![\"Geekrulz](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.independentaustralia.net\/Wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GeekrulezStorify.png?resize=592%2C394\" "\\"The")
<\/a><\/p>\nClick on the image to see\u00a0@geeksrulz<\/a>\u2018s Storify: \u2018The Daily Telegraph coverage of the Slipper Scandal\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ON THE 12th of December 2012, the Federal Court\u00a0handed down its judgement<\/a>\u00a0in James Ashby\u2019s sexual harassment case against the Speaker Peter Slipper. It was sensational \u2014 a political conspiracy to abuse the court system with vexatious litigation to destroy a political opponent.<\/p>\n The mind boggled.<\/p>\n I\u2019d just joined Twitter, and was surprised to get a tweet predicting there would be little coverage.<\/p>\n Nonsense, I replied. There\u2019ll be intensive investigation by journos \u2014 \u2018they will go for it after being conned by Libs twice\u2019. The first time, of course, was the just completed torrent of publicity on the Prime Minister\u2019s pre-politics role in setting up a fund later used for fraud, which ended with nothing of substance proved.<\/p>\n I was wrong.<\/p>\n No page one splashes. No page ones at all in the Murdoch tabloids, which had broken Ashby\u2019s allegations to the Court with a splash and then kept splashing. In the\u00a0Daily Telegraph<\/i>,\u00a0a small news story on, wait for it, page 17<\/a>, with the misleading headline \u2018Court rejects SLIPPER case\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was horrified, but Saturday\u2019s coverage put me in shock.<\/p>\n PM Gillard had called on Abbott to disendorse Mal Brough, who the court found had been part of the conspiracy. Other Labor figures had called for an inquiry. Tony Abbott said they were \u2018hyperventilating\u2019, and repeated his never deconstructed \u2018I had no specific knowledge\u2019 line. Yet there was NO news story in the DT. They\u2019d moved on. I\u2019d bought all the papers at the airport to read all about Ashby on my flight home. There was virtually nothing to read. I tweeted: \u2018Bought the papers today. Where are the news features, the reads, the analysis, the questions on Ashby\u2019s funding? In my day Ashby would have filled pages in news and features. What has happened and why? Please explain!\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Useful Design\u2019 tweeted:<\/p>\n \u2018If it bleeds it leads, if it\u2019s smear let\u2019s hear, if it\u2019s the truth, strewth how uncouth.\u2019 \u00a0<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/p>\n Murdoch papers you can understand \u2014 they\u2019ve gone feral against the PM and don\u2019t care a fig for subtlety in their bias any more, as ALP frontbencher Craig Emerson wrote in an essay published in new media and ignored by the MSM.<\/p>\n Fairfax, well, big staff cuts, low morale and fear of reprisal under an Abbott government could be in play.<\/p>\n The ABC? Breathtakingly, ABC reporter Latika Bourke asked deputy liberal leader Julie Bishop not one question on Ashby in a long interview on Saturday morning, and days later Chris Uhlmann also failed to raise the matter. What matter?<\/p>\n Where are the stakeouts of Ashby and Brough to get some answers? Where are the detailed written questions to the key players? Perhaps the media has predicted the death of Gillard and her government for so long they won\u2019t change their narrative, and have lost their news judgement. Or perhaps when the A team of journos and editors go on holidays the B team isn\u2019t up to the job.\u00a0(Read Richard Ackland’s take on the indolence of Australia’s mainstream “investigative plods” in reporting Ashbygate by\u00a0clicking here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Meanwhile In the Twitterverse, people have created timelines, Ashby archives and Ashby newspapers, listed Ashby questions and started a petition to force an inquiry. Independent media have bemoaned the \u2018scandalous lack of curiosity\u2019 of the MSM, and\u00a0Independent Australia<\/a><\/i>\u00a0has continued its standout news, analysis and investigative reporting.<\/p>\n Me, I\u2019ve made a complaint about the\u00a0Daily Telegraph\u2019s<\/i>coverage to the Press Council, signed the inquiry petition, and broken the story that the recent court summons against Slipper for old travel claims defies normal practice. I got that scoop because my sources didn\u2019t think the MSM was interested.<\/p>\n When it sticks in twitter\u2019s craw, Twitter makes the running.<\/p>\n Independent Australia\u2019s dedicated Ashbygate page.<\/em><\/p>\n This is the transcript of a \u2018What\u2019s stuck in my craw\u2019 \u00a0monologue podcast<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Something Wonky<\/a>\u00a0on 18 January 2012.<\/b>\u00a0You can read Independent Australia’s full investigation into Ashbygate by\u00a0clicking here<\/a>, or on the image above.<\/b><\/p>\n By\u00a0Margo Kingston<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/proxy.storify.com\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FrDUDL.jpg&resize=1&w=490\")
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![\"Ashbygate\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.independentaustralia.net\/Wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Ashbygate.png?resize=240%2C240\")
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