Bunny Champers: media corruption and the Iraqi war
Bunny Champers
I'm really getting used to being a correspondent. We used to be called reporters, you know, but snooty graduates from our universitoes' remedial departments thought 'reporter' was demeaning. A bit like being called a plumber or a street cleaner, I suppose. Actually, I'm all for the change. We members of the Club understand the vital importance of social distinctions, 'cept we're not two-faced bolshies. (To tell the truth, that last phase is only half true).
Now where was I? Oh yes, my second bottle of Mildura red, and a very nice red it is too. Reds! That's it! Reds at the Sydney Morning Herald! We used to call them a bunch of pinkoes but we now realise that lot would make pinkoes look like conservatives. You know what? The SMH was so bad during the Iraqi war that it got called the Saddam Times. I'm not making any of this up. Honest, it's true.
And what's more, I'm sure most of them are on the take. I still remember that bounder Fergus McFiddle in Baghdad taking a big fat envelope from a very shady looking character. You can't fool old Bunny for long, you know. Now that we know that Saddam and Castro paid CNN off it only stands to reason that other news agencies were on the gravy train. (When I was in Baghdad, I couldn't help noticing how many correspondents were smoking Havana cigars).
It still pains an old battle scarred war correspondent like myself to recall how his fellow scribes refused to report the truth about Saddam and how they lied about the looting and the hospitals so as to make the Yankee Doodle Dandies look bad
If you want to know why our hacks — I mean correspondents — backed Saddam against good ol' Oz, Blighty and the US of A just follow the money. And I know all about money trails. Why more than once I followed the money from WMC's corporate offices to Toorak and back again, via some very post restaurants too.
Ah yes, those were the days. Four or five courses, a couple of good vintages, cognac, nice Havana cigar. Just a good simple food, well cooked, eaten amongst friends — and no hoi polloi, either. They were such splendid dos we even introduced them to the H. R Nicholls Society, just to maintain the right form, you understand.
Anyhow, as I was saying, money trails. Now that Irish guttersnipe Gerry Jackson disagrees with me on this money trail business. (The Club was quite right to blacklist him, though I still don't quite understand how you can blacklist someone from a club who was never a member, never wanted to be a member and even stopped going to Adam Smith Club meetings because they were so boring.) Now Jackson reckons it's all to do with hate and ideology, whatever the latter means.
Well, Simon is just the right fella to ask when it comes to things like this. Simon and I go right back to grammar. I was damned lucky to have a smart chap like him as a friend, still didn't me keep out of remedial classes, though.
Because Simon was so smart he became an academic. In those days academic really meant scholar, not like today. He told me that Jackson is probably right. The bolshie rubbish these reporters — I mean correspondents — were filled with at university was just shocking. It crammed them with so much hate and loathing for Oz, Britain and the US that you don't have to pay them to write rotten and dishonest things. They do it just for the fun of it.
Although I take Simon's word for it, I still think the old brown paper envelope is floating around somewhere. In any case, they don't have to be bribed directly, do they? If they slag the US hard enough they'll get promoted for it, which makes it a kind of bribery. Look how that bolshie rag the Daily Mirror put Arnett on the payroll once it was discovered he was in Saddam's pocket.
And that reminds me of that bolshie Stephen Long who used to write silly articles for The Financial Australian Review that justified pricing blokes out of work. Guess what? He's now working for the Australian Bolshevik Corporation. If that doesn't back me up I'll be damned if I know what does.
Gosh, would you believe that I've written too much again. I'm only allowed about 650 words so I'll have to leave my exposé of the Sydney Morning Herald until the end of the week. Oh dear, that means I can't write about the HRNS directors' meeting until next week. Ah well, I'm sure Uncle Ray won't mind too much.
Note: Bunny's exposé of the Sydney Morning Herald, aka The Saddam Times will appear in Friday's issue.
Bunny Champers (Albert Bartholomew de Champion) is Brookes' correspondent at large
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