ABC on strike

Even Kerry O’Brien and Tony Jones have joined ABC staff on strike for more pay.

Management’s offer in July was for a 3.5 per cent annual wage increase, which unions have said does not keep up with inflation running at 4 per cent.

So the collective has demanded 16 % now plus two additional rises of five per cent. 26%….yep, that sure beats inflation. ABC Staff are hinting at a long strike (months even) so maybe management might consider sacking a few extreme left wingers to force some balance into the ABCs reporting with new blood. Just a thought. P.P.McGuiness supports the strike.

But not many people will miss these programs anyway. If Lateline does not go to air on television, for example, who cares? Certainly not any of the politicians who are its usual targets. After all, Lateline plays the role of a radio program of an earlier era which went out at about the same time, as Humphrey McQueen described it, of providing intelligent conversation to a tiny audience by that time too drunk or too stoned to make their own. So let the strikes roll on, with – one can only hope – a lockout not far down the line. And if the ABC’s new chief should surrender, does it matter? The Government doesn’t have to give them more tax dollars to pay for any wage increases. The only effect would be a further decline in quality of programs.

Filling in with BBC programming whilst on strike will only help to underline the ABC’s mediocrity as the Beebs is clearly more stylish in their pursuit of the dreams of the dark side. I note their campaign to undermine western efforts to combat terrorism has entered a new phase as they tell the world the Israelis are training the Kurds. This mornings mail brings this report from Opinion Journal who put the report in perspective.

“The BBC has obtained evidence that Israelis have been giving military training to Kurds in northern Iraq,” according to an online piece by Magdi Abdelhadi, the Beeb’s “Arab affairs analyst”:

A report on the BBC TV programme Newsnight showed Israeli experts in northern Iraq, drilling Kurdish militias in shooting techniques. . . . The revelation is set to cause enormous problems for the Kurds, not only in Iraq but also in the wider region. Israel is seen as an enemy of Arabs and Muslims, both inside Iraq and elsewhere in Arab and Muslim countries. Kurdish politicians will most likely come under pressure to explain what their semi-autonomous government has been up to. . . . The news will most probably increase tension between the Kurds and Iraq’s Arab population, both Sunnis and Shias, reinforcing fears that the Kurds are pursuing a secessionist agenda. This would be a serious blow to efforts for national reconciliation at a time when hundreds of Iraqis are killed every month in inter-communal violence. Iraq’s neighbours, too, will be outraged. Iran and Syria, which have long accused the Kurds of allowing the Israelis to operate on Iraqi territory, will most likely demand an explanation from the government in Baghdad. . . . The BBC report will be like the smoking gun the Arab media has spent years looking for.

The New York Sun’s Daniel Freedman, noting that “BBC reports need often to be taken with a block of salt,” says that even if true, he doesn’t “see what the big deal is. The Kurds have been victimized and betrayed by almost everyone. We’d be happy that Israel is teaching them how to protect themselves.” Here’s the big deal: The BBC is announcing that its reporting “is set to cause serious problems for the Kurds,” will deal “a serious blow to efforts for national reconciliation” in Iraq, and “will be like the smoking gun the Arab media has spent years looking for.” It certainly sounds to us as though the BBC, far from merely reporting the facts, is pandering to Arab anti-Semitism and making an active effort to promote discord in Iraq and retribution against the long-persecuted Kurds. Such despicable behavior doesn’t deserve the label “journalism.” As reader and blogger Cav says, Journalists are the new used car salespersons……