Murdoch owns Newspoll. Newspoll can’t poll accurately. Any connection?

Newspoll is ‘the nation’s most authoritative snapshot of the political landscape’– that’s what Tony Abbott says. ABC Radio Breakfast
If Newspoll says that Rudd is losing support because he is too soft on asylum seekers, it must be true. Right?
Last week’s Newspoll result showed a significant narrowing of Rudd’s lead over Turnbull, and a significant increase [...]

Sudanese stabbed and media skewered

A young Sudanese man was murdered in an Adelaide suburb a couple of days ago.
There’s a PhD waiting for someone in analysing the news reports.
First I heard of it was through ABC radio news:
“A group of Sudanese men were sitting on an oval on Eastern Parade at about 4:30pm when they were attacked by about [...]

Win the asylum seeeker war of words Part 4: turn off the tap

What is the most pervasive metaphor we use about any migration, but especially about forced migration?
David Turton, in a lecture to the Oxford Refugee Studies centre, identified it as a ‘substance’ metaphor. The substance is water.
Flows, streams, trickles, floods, sluice gates, inundations, dams.
It sounds like a natural event, something that is not man-made, but somehow [...]

Winning the asylum seeker war of words part 3: Honesty

Here’s a novel idea to battle to asylum seeker war of words: honesty.
Keane Shum, previously an asylum officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that when he interviewed asylum seekers who had used people smugglers and asked them how much they paid, they would inevitably say “Everything, everything I had.” Only honesty [...]

Mass media try con tricks in asylum seeker war of words

In the asylum seeker war of words, how do con artists win hearts and minds?  The Murdoch empire is providing lessons in a breathtakingly blatant way.
On Monday evening Channel Nine aired a ‘news’ item about refugees and Centrelink benefits.
I didn’t see it, but an outraged friend called me afterwards and said it looked like an [...]

Australian public critical of negative reporting of Islamic and Sudanese communities

New research shows that Australians define ‘Australianness’ by behaviour rather than through ethnic origins.
‘Australian’ behaviour is defined as obeying the law, respecting others, integrating within communities and developing a working knowledge of English.
These findings come from a group of surveys conducted in metropolitan and regional Victoria by a team from Monash University.
In commenting on the [...]

Australian Navy personnel kicking asylum seekers off rescue craft: explosive?

The Australian newspaper reported yesterday that video footage of the incident involving the explosion on SIEV 36 (earlier this year) shows asylum seekers were repelled from inflatable rescue boats. Secret footage of refugee rescue struggle
Sources who have viewed the footage describe the treatment of the asylum seekers as distressing and inhumane, according to the newspaper.
Outrageous, [...]

The Australian wraps asylum seeker story in dirty tactics

It seems that, in mourning the passing of the Coalition federal government, the Australian has picked up the dirty baton of spinning stories designed to inflame anti-asylum seeker sentiment.
Paige Taylor authored a story about the government’s decision to move 10 unaccompanied minors from Christmas Island to Australia for processing on compassionate grounds in Thursday’s Australian
The [...]

National newspaper agrees: Asylum seekers not illegal

Advocacy group A Just Australia has won a complaint against the Australian about language used in four articles and an editorial on boat arrivals, published in April 2009. Press Council
A Just Australia complained to the Australian Press Council about the use of the term “illegal” or “illegals” in the reference to unauthorised arrivals.
The Council [...]

Fred Nile a Somali terrorist?

I was very concerned to see the headline on the front page of the Australian:
Out of Africa, a new terrorism threat dawns.
I work in settling Sudanese humanitarian entrants into their new lives in Australia, and I know only too well that most native born Australians think of Africa as an amorphous blob, and so to [...]