Media Watch and it’s host Jonathan Holmes have been caught out lying, deceiving and distorting the truth in a recent program that went to air on Monday the 5th of September in relation to the Julia Gillard / Fairfax Media / News Ltd freedom of speech scandal. The program was deliberately and highly defamatory of at least Michael Smith who is a presenter on the Fairfax Media owned radio station 2ue and also Bob Kernohan. (Click here to watch the show or read the transcript)

But the most scandalous part of Jonathan Holmes story is that he also implies that the Bob Kernohan Statutory Declaration is defamatory. By doing this Mr Holmes is implying that Bob Kernohan is a criminal, because lying in a statutory declaration is a criminal offence. This is a big call by Jonathan Holmes and it is one he has gone to ground on and is refusing to answer questions that I have sent him.

Media Watch is a television program hosted by Jonathan Holmes on the ABC which is the Australian public television broadcaster. The main focus of the program is to hold Australian Media to account for the accuracy of their stories, whether that be television, radio, newspapers or online. This is what Sashka Koloffa. Media Watch reporter, said on the 23/9/2010 “We look at the work of Australian journalists to make sure they are accurately and fairly reporting their stories.”

But Media Watch and Jonathan Holmes believe they themselves are above and beyond being held to account, this is shown by the questions that I have sent them and their failure to respond. (See emails below)

Background

My last few posts have been about Julia Gillard’s history with helping rip of the AWU and if you are new to this story please read my previous post at: (The Michael Smith 2ue emails to Julia Gillard and the Bob Kernohan Statutory Declaration.)

Th facts are Julia Gillard did help her sexual partner, Bruce Wilson, rip off the AWU in the early 1990’s which she has admitted, but denies doing it knowingly. It has been estimated the total fraud exceeded $1 Million and no one has ever been charged. Yet Julia Gillard has never signed an affidavit or statutory declaration stating what she knows and when she knew it. She has never given a detailed account to the AWU nor any law enforcement body. Nor has she given a detailed account to the media. And as we know as soon as the media started asking to many questions the media was closed down by personal phone calls from Julia Gillard. It must be noted that concealing a crime is also a crime and given that Julia Gillard has evidence of the AWU being ripped off but has not given a detailed account, the prima facie case against Julia Gillard for the concealment of the fraud would have to be regarded as being strong.

What we have is a major unsolved fraud case. One role of the media to ask questions and to continue to ask questions until crimes are solved. This is what has happened with the Craig Thomson HSU credit card scandal, which was basically dead until he did an interview with Michael Smith at 2ue and was caught out lying. Which has led to a more wide scale fraud investigation into the Health Services Union as more details of fraud have come to light. If Micheal Smith had not asked those questions to Craig Thomson it is almost guaranteed that the police investigation would not be currently afoot.

The Bob Kernohan Statutory Declaration

Jonathon Holmes starts of his show pointing out how the Glenn Milne article had been pulled from the internet and an apology published by News Ltd. He then states that the Milne article had not been legalled which is the responsiblity of the Australian’s Opinion editor, Rebecca Weisser and goes on to say “It’s amazing that Ms Weisser is still in her job.”  He then talks about Andrew Bolt and how he had put some of the Bob Kernohan Statutory Declaration on his blog site.

Jonathan Holmes then says “In the circumstances, News Ltd had little option but to cave in to the Prime Minister’s demands, take down the column, apologise – and take down Andrew Bolt’s posts too.”

Well this is straight out lies and deception by Jonathan Holmes and he knows it. He is meant to be an expert in media laws and protocol. By saying that he is also implying that the Bob Kernohan Statutory Declaration is full of lies and Mr Kernohan has committed the criminal offence of making a false statutory declaration.

It is lies by Mr Holmes as he would be well aware that when a word or part of an online published article is disputed or incorrect then the part in dispute is taken down not the full article. Given most of the Glenn Milne article was old news and had previously been published the first question Mr Holmes should have asked was why did the whole article come down. By saying “News Ltd had little option but to cave in to the Prime Minister’s demands, take down the column, apologise – and take down Andrew Bolt’s posts too.” he is implying the whole article and Andrew Bolts and Mr Kernohan’s affidavit are defamatory lies.

A prime example of this is a post I did on Kerry Stokes which he did not like. He had a lawyer send me a nasty letter demanding that I amend my post by deleting certain words and sections. They did not demand I take down the whole post as they can not do that. As it turns out they had no right to ask me to amend my post so I did another post on the threatening letter. (Click here to read: Kerry Stokes threatens legal action against blogger.)

Jonathon Holmes then goes on to talk about Michael Smith and his attempt to play an interview with Bob Kernohan. I will get to Michael Smith part in a minute but there is one key part where Jonathan Holmes implies that the Bob Kernohan Statutory Declaration is defamatory lies which again implies that Bob Kernohan committed a criminal offence making a false statutory declaration.

Mr Holmes says in the show that “2UE management have told Media Watch” “we do not have sufficient evidence at this time to support the interview.” Well that is 2ue sitting on the fence.

But from that Mr Holmes makes the statement “See Michael, that’s how defamation law works. However honourable your source, if you make defamatory allegations in this country you have to be able to prove that they’re true.” Where does Mr Holmes get the defamation part from? All 2ue said was “we do not have sufficient evidence at this time to support the interview.” From that Mr Holmes decides that Bob Kernohan’s affidavit is defamatory.

Bob Kernohan should be consulting a lawyer (if he can find an honest one. PS. Avoid Slater & Gordon) because he has an open and shut case to sue Jonathan Holmes, Media Watch, ABC, and maybe others e.g Julia Gillard, Fairfax Media and News Ltd for defamation.

Lies about Michael Smith

Jonathan Holmes in what he said about Michael Smith of 2ue in his show lies, contradicts himself and distorts the facts like there is no tomorrow.

Jonathan Holmes starts off “Michael Smith is the afternoon host of Sydney radio station 2UE, owned by Fairfax Media. And the Friday before last, he launched into readings from Bob Kernohan’s year-old stat dec … Smith either didn’t know, or didn’t care, that every allegation in it has been aired, and dealt with publicly by Julia Gillard, multiple times.”

The problem with this is that did know and did care and put questions to Julia Gillard directly which is covered in my previous post where you can see the emails yourself and given that they where on the 2ue website Jonathan Holmes would have been aware. Michael Smith even spoke about the 2007 Glenn Milne – Julia Gillard interview on his show which once again Jonathan Holmes would have been aware given Mr Holmes talks extensively about what Michael Smith did and didn’t say on 2ue.

Jonathon Holmes then later says “Gillard has already explained herself in Glenn Milne’s 2007 article.” What Mr Holmes does not say is that it Ms Gillard says very little in the article and what Julia Gillard does say beggars belief (she straight out lies). I covered and dissected the interview in a previous post (click here to read: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s criminal history and her hypocrisy with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.)

But then Jonathon Holmes contradicts himself and says “But unlike Andrew Bolt, Michael Smith didn’t accept the earlier denials.” Well before Mr Holmes was saying “Smith either didn’t know, or didn’t care” now Mr Holmes admits Michael Smith did know, “he just did not accept them”. Well it must be remembered that Craig Thomson had dealt with the allegations against him multiple times and then got caught out lying by Michael Smith because he kept on asking questions. See Mr Holmes that is how it works you keep on asking questions until they trip themselves up. Just like Julia Gillard did in the 2007 interview with Glenn Milne, although you claim it as proof of her dealing with the allegations, unfortunately for yourself a lot of your viewers are not that stupid. And the so-called other times  “that every allegation in it has been aired, and dealt with publicly by Julia Gillard, multiple times.” are nothing more than Julia Gillard denying the allegations, she does not give detailed answers to any questions.

And as I have already stated but is worth restating here is that Mr Holmes then says: “See Michael, that’s how defamation law works. However honourable your source, if you make defamatory allegations in this country you have to be able to prove that they’re true.” Mr Holmes is clearly implying that Michael Smith has defamed Julia Gillard.

Michael Smith should also be consulting a lawyer and instituting defamation proceedings against Jonathan Holmes, Media Watch and the ABC and maybe others.

See Jonathan, that’s how defamation law works. However honourable your source, if you make defamatory allegations in this country you have to be able to prove that they’re true. Or as one of your viewers pointed out, “substantially true”, or in the public interest or fair comment. With your lies, deception and deceit you do not qualify for any defence Mr Holmes so you are up shit creek without a paddle.

It is interesting that nowhere does Mr Holmes talk about freedom of speech, nor is he critical of Julia Gillard contacting News Ltd executives multiple times to have s story pulled while she is deciding whether or not to have a Media Enquiry and its terms of reference. He defends this by pointing out that News Ltd says that Ms Gillard did not raise a Media Enquiry in her phone conversations. No need to as that would have been a White Elephant in the room at both ends of the phone line when she did call.

Make no mistake, Jonathan Holmes is a lying, conniving and deceitful person who will deliberately distort the facts to achieve his goal. He does not hesitate to defame people and could not care less about the consequences for them. In the show that I am discussing he in effect even calls for the sacking of one News Ltd employee. He does this while hosting the taxpayer-funded program Media Watch.

Once again I have sent Jonathan Holmes an email notifying him of my post and again requesting that he answers the questions in the below email that he has so far refused to do. If he wants to respond I will update this post, otherwise he will be known as the grub that he is.

Update 19/9/2011 I have received a response from Media Watch about 12 hours after this post was published. It is at the bottom of the post.

But last but not least and back to Ms Rebecca Weisser and where Mr Holmes goes on to say “It’s amazing that Ms Weisser is still in her job.” Well Mr Holmes I suggest that you should consider your future summarily, as I will be surprised if you last much longer.

I understand the appropriate body to deal with Mr Holmes is the Australian Communications and Media Authority which I will send copy of this post and we will see what happens. Not much I suspect, as one government body holding another to account almost never happens, but wait and see anyhow.

Below are the emails that I sent Media Watch and Mr Holmes which they are refusing to answer. After reading the above it is not hard to guess why.

From: Shane Dowling
Sent: Wednesday, 14 September 2011 11:53 PM
To: ‘mediawatch@your.abc.net.au’
Cc: ‘news@seven.com.au’; ‘news@ten.com.au’; ‘glw@greenleft.org.au’; ‘cannews@winnsw.com.au’; ‘news@canberrafm.com.au’; ‘news@canberrafm.com.au’; ‘news.sydney@aap.com.au’; ‘news.canberra@aap.com.au’; ‘westinfo@wanews.com.au’; ‘cannews@winnsw.com.au’; ‘ccnews@capitalradio.net.au’; ‘triplejweb@your.abc.net.au’; ‘rhadley@2gb.com’; ‘loakes@nine.com.au’ (loakes@nine.com.au); ‘aca@nine.com.au’; ‘merrittc@theaustralian.com.au’; ‘stutchburym@theaustralian.com.au’; ‘alan.jones@2gb.com’; ‘editorial@chronicle.com.au’; ‘7.30syd@your.abc.net.au’
Subject: Unanswered questions for Jonathan Holmes

Dear Mr Holmes

I have not received answers to the questions in the below email. Although I did receive your read receipt. Can you please respond to the questions ASAP.

Regards

Shane Dowling

From: Shane Dowling
Sent: Sunday, 11 September 2011 11:43 PM
To: ‘mediawatch@your.abc.net.au’
Cc: ‘news@seven.com.au’; ‘news@ten.com.au’; ‘glw@greenleft.org.au’; ‘cannews@winnsw.com.au’; ‘news@canberrafm.com.au’; ‘news@canberrafm.com.au’; ‘news.sydney@aap.com.au’; ‘news.canberra@aap.com.au’; ‘westinfo@wanews.com.au’; ‘cannews@winnsw.com.au’; ‘ccnews@capitalradio.net.au’; ‘triplejweb@your.abc.net.au’; ‘rhadley@2gb.com’; ‘loakes@nine.com.au’ (loakes@nine.com.au); ‘aca@nine.com.au’; ‘merrittc@theaustralian.com.au’; ‘stutchburym@theaustralian.com.au’; ‘alan.jones@2gb.com’; ‘editorial@chronicle.com.au’; ‘7.30syd@your.abc.net.au’
Subject: Questions for Jonathan Holmes in relation to story done on Glenn Milne, Andrew Bolt and Michael Smith

Dear Mr Holmes

I would like to ask some questions for a story that I am writing on the Media Watch show that went to air on Monday the 5^th September in relation to the Julia Gillard / Fairfax Media / News Ltd spat.

In your show you said that the current reporting on the Julia Gillard’s history with Bruce Wilson and the AWU started with Michael Smith at 2ue.

Are you aware that it actually started with a post I did on my website, Kangaroo Court of Australia, on the 7^th of August 2011, titled “Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s criminal history and her hypocrisy with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.” Based on what I wrote in my post Julia Gillard’s history with helping Bruce Wilson rip off the AWU is clearly relevant today. It is even more relevant given her attempt to close down reporting on it.

One of the key issues in that post that I pointed out was that Julia Gillard in the 2007 interview with Glenn Milne said ““I was obviously hurt when I was later falsely accused publicly of wrong-doing. I didn’t do anything wrong and to have false allegations in the media was distressing.”

Yet Julia Gillard was happy to falsely accuse Julian Assange and Wikileaks. I said in the post:

“On December 2, 2010 Julia Gillard said in relation to the United States diplomatic cables leak (Cablegate): “I absolutely condemn the placement of this information on the WikiLeaks website – it’s a grossly irresponsible thing to do and an illegal thing to do.” Yet when she was asked what laws had been breached she could not name any. Even so she still referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police for investigation. The Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland supported Julia Gillard although he was not as stupid to go as far and he said that they had likely broken the law “The unauthorised obtaining of the information may well be an offence” but he also failed to name what laws had been breached.”

Is it a case of that you didn’t know or didn’t care? If you did not know can you confirm that you will correct this in your next show? If you did not care can you please explain? Obviously if you had of mentioned that it started with my post for legitimate reasons it would have undermined your whole story. I hope it is not a case of never letting the truth get in the way of a good story.

It is widely known that it is estimated that over $1million was stolen and never recovered which makes it a major unsolved fraud case and justifiable to ask questions of those involved until it is solved, for the next 50 years if need be. In your show you never reported this. Is it a case of that you didn’t know or didn’t care? If you did not know can you confirm that you will correct this in your next show? If you did not care can you please explain?

You say that “Michael Smith is the afternoon host of Sydney radio station 2UE, owned by Fairfax Media. And the Friday before last, he launched into readings from Bob Kernohan’s year-old stat dec … Smith either didn’t know, or didn’t care, that every allegation in it has been aired, and dealt with publicly by Julia Gillard, multiple”

Well if you had listened to his program you would have heard him discuss things like the Glenn Milne story in 2007 that you refer to as an example of Julia Gillard dealing with is publically. Also if you had of checked the 2ue website you would have seen the email correspondence between Michael Smith and the Prime Minister’s office where Michael Smith asks to be directed to where Ms Gillard has dealt with it. (see attachment). Is it a case of that you didn’t know or didn’t care? If you did not know can you confirm that you will correct this in your next show? If you did not care can you please explain?

The impression you give is that Julia Gillard has given numerous detailed accounts of her knowledge and involvement in the fraud and theft from the AWU. Can you please advise where at least one of these detailed accounts by Julia Gillard is?

You say “See Michael, that’s how defamation law works. However honourable your source, if you make defamatory allegations in this country you have to be able to prove that they’re true. It’s a tough hurdle, but it’s been that way for a very long time.” Most viewers would have believed that you are implying that Michael Smith and/or Bob Kernohan have defamed Julia Gillard. Can you please supply me with the evidence for this?

One of the people in your comment section wrote: “I hate to “lawyer” you, Media Watch, but while the line that “if you make defamatory allegations in this country you have to be able to prove that they’re true” is punchy, it isn’t quite right. First, you only have to be able to prove its substantially true. Secondly, particularly given the obvious public interest in information about the PM’s judgment, a public interest defence of qualified privilege could also have been available (on the basis that Bolt, Milne and Smith’s audience would have had an interest in receiving the information about the allegations).” Which is correct.

If anyone had made any suspected defamatory comments about Ms Gillard it would also be covered by “fair comment” given all the evidence and Ms Gillard’s failure to give a detailed account. Is it a case of that you didn’t know or didn’t care? If you did not know can you confirm that you will correct this in your next show? If you did not care can you please explain?

Did you have your show legalled. If so can I have their name and contact details?

Can you please respond asap in case I have some follow-up questions.

I have also sent this to other media as it obviously in the public interest.

Regards

Shane Dowling

Ph 0411 238 704

kangaroocourtofaustralia.com

Media Watch’s response:

I sent another email this morning letting Media Watch know about this post and asking them if they had any comment and also asked why they had not responded to my questions. One of the subscribers to this blog also sent the auto generated email notifying them of the new post to numerous media, politicians and myself and Media Watch with their comments. Two of his friends hit reply all and sent it to the same people with their comments. Adding the two emails above that I sent last week, Media Watch received six emails and then responded at 5.41pm today. Below is their response.

From: Media Watch [mailto:mediawatch@your.abc.net.au]

Sent: Monday, 19 September 2011 5:41 PM

To: Shane Dowling

Subject: Re: Questions for Jonathan Holmes in relation to story done on Glenn Milne, Andrew Bolt and Michael Smith

Dear Mr Dowling,

Thank you for contacting Media Watch. We value feedback from our audience.

The aim of Media Watch is to analyse and comment on the Australian Media. The subject dealt with in episode 30 is polarising and as expected, we have had considerable viewer feedback both positive and negative. This episode specifically examined the resurgence in the media of allegations concerning Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s relationship, while she was a lawyer at Slater and Gordon in the early 90’s, with a union official, Bruce Wilson. We specifically looked at the publication and subsequent removal by The Australian newspaper of an article by Glenn Milne, as well as the attempts by 2UE radio announcer Michael Smith to broadcast an interview with Bob Kernohan, the former President of the Australian Workers Union. We examined the intentions behind revisiting these old allegations and the legal implications of publishing or broadcasting them.

The purpose of Media Watch has always been to turn the spotlight on those who make the news, and those in the media who provide the information we need to make decisions about our lives. We have a team of lawyers who approve every script however as per the ABC privacy  policy, private contact details of staff are not disclosed without their permission.

As always we will continue to keep an eye on all media including the ABC and we always welcome tip offs from our audience.

Kind Regards,

Lin Buckfield

Executive Producer

Media Watch

They avoid most of the specific questions that I ask. They say: “revisiting these old allegations and the legal implications of publishing or broadcasting them.” What garbage. Where is the legal advice they quoted? They did not. Media Watch should have considered the legal implications of making the false statements they did.

They also say: “. We have a team of lawyers who approve every script however as per the ABC privacy  policy, private contact details of staff are not disclosed without their permission.” Must be a pretty poor team if they approved the script. As per the above post Media Watch are happy to name and shame Ms Rebecca Weisser and in effect call for her sacking but their own staff are protected species.

It is not lost on me that if Media Watch put questions to other media and they took 8 days to respond they would make a song and dance about it. They waited until I did the post and then responded and only after another 4 emails. Not a good look Media Watch. It makes me wonder how a media show with such low standards and accountability can hold other media to account.

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