Truth, Lies and Media

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 Morgan - describing an ecosystem of dehumanising and menacing illegals that he helped create. But is anyone buying his road to Damascus moment - he now says he’s ashamed of his support for America’s fascist sex predator-in-chief. Have you noticed vicious Andrew Tate style misogyny on the rise? We look at alarming new research into the manosphere that has revealed increasing numbers of boys now believe violence is the appropriate response to feminism. What’s behind it? We check out the Sydney Morning Herald reporter who posed as a 17 year old boy online and revealed how quickly she was deluged with dangerous messaging encouraging hostility to women and aggressive sexist behaviour.Plus why is the world media silent after Israel’s far right minister Ben-Gvir posted fake video of Palestinian men on a conveyer belt being fed into a torture factory .. shockingly evoking concentration camp imagery. The White House has said nothing - it’s comms team instead preoccupied with posting shrill condemnation of the satirists at South Park who have won an Emmy for an episode depicting Trump and a tiny talking penis. Seeing is believing.

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 the finals. Plus .. the White House is enraged at the sudden media interest in Natalie Harp, a young personal assistant who follows Donald Trump everywhere printing out positive news stories for him to see on a portable printer (he can’t use his smartphone?) but also leaving what author Michael Wolff describes as “love letters” in his papers. And only journo-haters need apply - Pauline Hanson is advertising for a press secretary promising you’ll “have fun and make history” while one assumes you terrorise the ABC, demonise migrants and fly around in Gina’s $2m plane while screeching loudly that you are the voice of the battler.

Political Reporting As Benny Hill SkitIn 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 Murdoch bullies. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out .. departing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will have to find some other room full of captives to abuse after venting on journalists at press conferences for 18 months.

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 threats and sexualised abuse EVERY DAY. Should we be taking moral advice from a propaganda machine that incites hatred against minorities and sexualises women as part of its core business model?Plus how the world’s powerful media tech owners operate - the ABC has discovered Meta the parent company of Facebook is paying rage bait creators with links to neo Nazis. And Denis demolishes an Age headline “Uni Academics Say No to $35m Gift” as the hard right “Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation” tries to chequebook its way into the prestigious University of Melbourne.

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 forces in Victoria’s forthcoming state election.Its Melbourne tabloid, the Herald Sun, has spent the week excoriating the new Labor premier Ben Carroll, with headlines like “Ben’s shirk from home” and “Stop this trainwreck.And Zoe Daniel, former ABC journalist turned politician, turns her gaze on the performance of the Canberra press gallery.

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 Age journalist Nick McKenzie. [from 6:50]We also unpack the ABCs removal of two suspect Four Corners episodes reported by a (now sacked) journalist recruited by the national broadcaster after an earlier life as a Mongols bikie.[from 19:35]And Zoe Daniel says the media is to blame for the rise of One Nation as Pauline Hanson plumbs new depths blaming some women for the domestic violence scourge despite data revealing that the perpetrators are overwhelmingly men.[from 29:15]

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 grievance magnets The meetings happened. The cameras rolled. Muslims were stereotyped and baited and denigrated. Seven got their interview. But Tommy Robinson was accurately portrayed as a violent crook (wasn’t in the masterplan) and Hanson was condemned for lamenting the end of the white supremacist White Australia Policy and saying she “loves” the brutal idea of mass deportations. And the hour of hate that went to air was not journalism. [from 6:05]Plus how do you report an election when the leading contender is a bloke wearing a rubbish bin on his head? In the UK Monty Pythonesque lunacy descends on the Nigel Farage by-election contest.[from 45:40]

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 efficiently bringing down violently racist and sexist broadcasters and their enablers. [from 16:40]And he was once a national media juggernaut - loved and loathed in equal measure but always backing in his principles - including jail stints for exposing crooks and paedophiles. We farewell the force of nature, the journalist, the author, the broadcaster and the one time Senator Derryn Hinch who has died aged 82. [from 34:40]