Truth, Lies and Media

The US midterms were the mega story of the year .. when exhausted Americans singing the songs of angry men started to reclaim their country from the brutal bullshitting Orange fascist. But the Murdoch media lost their tiny minds, with hysterical warnings that the end of western civilisation might be upon us if a cheerful intelligent Muslim called Abdul ElSayed were elected to the US Senate. Best h...

It was quite the bombshell allegation for a Senator in high office to drop during Senate Estimates - that the ABC employs Hamas terrorists as journalists in its news coverage of Gaza. The ABC executives that Senator Sarah Henderson was monstering were polite but firm - despite her repeated claims that the ABC pushback was “outrageous” she had furnished no actual evidence that any of her incendiary...

It’s not often you see an accused war criminal on a PR blitz before his criminal trial but Ben Roberts-Smith has been telling his story to right wing news outlets while a“powerful formation” of billionaires, politicians and media line up behind him. [from 5:10] We also look at the growing calls for an end to violent political rhetoric .. Independent Monique Ryan has told the ABC it’s time for the...

We look at the Murdoch media shamelessly weaponising the horrific attack on Helen Haines to bash the left - even as she fights for life in hospital - and ignoring the PMs call to lower the temperature on political hate. [from 7:20] Plus what are the electoral watchdogs doing to stop a blatantly fraudulent election ad faked up by Advance and featuring a gloating AI Dan Andrews and Ben Carroll? The...

BRUTALISING THE WORLD ON A LIVESTREAM The Trump administration wants to livestream the firing squad execution of a radicalised US soldier according to a gleeful US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth - triggering global disgust. The broadcast risks traumatising and brutalising countless people around the world in order to satisfy the Trump administrations lust for vengeance as a public spectacle. We co...

NOTE TO MEDIA: VIOLENT AUTHORITARIANISM IS NOT NORMAL Someone needs to tell Pauline Hanson this isn’t Saudi Arabia or China after One Nation threatened to jail political rivals during its Victorian election campaign launch. Vindictive politicians don’t decide who goes to jail. The courts do. It’s called the rule of law. Once news outlets would have instantly called out threats that come straight f...

Today we bring you a very special deep dive into the murky waters of corporate skulduggery. My guest is Paul Barry. He’ll be known to many of you as the long-time presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch, but in fact he has a long and distinguished career as an investigative journalist specialising in uncovering bad behaviour by big business. Paul Barry’s latest book is called The Big Steal, published by...

Why don’t the media hound Hanson about her racist policies? Four Corners did a great expose on One Nation - but no mention in interviews with her supporters about why they are attracted by promises to persecute migrants, Muslims, foreign students and Indigenous Australians. [from 7:00] Plus we look at the chilling irony of Donald Trump entertaining President Xi and his entourage of compliant state...

The ABC is strangled by floods of complaints from hard right attack dogs - so we look at new reports that most of those whinges are really mass generated AI bots - you know - ACTUAL FAKE NEWS. So Denis asked one of the faker complainers if their behaviour was ethical. Still waiting .. [from 3:25] Plus Donald Trump is chucking more journalists out of the White House because he doesn’t like their re...

Gina Rinehart dealt herself into the One Nation “traitor” attack on Liberal Andrew Hastie. But why would The Age having published such a revealing expose on their suspect behaviours then run a headline suggesting the spiteful racists at One Nation are “good for democracy?” Also today .. Denis steps us through what it will take before the media report the Ai threats to human survival at Alert Level...

We look at the brutal fall from grace of one of Donald Trumps most toxic propagandists. Milo Yiannopoulos, who promoted hate against women and migrants, has been swiftly deported from the United States after the British national failed to renew his visa and was picked up by ICE.  He has tearfully slammed the gratuitous violence meted out by his ICE captors in an interview with podcaster Piers...

What lies hidden after the Nepal horror The world has never seen news vision quite like the footage that came out of Nepal .. stunning in its horror as violent death in ice and rock thundered through the lives of those poor souls, those villages and valleys. But what are we not hearing and seeing? China is refusing access to foreign reporters on the Tibet side of the border, airbrushing away the s...

If splashy headlines tell you what’s important then this week they’re telling you damage to a footy team is more important than damage to the alleged sex assault victims.  We take a look at the way the media has downplayed the alleged sexual assault of exotic dancers by Swans football players while saturating us with coverage about the “tragedy” of a premiership club now being distracted from...

Political Reporting As Benny Hill Skit In a world of genocide and white supremacists and climate emergency we ask why the Canberra Press Gallery thinks confecting a snickering moral outrage over Anthony Albanese saying “melons” is the story of the week. Plus we look at the folly of the ABC decision to axe its Indigenous TV Department while moving heaven and earth to placate Gina Rinehart and the M...

Does the ABC really promote concepts of murder? Is it really a hotbed of bloodthirsty revolutionaries - because of ONE distasteful comedy skit? We take look at the Murdoch media frothing at the mouth to defend Gina Rinehart who featured in a tasteless ABC comedy skit … the same Murdoch empire that doesn’t give a toss about AJP MP Georgie Purcell who The Age reports is the target of death thre...

Pauline Hanson is at it again, banning media she doesn’t like. This time it’s The Age, banned, along with Guardian Australia and the ABC, from One Nation’s press conference called to announce its candidates for November’s Victorian state election. But the shocking thing is the spineless way the media are taking this. Also, News Corporation is in full campaigning mode on behalf of the anti-Labor fo...

Jacinta Allan has finally read the room (and the dire polls) and resigned as Premier.  Her blind spot? Failing to understand the deep anger around the entrenched corruption and taxpayer dollars that are being funnelled to the crooks who have the Big Build infrastructure project in a vice-like grip. It is mega-scale organised crime brought to the surface by the dogged, forensic reporting of Ag...

We couldn’t go past critiquing Sunday nights Spotlight program which travelled to the UK to watch Pauline Hanson meet the violent racist Tommy Robinson. What could possibly go wrong?  Pauline Hanson has now angrily turned on her fawning (ex) mates at the Seven Network, leaking the bigotry laced email pitch they’d sent to One Nation while trying to talk Hanson into meeting Britains hard right...

Anti semitism envoy Jillian Segal wants an “oversight committee” to correct “perceived” failings in ABC coverage of Gaza while providing no actual evidence. Denis Muller calls it out for what it is - “rank censorship.” [from 04:50] Plus Peter Dutton once called a female journalist a “mad f+king witch.” We look at the rise of the online activist group which takes its name from that slur and is...

Denis Muller speaks with Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson about their new book “Getting Murdoched”, available now through Hardie Grant Publishing. Support independent journalism Become a member Our Socials Facebook BlueSky X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Zuckerberg's 'Meta' has had the blowtorch applied by the Royal Commission into Anti Semitism. It appears the tech giant's decision to allow more hate speech on Facebook to appease Donald Trump (and make s+loads of cash) has unleashed more, well, ugly hate speech. Who knew. [from 04:30] We also check in on poor old Karl Stefanovic, now complaining that TV is too "biege" while lamenting ho...

We’re watching textbook cases of great public interest journalism as The Ages Nick McKenzie takes on the Premier over rampant corruption on the “Big Build” while at the same time Karl the Unemployed platforms a violent crook and tries to convince us he did it “for you.” We also look at the new evidence reported by The Guardian about One Nation “meme factories” supporting claims from Senator Whish...

Australia’s doyens of political journalism invite a journo-hating bigot to the National Press Club and, with 2 honourable exceptions, fail to challenge the hate and falsehoods that follow.  Plus .. Senator Whish Wilson reveals the foreign generated flood of AI bots that are behind One Nations meteoric rise as he asks Australia and the media to “wake the fk up.” And Virginia Trioli, the journo...

Donald Trump has delivered “peace with punches” according to a gushing Nine News report from the violent MMA fight in the “claw” on the front lawn of the White House. Not everyone is so keen to pump up the President’s tyres as commercial television (thankfully) but watch as all sides in the Iran peace deal now launch the “all my own work” spin wars.  In Perth there’s been another run in with...

Why have the hard right Murdoch media turned on their golden girl Pauline Hanson? We unpack the savage attacks usually reserved for hated enemies .. as the hatchet job phenomenon known as “getting Murdoched” turns on One Nation and News Corp eats its own. Plus more harrowing stories emerge of rape on an industrial scale meted out to Australian women by Israeli forces .. why can the media only find...