Friday, April 29, 2011

In which Lindsay Tanner's argument is amply demonstrated

Last night on 7.30, Lindsay Tanner broke the hearts all over again of people who couldn't for the life of them understand, back in 2003, why the ALP anointed Mark Latham as leader instead of him, no doubt for stupid faction mateship blah blah blah reasons. Imagine how different this country might have been, and might be.

Tanner was calm in the face of Leigh Sales' attempts to demonstrate the very point of his argument by putting on an attack-dog persona and trying to trap him into trashing the party 'because our viewers expect it', which translated probably means 'The suits in management are on my back to be more like a bloke.' She's not very good at it, because you can see her heart's not really in either aggression or stupid gotcha questions, and she repeatedly, quite shockingly and unacceptably, let Tanner make his case, develop his argument, stick to his point and finish what he was saying. Which means that apart from her opening question, the most suitable answer to which would have been 'Well, der', this interview is actually worth watching and listening to from start to finish.

13 comments:

Ampersand Duck said...

Yes, quite startlingly civilized, wasn't it?

Elephant's Child said...

And yes I'm dreaming, but wouldn't it be nice if it set a precedent.

Link said...

I tend to agree with Ms Sales that politicians need to have the guts (to tell the truth) and the main problem is they don't. So they seek 'reward' with inanities and gratuitous platitudes which being the bullshit they are, nobody much is interested in (including journalists) who look for more interesting and generally more personalised angles. Angles which seem to cater to the LCD who do seem to enjoy politicians being cast as complete twats-- Which basically is what they are when they feed us such monumental crap. Bit of a vicious circle really.

It would be interesting to see how Paul Keating handled today's media. I think he'd do it rather well, because it is all about language and delivery, things he used to good effect.

Lord Sedgwick said...

Dare one suggest she has been prompted to adopt the latter day Red Kezza's attack dawg approach?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Lord Sedgwick, that was my view, yes.

Fine said...

There was a lovely photo of tanner in 'the Age' today of him nuzzling a horse affectionately.

doorbitch says 'brats'. I'd call a lot of journos that.

Anonymous said...

I got the book to review, which was cogent, well-argued but stating the obvious. Lucy Sussex

Frances said...

I thought that L Tanner was disadvantaged buy his name, which to older Ozs meant Threepence.

I disagree with Link: I think that the media rules, and there is no point in having guts when the media is waiting there to eviscerate you and hang your guts out for the flies.

The Abc could be said to be as bad as anyone else in this. Except that they are regarded as some kind of standard, which makes their indulgence in the speedo-type attention much worse. Everyone feels okay about falling behind what has become a low, low ABC standard.
The ABC seems to be largely pursuing trashoratings.

Pedant's corner said...

'Tanner' is actually England's slang for threepence (or it was). In Australia a threepence was known as a trey (probably from the Latin tre, meaning 'three').

Pedant's corner said...

It seems Australian soldiers coming home from the second world war brought some German and Italian words with them; they became slang terms for coins. A shilling coin became a deiner, two shillings was a swy (both German). Sixpence was a zac. I'm not sure from where zac originates but it may be German.

-R.

Pedant's corner said...

I'm guessing about all that, but those slang terms were definitely common during my childhood among the lower orders.

I'm sorry for the off-topic, but I do know this is a scholarly blog.

-Ro....

Pedant's corner. said...

And finally, Mark Latham is a myth, a composite: Bob Ellis and Wilson Tuckey.
I'm reminded of Hemingway, who had anger but no real fight. His persona as a he-man was fraudulent.

-Robert.

Anonymous said...

In this interview it seems likley that Sales probably violated the current ABC editorial policy number one: Adopt Attack dog tactics for all ALP and (especially) Green politicians, light and fluffy on all Coalition Pollies.