The Republican strategy in the prosecution of the Whitewater story was to focus not so much on the end game, but to simply and constantly remind the public that the Clintons once associated with shady characters.

Stupidly, Coalition MPs were backgrounding journalists that that was their strategy in the AWU case as well.

At the end of the Whitewater media saturation, the public did not focus so much on shady characters from the past; they were left confused, certainly, but nevertheless satisfied that Clinton's opponents had gone flat out to destroy the president and came up empty.

That's the risk again for the opposition in this strikingly similar case; the breadth and volume of the media coverage - and the intensity and time committed to it by the Coalition - can only be justified if in the minds of the public there was ever a reasonable chance that the Prime Minister did something wrong.

To this point there has been no substantiated allegation of wrongdoing, and while that remains the case, the issue can only go one of two ways from here: either it will have a neutral outcome, or it will backfire on the Opposition.

Barrie Cassidy is presenter of the ABC programs Insiders and Outsiders. View his full profile here.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-30/cassidy-drowning-in-whitewater/4398882

Our faith in the mainstream media is being sorely tested at the moment — and even more so now press watchdog has condemned one of its own. Peter Wicks reports.

MANY of the readers here would be familiar with the articles printed in the Herald Sun on the 22 May 2012, in response to Craig Thomson’s address to the parliament.

Those who are unaware of what was in the articles will surely remember the front page, pictured below:

I have always held the belief, and widely shared it, that this article is nothing more than right-wing propaganda. This is not the sort of article that belongs on the front of a major newspaper and it is not the sort of opinion that a company like News Ltd, who controls a massive chunk of Australia’s media, should be printing as if it was fact.

This shocking article was a clear example of what a witch hunt looks like and a text-book case of trial by media. Complete with a trial by a readers’ jury, with a “Reader Verdict” of guilty, this was an example of journalism gone off the rails.

When you read things such as:

‘We asked our own jury if they believed Craig Thomson’s claims.’

I fail to see how anybody could see this as anything other than trial by media.

Those in the media world who believe in the concepts of “innocent until proven guilty” and “balanced debate” appear to be few and far between.

Interestingly, it was the online independent media that decided it may be an idea to look at the facts, and investigate the claims before jumping to rash conclusions. Among the first of those was The Hoopla with the “A Dingo Took My MP” piece, while other online publications such as Independent Australia delved deeper into the facts surrounding the case, with their ongoing “Jacksonville” series of articles, named after the self-proclaimed “whistleblower” and “Joan Of Arc” type character – that has an apparent ego bigger than Ben Hur – Kathy Jackson.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/on-trial-with-newsltd/

Murdoch is a twisted mucking duck... Merde-och media, which is the name I use to define his empire is spot on... 

Gus Leonisky was aware the Craig Thomson affair was more complex that the media was trying to portray... If Craig Thomson had been part of a secure majority government, never would have the ritewingnuttery and the merde-och media dared to try to lift any speck of dust on Craig Thomson, since Kathy Jackson and her partner seem to be linked with the Liberals (conservatives) up to their eyeballs... I am aware of "conspiracies' to taint members of parliament, but unfortunately I cannot divulge here the matter of the ritualistic rigmarole... In fact, these conspiracies are set up to taint members of the same party as the the operator. they are designed to make people tow the line... I believe Graham Richardson was an expert at this — see the "love boat" affair... On the other side of the fence, Heffernan was the head-mucker for Howard... I've lost track of things these days as I am getting too old...