What do Labor’s Coralee The Rorter O’Rourke and foam flecked anti-islamic ranter Kim Vulgarina Vuga have in common … and why The Rorter is breaking out in a dainty sweat just now?

First up, a couple of matters of import. Up north, flood-hit folks will do anything to get some government action, according to Larry Pickering.

And from England, Aussie political lobbyist Lynton Crosby has caused a stir when David Cameron put him up for a knighthood. Many weren’t happy, and saw it as a political perk by the Prime Minister, who regained office against the odds courtesy of Crosby’s campaign.

Bentley should be back next week.

And A Final Note On Christmas

Hospital ain’t much fun to be in around Christmas, but some staff do their best to lighten spirits.

Like giving new mums the best Christmas stocking ever ….

… and reminding patients that the beat goes on (if it doesn’t, guess you don’t know about it anyway) …

… and if now trees are available, everyone lends a hand to make one …

… and a not-so-subtle reminder for those about to enjoy the office Christmas party …

Until next December.

NOW – FANFARE PLEASE

The Magpie is proud to present his first Annual WANKLEY AWARDS, wherein we find the newsworthy items of past months, so …

(Cue searchlights, cue Voice Over of impassioned deep voiced announcer over shot of red carpet leading into the tinsel-covered Nest)

“COMING DIRECT TO YOU FROM THE TRINKET AND TRVIA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, THE GLITTERING BLOG OF ALL BLOG THE FABLED MAGPIE’S NEST , WE PRESENT THE MAGPIE’S MEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA …

(V/O rises to hysterical, pants-wetting crescendo) …

The Magpie’s own media awards, THE WANKLEYS!!!

But Why These Awards?

Well, why is it that only the high achievers get due recognition? The failures in the media work just as hard, as the successes,   and just because they’re inept, stupid or lazy, they get ignored throughout the awards season. Yet school kids nowadays get an award simply for turning up for something or other, or even coming last in an event – no losers is the unrealistic mantra. So it is long overdue that the adult(ish) buffoons are recognized and justly rewarded for their unstinting efforts at incompetence – no easy task, as The ‘Pie well knows from this weekly experience. ( Being the sole judge, The ‘Pie has recused himself from entering.)

So the old bird is putting things to rights and proudly introduces the inaugural Wankleys, awarded for outstanding wankery in the media. There are several categories, culminating in the top honour, the Golden Wankley, crafted from a solid block of coprolite.

We’ll go to the awards shortly, but …

Why the Wankleys Came About

The ‘Pie is led to believe that somewhere out in the stark and desolate regions of western Queensland, in a secret bunker deep beneath the fretful earth, News Corpse is conducting classified research seeking a breakthrough for future staffing requirements.

There, they have corralled one million monkeys, chained to computer keyboards, all tapping away tirelessly, trying to achieve the fabled hypothesis that eventually they will recreate the entire works of Shakespeare. No luck so far, but cutting their losses, News has been using some of the resulting material as filler columns in their papers, like Sydney’s Piers Akerman, Melbourne’s Andrew Bolt, Brisbane’s Des Houghton, and …

… Typo Gleeson’s editorials in the Sunday Mail.

But this Pine Gap of publishing is proving particularly handy for the Townsville Daily Astonisher, aka the Townsville Bulletin.

To allay any suspicion about the simian origins of the paper’s doubtful opinion columns, the Astonisher publishes these literary leftovers under a human-sounding name … … although the snapshots accompanying the names hint at the simian orgins of the material.

None more so than the winner of our first Wankley … let’s hear it for Chris McMahon.

The Bufo Marinus Toady Wankley.

The 2015 Toady goes to Astonisher reporter/columnist (?) Chris McMahon, for an amazing body of work during the year, which reached a unbeatable crescendo in the last week of the year. He clinched his green Toady Wankley for his sterling efforts at brown-nosing his betters and loftily dismissing those who are not in the media, selflessly giving of his most inner thoughts, which mercifully  made for a very short column in Wednesday’s Astonisher.

Honking on about new his new life in North Queensland, Chris suddenly went all gurly-wurly and seemed to get nervous about his place in the world, a feeling familiar to anyone who has or does work at the Townsville Bulletin. He selflessly unburdened himself of his deep emotional attachment to the paper. Can anyone ever better this toe curler? He wrote:

“Most of you reading this probably don’t get the chance to meet a lot of the people who work tirelessly to build the paper – the journos, the editors, the printing staff, marketing and advertising teams and everyone else who chips away to bring you a paper every day, but if you did, you would know they are some of the best people you may ever likely meet.

You may not always agree with what’s in the news or how it is framed, but the person behind the story, who has made dozens of calls, banged away on the keyboard to bring you that story, is a great person.

I’m not sure there are too many places you would get to work where you can honestly say that about the people you work with, but it is definitely the case here at the Bully.

I want to thank my colleagues and the people I have interviewed this year for being so open and generous with your time.”

Jeez-zuzz! It’s a wonder the pages of the paper didn’t stick together with all this outpouring of adoring clag. And the work, bloody back-breaking, but all the road gang jobs were taken, bloody unions!

Mate, is it churlish to point out in all this vomitus, that readers aren’t supposed to agree or disagree with the news; as independent adults they should simply be informed of the facts and be allowed to make up their own minds. But it’s nice to know you admit to bias in the news pages, Chris, when you suggest some may take exception to ‘how (the news) is framed’.

Stand-alone stadium, anyone?

The ‘We Know What You Mean – We Think’ Wankley

Lots of contenders for this one, especially the local electronic media.

(A disclaimer: The idea for the Wankleys came late in the year, so some of the following are not 2015 vintage, but as an inaugural line-up, it will set the tone for entries next December, when they will come from 2016. We have helped ourselves generously to Cam Laird’s offer of any material on his side-splitting Facebook page. (Just hope he never decides to look too closely at The ‘Pie’s weekly efforts!)

First, a couple of also-rans from the Astonisher. This one gets a mention in the Multiple Choice Journalism section.

And the Bulletin … the paper that says it is all for North which they know so much about ,awards Fatty Palmer an enterprise he doesn’t have … Yabulu processes nickel from overseas for processing. Palmer doesn’t own a nickel mine … anywhere.

BUT the granddaddy of them all in these parts belongs to WIN TV, for which their newsroom wins a lifetime achievement Wankley.

Townsville had been fighting hard for years in all media to get a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner for the hospital, a space-age nuclear medical tool. Interviews, harangues, wheedling, posturing, all lovingly covered by the cameras. Then, success! – the government came to the party. This was WIN’s on-the-ball reporting of the good news.

That even made it on to Media Watch, and The ‘Pie understands someone lost their job over it. If that’s a consistent penalty, then WIN News needs a revolving door. Oh, sorry, what’s that … they’ve already got one? Oh, OK.

The Astonisher gets a dishonourable mention for this clanger …

That was a mistake, but this was sheer incompetence

… claiming  that the downed fighter was on a Townsville Beach. It was actually near Tobruk … no, not the pool on The Strand, the town in Libya.

But The Dave the Dyslexic Wankley goes to WIN for it’s cnossitency in speling.

No wonder he lost … no one could find him on the ballot paper …

But sometimes there’s a good idea to come out of the chaos – here’s a good campaigning name.

At one stage, it seemed WIN was reporting on viewers attitudes to its lazy ways with words.

Then Scott Stewart got an uncalled-for rework.

But even when they got the name right, something else was wrong … see if you can spot it … First,

… and then …

Even the big guns at WIN have that same problem with ‘speling’.

But it appears numbers are not WIN’s strong suit, either ..

The Clive Palmer Right Priorities Wankley

This one actually goes to the readers of the Sydney Morning Herald, when the paper’s tracking discovered what Aussies wanted most to know about.

Kim Vuga’s Road To Damascus Moment.

From Wikipedia:  From the Conversion of Paul, we get the metaphorical reference to the “Road to Damascus” that has come to refer to a sudden and/or radical conversion of thought or a change of heart or mind, even in matters outside of a Christian context.

Call it ironic, call it karma, call it Bruce, call it whatever you like, but The ‘Pie hasn’t stopped laughing since he read this is the Astonisher.

The bastards!!!  Kim ‘Vulgarina’ Vuga, a working mother and public servant, who is therefore denied quality time with her erring son, is now being discriminated against by Queensland Health. Ms Vuga, who has been told to resign her hospital job if she is going to run for a Senate seat, quite rightly decries this unAustralian practice of discrimination, and wants an apology.

And The Magpie heartily agrees, discrimination has no place in our society.

Ms Vuga should have any threat to her employment officially retracted, and an apology given.

That apology should come in conjunction with her welcoming speech embracing peaceful and law abiding Muslims in our community, because now Ms Vuga now knows just what an unfair, hurtful and hateful thing discrimination is.

Last Week’s News Tomorrow

The Astonisher gets the Rip Van Winkle Wankley for catch-up journalism. Vulgarina Vuga’s blubbing about her job being threatened because (she says) of her political views and ambitions, was splashed all over page 3 of the Astonisher last Tuesday. That would be Tuesday, Dec 29 – exactly six days AFTER this story appeared in the SMH.

But even confronted with this lazy cut-and-paste free kick at a story, the Astonisher followed the old dictum of not fucking up a story with facts, and ignored a crucial point in the SMH story that simply made the paper – yet again – the dupe of a publicity hound. Vulgarina is not required to resign until she formally nominates to run for the Senate, and for that, an election has to be called.   It is then that she has to quit entirely – not take unpaid leave – because in a similar case in Victoria, a High Court ruling has declared the election of a school teacher on unpaid leave was invalid for that very reason.

All this must make the rorting Coralee O’Rourke somewhat nervous. She was on unpaid leave from her kiddy-minding gig – but mightily subsided by wads of union money – during her successful campaign in the last state election. Was her election invalid a la the Victorian decision? Wonder if anyone will bother looking up the High Court ruling to see if it applies to Queensland state elections? Anna Alphabet won’t be looking too hard … lose Rorter O’Rourke and they’d likely lose government. Seems morality is a flexible thing on both sides of the house in George Street.

But Now The Golden Polished Coprolite Wankley.

Earlier this year, the Newspaper Works, official publication of the publishing industry, decided to woo advertisers back with a campaign showing just how much influence newspaper campaigns can have. And done properly, the answer is considerable influence, especially in NSW on street violence, and a change of road laws following particular heart-breaking deaths in Western Australia.

But News publications seem to have ignored the spirit of the campaign, and have mounted campaigns of self-interest and turning their backs on any sense of responsible journalism. The Townsville Bulletin’s stand-alone stadium hypocrisy is a good example. But even that embarrassing and fruitless flapdoodle wasn’t good enough to oust this year’s inaugural winner … Brisbane’s Courier Mail!

Their campaign against the judiciary over the downgrading of Baden-Clay’s murder conviction is one of the grubbiest campaigns a newspaper could mount, a monstrous pig plastered with lipstick and a crammed into a calico dress but still a great grunting pig of a campaign. The paper set itself above the established rule of law (how unusual for a hacking empire like Murdoch’s) played on the raw emotions of grieving people by urging them on in their mob rule attitudes and telling them they are right. All in the name of selling newspapers. That brought out the fancy dress fringe of those who wallow in recreational grief … and hopefully buy newspapers. No attempt was made to explain how the decision was reached, how the law worked, and that is how it has worked for all of us in the past. Or if so, only in passing, an afterthought in some buried quotes.

Guess one shouldn’t be surprised, since the law works on the precision and accuracy of language which means News Ltd publications everywhere would be in foreign territory. No, in one of the great self-regarding and hypocritical front pages, this arrogant, desperate and dying paper put its own interests ahead of community leadership and unemotional responsible reporting. It tried to put itself above the law of this state and this nation, and decided to attack the judiciary itself, which only interprets the laws made by elected politicians.

There can be no doubt they will come a cropper, and will whip themselves up into a frenzy of misplaced self righteousness. And hopefully sell even more newspapers for their moral double dealing. News Corporation really are a cancer on this society.

For that, they get the Golden Polished Coprolite Wankley.

Speaking Again Of Ms Vuga (If We Must …)

A Magpie mate tells me of his startling experience when, from sheer curiosity, he recently visited an Islamic bookstore. As he was browsing, a turbaned assistant asked him if he was looking for anything in particular. Magpie mate, believing a great religion like Islam would look at all sides of the major discourse of the day, asked, ”Do you have Kim Vuga’s new book, outlining her immigration policies and attitudes towards Muslims.’

The assistant’s face immediately darkened and he yelled ’Fuck off, get out, and don’t come back.’

‘Yep, that’s the one. Do you have it in paperback?’

Have a great 2016, folks. See you next week.