TV news carries a story saying "An accused (Middle Eastern) rioter has clashed with a (white) television cameraman after facing court". We are shown an angry Muslim man charging the camera.
But a rival TV network leaks its own footage, showing the cameraman starting the incident by following him down the street, calling him a "fucking terrorist".
Is that show dedicated to calling out media for such things? I think I'm more stunned by that.
Exactly that. It's often comedy gold to see what media outlets attempt to get away with in the name of "current affairs". One famous example was a current affairs show investigating Christopher Skase (an entrepreneur who ripped off investors in a spectacular 1980s listed company crash and burn) in Majorca and claiming that they were chased out of town by the Skase "owned" police. The only issue was the story was a total fabrication and the footage of the police "chase" was shot in Barcelona.
Also a fair bit of local newspapers doing editorials which are either closet advertisements for property developers or political candidates.
In a similar vein are "Hungry Beast" and some segments of "The Chaser's War on Everything".
Is that show dedicated to calling out media for such things? I think I'm more stunned by that.
We have this because it's on the ABC (Australian equivalent of the BBC). Publicly funded broadcaster, expected to be impartial. So this show even exposes its own colleagues when they get it wrong.
Also a fair bit of local newspapers doing editorials which are either closet advertisements for property developers or political candidates.
My town has this problem. If the paper doesn't like you, expect solid bullshit articles from them for damn ever until you're replaced. Amazing to watch really.
As an example, they ran out our countys auditor one year because she forgot to refile for some license or some such. Well, her filing date was after her son got killed in a car wreck so life was just mildly a clusterfuck for her for awhile. Paper destroyed her over that in the next election even though nothing had ever gone wrong under her. The only bright spot in the whole deal, was that the first local election under the new auditor the ballots didn't fit in the envelopes because "someone" failed to check with the new contractor that paper specs were correct. Mildly funny.
It is a great show and there should be more of it. Personally I think the biggest disgrace they uncovered was Cash for Comment - major talk radio hosts accepting cash for direct comment on certain issues but claiming neutrality - and the fact that both Laws and Jones kept going after that point shows how false their whole schitck really was, and how gullible the public can be.
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