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Media Watch responds: It’s not all about you.

After the robust column from Joe Hildebrand taking Media Watch to task, Jonathan Holmes has filed a reply.

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After the robust column from Joe Hildebrand taking Media Watch to task, Jonathan Holmes has filed a reply on the ABC show’s official website.

Holmes details the occasions when Hildebrand has been mentioned on the show, which amount to two items in 4 years. Noting that Hildebrand’s online blog was originally headlined “Media Watch and Me,” Holmes says, “…Joe Hildebrand has a problem which television stars need to beware of: he seems to think it’s all about him.”

He goes on to respond to several points raised in the article that claimed the show had waged a campaign against the newspaper.

As to the specific points of this week’s editorial about the “Stop the Trolls” campaign, Holmes notes:

I’ll just make this point: when I said that “not once, in pages of outraged coverage, did (The Telegraph) give any prominence to the admirably clear advice given by the Australian Communications and Media Authority” about how to deal with Twitter trolls, I chose my words carefully. Yes, the advice to ignore and block trolls was mentioned here and there by the Tele’s reporters and columnists. But it was never given prominence. What the Tele’s campaign was about was getting Twitter to give up the names of anonymous trolls to police, so that they could be tracked down and taken to court.

(We didn’t mention, and neither did The Daily Telegraph, that the concerted troll attack that caused so much distress to Charlotte Dawson was almost certainly the work of trolls who live mostly in the United States. Read Nick Ross, the ABC’s Technology and Games expert, on that here. 

Not much future in pursuing them through the Australian courts.)

I suspect Hildebrand’s real beef is that, though he took a prominent part in the Twitter troll campaign, in the Telegraph and on TV and radio, we didn’t mention his name in our item. Not once. Because it wasn’t his campaign, it was the Tele’s.

You can read the response in full here.

Meanwhile another broader article on Media Watch appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald in which Holmes confirms he is nearing the end of his tenure.

”I’m in discussion with the ABC,” he says. ”They want to ensure there’s a smooth transition.”

14 Responses

  1. Didn’t David Marr pull the pin from Fairfax,bring him back to MW.Giving the right wing bleat merchants a large dose of indigestion with that move would be good for a laugh…

  4. Love how all the comments in defense of Joe Hildebrand are that “the ABC are a leftwing waste of taxpayers money” blah blah. This would imply most of Joe Hidebrands readers admit they are rightwing however none of the issues Joe raised against MW have been politically based. All have been backup by fact in which Joe has not fully refuted in his blog apart from one MW mistake which it admitted.

  5. @Wally: There’s a left-wing media in Australia for them to keep watch over?

    OK, many may argue the ABC fits that bill. But Media Watch is – and always has been – just as quick to pick on the ABC as they are to any other.

    Of course, you’d need to actually watch it – not get your information 2nd or 3rd hand – to know that.

  8. Having worked with Jonathan, I can definitely say he is neither pompous nor a git! Before I got to know him, i thought he was quite formdiable, but he is a lovely, down to earth and incredibly experienced program maker – journalist, producer, and writer/presenter. Like all of the MW hosts, they are conscientiously serious about the gig and how every ‘i’ is dotted etc. The better part of 5 seasons is a great innings, and i suspect he will want to retire, or at least give up a weekly grind. They will be interesting shoes to fill!

  9. It is impossible to present Media Watch and not come across as a pompous git.

    Think that claim has been leveled at every presenter so far.

    But they must be doing something right, would love to see the journalist viewing numbers if they existed.

  11. “I suspect Hildebrand’s real beef is that, though he took a prominent part in the Twitter troll campaign, in the Telegraph and on TV and radio, we didn’t mention his name in our item. Not once. Because it wasn’t his campaign, it was the Tele’s.”
    That’s exactly what look-at-me, look-at-me Hildebrand is on about.

  12. Wait he’s leaving Media Watch?!? I hope he will show up somewhere else on the ABC. Love Jonathan Holmes. Plus hopefully they won’t replace him with Joe Hildebrand since he just advertised why he has no sense. I’ll admit that’s why I avoid The Drum (not Hildebrand necessarily) because it allows silly people on that say stupid stuff. If they had more Chasers and Dr Karl it’d be smarter and far more interesting. Although there are other interesting people that could be on.

  13. I saw the guy on the Paul Murray show on Sky News and it was actually just sickening to watch them all go on about how horrible the ABC is especially Media Watch. Joe Hildebrand is indeed an attention seeker, I have lost quite a bit of respect for Paul Murray and that other guy who was on ..who ever he is, as for the lone female opinion (token?) on the panel she actually stood up for free speech and of course was ‘shouted” (actually they were laughing at her) down by the others. I think I actually won’t watch Murray anymore he has lost me….

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