda, Margaret Simons, and the current chairman of the Australian Press Council, Professor Julian Disney, that a beefed-up press council, perhaps with some government funding but essentially a self-regulatory body, would have been a better way to go.

I don't agree with the large number of commentators, including Gawenda, who have opined that a regulator funded by the taxpayer, and appointed at arm's length by the Government, will always be seen as being, and indeed may well be, controlled by the Government of the day.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-08/holmes-finkelstein-and-media-watch/3876360?WT.svl=theDrum

Gus: as mentioned before, Jonathan Holmes is presently living in a very fragile glasshouse after a gigantic balls-up by Media Watch for which "he" and the "others" working there have not apologised nor retracted their silly skewed-reseached badly-expressed misunderstandings.

In the meantime, Jonathan should shut up and not be "a bit late" to contibute some "fence-sitting" crap to the forum... May I say that Media Watch is now the most boring show on TeeVee as if its teeth had been pulled out...

Bring back the "Justinian"... at least he relatively knew what he was talking about, despite his raspy voice.

Now it would appear that MW has some explaining to do, or as Dateline executive producer Peter Charley put it in a letter to Holmes on Friday: "I request that MW publish a correction and an on-air apology to Dateline." His point-by-point criticism of MW's report is on the Dateline website. Charley told Diary: "I am disappointed that Media Watch has failed its own test of 'caution and scepticism' in this case by simply not bothering to check facts before going to air.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/media-diary/sbs-demands-abc-apology/story-fnab9kqj-1226348244065

Following criticism over the accuracy of this report by the ABC's Media Watch, Dateline's Executive Producer Peter Charley wrote to Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes on Friday 4th May with this response...

Jonathan,

I watched with interest your recent examination of Yalda Hakim’s Dateline report on the killing of 17 civilians in Afghanistan. It is obvious that you were guided in your criticism by reporter Jon Stephenson who had launched a similar attack against Dateline on TVNZ’s Media 7 program. As you are aware, Stephenson’s claim on Media 7– that Dateline had pursued “a false narrative” – was accompanied by a pernicious and defamatory attack on Yalda Hakim, details of which you wisely chose to exclude from your program. But the nature of Stephenson’s sustained personal derision of the Dateline report, and the apparent acceptance by Media Watch of his remarks as being fair and accurate, raises a number of serious questions: 

1.    Media Watch quoted Dutch reporter Bette Dam as saying that President Karzai based his view that more than one gunman was involved on “second-hand accounts”. As you would be aware, Stephenson expressed the same view on Media 7, saying “Karzai says there were multiple shooters, and of course Karzai was relying on the same people who were not eye-witnesses.” Did Media Watch contact the office of President Karzai to verify that this was the case? If not, why not?

Following the Media Watch allegations that Karzai’s view was based only on “second-hand” testimony, Dateline sought to clarify his position. Presidential Spokesperson and Director of Communications Aimal Faizi provided the following statement in response to our inquiry:

“We confirm that the remarks made by President Karzai in relation to the Panjwai massacre and the possibility of more than one shooter or soldier being involved was based on the evidence and testimony provided by a range of accounts, including the surviving eye-witnesses and their relatives. We stand by any remarks he made to the press during his meeting with the family members of the victims and elders of Panjwai after the massacre and any suggestion that the President was relying on second-hand accounts is false.”

Does Media Watch concede that it was misled by Jon Stephenson into believing that President Karzai had not spoken to eye-witnesses to the massacre? Will Media Watch now issue a correction to that effect?

2.    Did Media Watch contact Afghanistan’s chief investigator, General Karimi, to confirm Jon Stephenson’s claim that Karimi now believes that only one killer was responsible for the massacre? If not, why not? If Media Watch did contact General Karimi to check whether or not he had changed his position on the ‘multiple killer’ versus ‘single-killer’ theory, why did it not broadcast details of General Karimi’s revised or unchanged view on the matter? 

Since Media Watch’s report was broadcast, Dateline contacted General Karimi to establish whether or not his position on the ‘multiple killer’ theory had changed. General Karimi issued the following statement:

“I totally reject the notion that I have back-tracked or changed my position. As you are aware, shortly after the massacre I travelled to the area to gather information for the president. Since then, my statements and interviews with the media about the issue have been based on testimony given to me by the surviving eye-witnesses and their relatives. I stand by the interview I gave SBS and reject claims that I have changed my position on this matter.”

Does Media Watch concede that it was misled by Jon Stephenson into repeating the false assertion that General Karimi had changed his view that more than one killer may have been involved? Will Media Watch now issue a correction to that effect?

3.    Does Media Watch concede, in view of the errors outlined above, that it has failed to observe the “caution and scepticism” that it claimed “was so lacking from Dateline’s story”? 

4.    Did Media Watch provide Jon Stephenson with a list of questions, seeking clarification and verification, as it did with Dateline? If not, would Media Watch concede that its investigation into Dateline’s report was fundamentally flawed in that it presupposed that Dateline had broadcast inaccuracies, while presuming that Jon Stephenson’s reports and claims against Dateline did not require verification or clarification? If Media Watch did provide Stephenson with a list of questions, will Media Watch publish those questions along with Stephenson’s responses to them? 

5.    In an email urging Media 7 to investigate Yalda Hakim’s report, Jon Stephenson had complained that:  “she (Yalda) appears to be claiming to be the first western journalist to have reached the scene of the massacre, which surprised me, because -- as far as I´m aware -- she didn't get there until several days after I did”. Is Media Watch aware that Jon Stephenson later withdrew that claim when Dateline pointed out that he had never visited the scene of the killings in the village of Alkozai?

6.    Media Watch has suggested that Yalda Hakim’s interviews with children who witnessed the massacre may have amounted to “gross intrusion”. Did Media Watch attempt to ascertain the circumstances surrounding those interviews and is it now aware that they took place with the imprimatur of President Karzai after village elders and relatives told Yalda that the children wanted to speak with her on camera?  Does Media Watch acknowledge that Yalda Hakim’s interviews conformed to the recommendations set out by the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, including the suggestion that the interviewer ‘speak in language the child can understand’ (Yalda spoke to them in their native tongue)? 

7.    Media Watch reported that Jon Stephenson visited the area of the massacre and “spoke to several witnesses”. Did Jon Stephenson disclose to Media Watch the names of the witnesses he spoke to? If so, is Media Watch willing to publish the names of those witnesses and provide details of what they said to Jon Stephenson? 

8.    Media Watch reported that Jon Stephenson “just discarded most of his (Mullah Barraan’s) testimony, he just didn't know what happened; he was just saying everything that was said by others.” Is Media Watch aware that Mullah Barraan has provided extensive testimony describing how he “scraped his brothers brains and parts of his skull off the ground after the attack” and does Media Watch consider that it is fair and reasonable to dismiss Mullah Barraan as ‘not knowing what happened’ in view of his involvement of disposing of body parts after the massacre?

9.    Was Media Watch’s remark: “I don’t think it was professional jealousy that made him (Jon Stephenson) speak out about the Dateline program…” prompted by a suggestion that Stephenson was motivated by malice in attacking Dateline after he had failed to obtain the same degree of access to the story that had been achieved by Yalda Hakim? And did the contemplation of “professional jealousy” take into account attacks on Stephenson’s credibility by the New Zealand Prime Minister and others which, even if they’re proven to be unfounded, suggest that Stephenson’s assertions should be tested carefully?
              
Jonathan, I trust you will provide a prompt reply to these questions. In view of the errors detailed in points 1 and 2 which served to discredit Dateline; I request that Media Watch publish a correction and an on-air apology to Dateline on your program of Monday, May 7.

I shall place this letter on Dateline’s website once it has been emailed to you and request that you place it in full on your website, too.

Sincerely,

Peter Charley
Executive Producer
Dateline

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/related/aid/565/id/601431/n/Anatomy-of-a-Massacre

In a brief statement issued last night, Mr Wood announced Ms Attard would be leaving but did not say why. He thanked her for her ''tremendous assistance'' in the website's start-up phase.

Mr Wood pledged at least $15 million to the venture, which promises readers public interest journalism without the ads, underscored by the motto: ''Our audience is our only agenda''.

The putsch raises questions over the stability of the venture, which employs 15 journalists, many of them high-profile names, among them former ABC and Nine reporter Ellen Fanning and ex-Herald writer Bernard Lagan. The site has an annual budget of $3 million.

The Global Mail is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning US website propublica.org, which was founded in late 2007 with a gift of $30 million over three years by two philanthropists

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/editor-leaves-independent-online-magazine-after-power-struggle-20120508-1yb30.html#ixzz1uKYTGr34

For those who do not remember those days, Monica Attard made a few mistakes while hosting Media Watch — one of then being of the same dark muddy hue as what the Not-Sherlock-Holmes is doing at the moment... Some of these mistakes have been kept under wrap for very serious reasons and one day may be fully exposed, who knows — unless the bone to pick would be too old... or the hatchet was buried as a kind gesture... Who knows what the tiff is about this time, but then the Global Mail is not like this site — where life is gloriously enlightened by satire, cartoons and from time to time, my apologies, cynical moments... Here, the information is like icebergs... A little bit shown at the top and a huge mass of research and knowledge below the surface...

May we wish all the best to the Global Mail and Monica, anyhow... 

"The job of creating Foreign Correspondent was entrusted to Jonathan Holmes, these days best known to ABC audiences as the smiling assassin of journalistic frauds and failures on Media Watch."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-19/wilesmith-foreign-correspondent-anniversary/4079868?WT.svl=theDrum

--------------------

Greg Wilesmith is a great journo... Pity he wrote this in his piece on Foreign Correspondent... To write "the smiling assassin" to describe Jonathan homes is quite okay by me (though I would have written the "smirking assassin") but sometimes (often?) Holmes makes mistakes and shoots himself in the foot... Jonathan reminds me of these country judges in the US who are eager to hang anyone as long they have been found guilty by him, even if they were innocent of the crime... Holmes and Media Watch can be journalistic frauds themselves, at times...

Greg, you should read the story at top and see the toon above it... Jonathan got it so wrong....

One could think I have a vendetta against Jonathan Holmes...

If exposing Jonathan to his own failures is such then so be it... But unfortunately the SMH tells us:

WRITING about the ABC's Media Watch is a touch-wood moment for journalists: you can't help thinking that ''there but for the grace of God go I'' as the show calmly and incisively exposes the shortcomings, shams and downright shame that can percolate through the Australian media landscape. Nonetheless, it's drawing about 600,000 viewers after Four Corners on a Monday night and there's no way that's composed solely of nervous potential subjects. The show is widely admired and enjoyed, and in host Jonathan Holmes it's found a voice that maintains a balance between the sceptical and the educational. Previous Media Watch hosts sometimes came across as disapproving, or did enough at least to create a perception they had long-held opinions influencing them, but Holmes' wry condemnation of the industry's shenanigans lets him focus on repeat offenders such as Today Tonight, A Current Affair, Kyle Sandilands and Alan Jones without appearing to hector them. Still, last Monday's decision not to focus on Fairfax Media's giant changes was not ideal. 

http://m2.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/fifty-things-we-love-about-tv-20120620-20mng.html?page=6

---------------------------

I disagree with this glowing appraisal... especially when Media Watch turns on its own great ABC programs and those on SBS, as seen in the line of comments above this one...  There has been big shams coming from Jonathan himself... No-one is immune from making mistakes and I do a few myself... But too many mistakes coming from a so-called incisive programs about chastising TV programs is one too many... Jonathan should go, his team should go... or Jonathan should wash his mouth with soap...

Erroneously, From Miranda Devine...

WHEN Jeffrey Gilham walked out of the Court of Criminal Appeal this week a free man, those associated with his conviction were dismayed.

How could three appeal judges, who sat for two days to consider the evidence, overturn the verdict of a jury that had considered all the evidence for more than seven weeks and found Gilham guilty of the stabbing murders of his parents Helen and Stephen Gilham (pictured above, top right) and his older brother Christopher (above, bottom right) in their Woronora home in 1993?

The painstaking efforts of the jury and of crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen, SC, have been discarded. The cornerstone of our criminal justice system is trial by jury, and yet that is under threat by a judicial system that increasingly dismisses jury verdicts and goes for judge-only trials.

In the Gilham case, a jury of his peers had used common sense and instinct to weigh the facts and had the benefit of judging his responses under cross-examination.

etc etc...

----------------------------------------

note: I am not advocating for the innocence or guilt of Gilham, but in the presence of very clear doubts and persistent claim of innocence, I will err on the side of innocence...

Well, it's not clear that anyone, including the prosecution, is suggesting that he did. News of the World reporter Paul McMullen famously stated on British television that the reporters who hacked into the voicemails of crime victims probably thought they were helping, rather than hindering, police investigations. After all, you can never have too much information.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-25/holmes-news-corp-events/4154170?WT.svl=theDrum

--------------------------

Bravo Jonathan.... Never too much information... ah ah...

Now would be a good time to apologise for your mega goof-up at the end of last year, in regard to you know what (see at top, below and all over here) when you basically HAD NO information to base your BIASED "opinion" upon... And if you don't see that this cock-up was a major goof-up, then all you've said in your life means squat... You'll be a disgrace until you acknowledge you goofed super big time and apologise....

Come on, be a big man... Only small pricks refuse to acknowledge they were (are) wrong... This included of course Alan Jones...

Host of ABC’s Media Watch, Jonathan Holmes, is dubious of the practice.

“The whole business of putting ABC journalists in a position of expressing a personal position is dangerous. Going on The Drum is taking a risk. Someone like Annabel [Crabb] is bright enough to navigate the shoals. You’ll always be torn between expressing an opinion and saying nothing.”

Holmes says he doesn’t believe ABC Radio National host Fran Kelly, for example, should be appearing on programs such as Insiders.

----------------------

Gus: Holmes does not have a leg to stand on until he recognises he's goofed big time on three recent occasions... His last programme of Media Watch last year  was opinionated disgraceful crap, his attack on an SBS dateline programme and an attack on a Four Corners program were crap as well... All mentioned in this line of comments... Every time, in order to attack these very vell made programmes, with no flaws, he had to use the AlanJonesism "in my opinion" or "in my view"...in order to get away with...

But he has not gotten away with it...

Holmes began a segment about a generation of reporters leaving Fairfax by subtly putting chief executive Greg Hywood in the dock. In an interview recorded early last year, Hywood talked about the company's plans to invest in journalism.
Holmes then paraded the names of some of the company's most high-profile writers to take voluntary redundancy, mentioned in passing News Ltd's own departures for the sake of balance, and then put editorial director Garry Linnell in the dock with this statement from last Friday:

''The very best of Fairfax - the investigative journalism, the long-form feature writing, the analysis and commentary, and our ability to break news and set the national agenda - remains undiminished.''Then, digging up a Media Watch recording from 2008, in which I was interviewed alongside Eric Beecher and the British media blogger Roy Greenslade on the future of journalism, Holmes replayed this exchange:
Holmes: ''The concern, I guess, would be though, if your web pages are the look of the future - if you like, the developing medium - and the newspaper is the one that's on the way down, if that's the case, does that mean that quality journalism is on the way down? Does that mean that funding the Canberra bureaus and the foreign bureaus and doing the investigative journalism is on the way down?''
Van Niekerk: ''You know, if that were to be the case, that would be the time that I would get out of this business, because that would take all the fun out of it for me.''
Holmes's wearily bemused expression becomes fractionally more arch. ''That was then, and this is now. One of the senior editors to take a redundancy package from The Age last week was Mike van Niekerk.''

No, this week actually, but more importantly that's got nothing to do with why I am leaving. My reasons are personal but, for all Media Watch knows, I could have a terminal illness or have been offered a position at The New York Times. They didn't ask. Much easier and lazier to cobble together a quote here and a quote there to suit a point you're determined to make.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/taking-a-swipe-at-fairfax-media-watch-ditches-its-own-standards-20120905-25emu.html#ixzz25fdRkzas

 see toon and story at top...

From Joe Hildebrand

...

All of this we could have easily explained to Media Watch and saved them the embarrassment of their confused, selective and erroneous story. But as far as anyone at this newspaper can tell they made no attempt to contact us for a response.

All over the country ever-shrinking newsrooms struggle to keep up with the 24-hour media cycle and the ever-increasing demands of media's brave new world. Journalists are working harder than ever to hold on to their jobs and keep news and information flowing to a hungry public.

Media Watch, meanwhile, has a dedicated staff of 11 people whose sole job it is to hang shit on them for 15 minutes a week. You'd think they could at least do a better job of it than that.

read more: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/smeared-by-media-watchs-distorted-agenda/story-e6frezz0-1226476807733

''The area of the Australian media that has the most competition, by far, is Seven and Nine news. It's hugely important to them. If there's anywhere indulging in private detectives (which we know they do), phone-hacking and sliding around the law, that's where you'd look first.''

More uncomfortable for Holmes was a 7.30 item that took quotes by migration agent Marion Le badly out of context.

''It can be very bitter and difficult when we take on ABC current affairs shows,'' he says. ''I've lost friends over this. We don't [go after ABC shows] often, and we only do it when we're sure it's justified. But if we didn't do it, the program would lose all credibility.''

Holmes is on the record as stating he is near the end of his tenure.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-travails-of-transparency-20120919-2656l.html#ixzz26zjiCD8g

About time...

...

More uncomfortable for Holmes was a 7.30 item that took quotes by migration agent Marion Le badly out of context.

''It can be very bitter and difficult when we take on ABC current affairs shows,'' he says. ''I've lost friends over this. We don't [go after ABC shows] often, and we only do it when we're sure it's justified. But if we didn't do it, the program would lose all credibility.''

Holmes is on the record as stating he is near the end of his tenure.

''I'm in discussion with the ABC,'' he says. ''They want to ensure there's a smooth transition.''

Now not only has the Australian Communications and Media Authority excoriated Media Watch, the show itself has exposed its true colours while trying to wriggle out of an adverse finding. While publicly pretending to be impartial and rigorous, the program argued to ACMA that its host's comments were opinion and did not require him to seek a response from people he named and shamed. It even said "investigative reporting about the media" was not its "core output".

Not only is this a failure to grasp the most basic journalistic standards, it confirms the growing unease that the show, by its own admission, is merely a soapbox and has given up all pretence of being a serious attempt to expose media misconduct.

We look forward to Media Watch's public and profuse apology to Andrew Clennell, the best state political reporter in NSW, whom it treated so shabbily. We then look forward to it fading from view.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/watchdog-with-a-crooked-bite/story-e6freuy9-1226483816405

Fair enough. Good on The Telegraph people to pursue Holmes and Media Watch...

But at the same time, The Telegraph people should also stop pissing in their own pants about it because they regularly, often and constantly do what they accuse Media Watch of doing...  

Today is an example as ever of their lopsided political views, in which they peddle the usual rubbish against Julia, Bob Carr and the price of fish, especially the "carbon tax". Of course, they see nothing wrong (by default of not mentioning it or if they are it's hidden on page 44 — that ubiquitous page where news of importance get buried in three lines or two as a "news items" with no comment) that some of the energy supply companies CEOs got up to a 87 per cent remuneration yearly increase — counted in millions and of course paid for by consumers. I may believe wrongly that these CEOs, capitalists to the hilt, would contribute to the Liberal (conservative) coffers.

So the Tele diatribe against the Labor government is about 80 per cent comment-content of that rag that calls itself a newspaper, while the other 20 per cent would appear political neutral for say half of it, 10 per cent on a good day of the whole rag is designed to blast the Greens and promote the essential hunters in national parks... and shoot some wind turbines down...

Balance at the Telegraph or in the whole Merde-och empire? Never on your nelly...

And this does not excuse Media Watch for doing what has been a shoddy job for a long time... So Shoddy, I can't figure out how Jonathan can look at himself in the mirror while shaving... But that's between him, himself and a crooked lamppost...

May be Jonathan Holmes uses one of these funny Luna Park mirrors — you know those that distort your face silly with a crooked wry grin, until they break...

See toon at top... and read all articles from top...

Tonight (4/2/13) Jonathan Holmes tells us about accuracy and speed of news cock ups... After the usual tilt at a few mild media doozies and the fake ANZ press release, Jonathan attracts our attention to some aggressive interviewing on the ABC, eventually showing us two sets of "editorial policies" for various program styles... News cannot be opiniated but some programs apparently can. When the two thingsters are on Media Watch website I will analyse those in detail.

Media Watch is NOT in the News and Current Affair department at the ABC... and IN HIS OPINION Jonathan said so tonight... So where do you find Media Watch on the ABC website?... Well Media Watch sits between "Making Couples Happy" and "Meerkat Manor" in the Documentary/Factual section, though by no means is Media Watch factual since it is opinionated... Go figure...