Overheard at GrodsHQ this morning while breakfast was taken to the strains of ABC Radio National’s breakfast program (that’s right — we’re wyld and krazy kidz in the GrodsHouse)…
McBec: This sports guy (Warwick Hadfield) shits me to tears with his smarmy little jokes and stupid puns and stuff.
The Editor: He’s not that bad. Although, I do love it when Fran or Steve interrupt him to respond to something he says and you can hear the anger and annoyance in his voice at being cut off and having to find his place in the script again.
McBec: He he. Yeah, that rocks.
John Howard just now on Radio National’s Breakfast with Fran Kelly. There was a weird sound in the background the whole interview that sounded like a grave being dug. The audio will be up on the Breakfast website soon and you simply must listen to it. My favourite quotes were these (and I paraphrase as best I can from memory):
“I’m upfront; not like Bob Carr, Peter Beattie, Steve Bracks and people like that. I don’t go around saying one thing knowing that I’ll do another.”
Fran Kelly: What about the handover to Peter Costello?
JHo: Well, there may be a personnel transition but there will be policy continuity.
Fran Kelly: What about Peter Costello’s view on the republic?
JHo: Well, um, Fran, um, you’re the first person to raise that issue with me in four-and-a-half weeks. I just don’t think that’s an issue that is on people’s minds out there.
UPDATE: The interview audio is now available.
There has been the usual chorus of righty indignation about another ABC on-air staff member (in this case ABC TV’s Melbourne sports reporter, Angela Pippos) being approached by the ALP to run for state or federal Parliament. And as usual it proves nothing more than the ALP is heading further and further into the world of celebrity politics at the expense of politics about, um, you know, policy.
Pippos has reportedly turned down the offer to run for Williamstown, but in line with ABC policy was forced to take leave as soon as she received the ALP’s offer. This is sensible since the ABC can’t dare show any hint of bias or else Andrew Bolt, Timmeh Blair, Piers Ackerman and Gerard Henderson would gorge themselves on righteousness. But it begs the question: how can a sports reporter show left-wing bias? If anything, the ABC shows a right-wing bias in its sports reporting if this morning’s Radio National piece is anything to go by. Entertaining sports presenter Warwick Hadfield called the AFL corporation the Soviet Communist Football association (or something similar) in a derogatory manner.
Ack! Right-wing bias at the ABC!
grodscorp@grods.com
