Stuart Littlemore sound like an opinionated, pompous git? I think it is a shame he has to sound like that, but I can understand why. It has nothing to do with his character. For all I know he might be a meek, self-effacing man in real life. But on television he cannot be like that.
(For the uninitiated, Littlemore presents Mediawatch, 15 minutes of ABC television that has journalists throughout Australia at the edge of their seats with delight at the pasting of disliked colleagues or fear of a pasting of themselves.)
In an age of concentrated media ownership where Packer Murdoch and three TV networks own virtually the lot, we need Littlemore and we could do with a few more of him. He is at his best when he highlights what he sees are journalists’ conflicts of interest: journalists’ whose writings co-incide with their employers’ interest or, worse, journalists who have direct interest in things they are plugging.
Last Monday, he got stuck into three writers on the Australian: Greg Sheridan, over a piece saying Indonesia is okay; Bryan Frith over a piece saying super-share schemes are okay and Paddy McGuinness over a piece saying smoking is okay. He then said Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Australian, has a business interest in all three things, the last because he is a director of Philip Morris.
Then (and this is when he sounds and looks most like the opinionated pompous git we have all come to love to hate) he concluded that in his opinion, it showed these three journalists were not behaving with independence but blowing their owners’ business trumpet.
Now, Littlemore is a Queen’s Counsel with an extensive knowledge of libel law. He well knows that to assert as fact that the three journalists had surrendered their independence to their master would be defamatory and could sound heavily in damages.
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