MEDIAWATCH: Press Gallery deplatforming attempt on Blogger highlights woke cancellation
Look.
No one should like Karl du Fresne.
He’s a right wing head kicker from way back.
He has sailed close to some pretty disturbing comments and is a first class arsehole.
He’s unlikable at the best of times, has all the intellectual appeal of a fire on a school bus and half the sex appeal of your average autopsy.
I don’t count myself as a fan of his work.
However.
There are times when Karl has something of genuine interest and insight to provide on a myriad of politic issues.
You can’t pretend he hasn’t earned his seat at the table of Dr Bryce Edwards important Political Roundup, newsletter which we are fortunate to republish daily here on TDB.
That’s ultimately what makes the Press Gallery’s recent and just brought to light attempt to gag and deplatform Karl from Bryce’s reading list so egregious.
Sure you don’t have to like Karl, but to censor him and have him blacklisted for crimes against Woke dogma?
WTF?
We’ve just found out that a Press Gallery Journalist, Ben McKay, contacted Bryce and pressured him in having Karl deplatformed from the Political Roundup, newsletter.
Bryce thankfully won’t buckle to woke demands for deplatforming (which is ironic because the woke attempted to have Bryce sacked from his University job for daring to suggest the Parliament Lawn protest was class based rather than a holidaying Nazi glee club), and refused Ben McKay’s demand for censorship of Karl.
Here’s Karls take on the issue…
I recently learned that in December 2021, McKay emailed Edwards and asked whether he had considered excluding my blog posts from his daily wrap. This wheedling suggestion was apparently provoked by a post in which I criticised the press gallery for being more concerned with the thrill of the political chase than with the substance of politics. (Edwards, to his credit, appears to have disregarded McKay’s request.)
McKay, who has never met me, described me in the email as deranged, racist and misogynist. These would be defamatory accusations if I took them seriously, but I prefer to adopt Katharine Hepburn’s maxim: “I don’t care what anyone says about me as long as it’s not true.”
He also implied that I was senile, that I no longer had a place in the mainstream media (probably true, although I relinquished my gigs in the MSM entirely of my own choice) and was reduced to writing a “sad blog” in which I was often hyper-critical of “decent journalists” – that is to say, his gallery colleagues. He concluded: “I think your readers would do well not to be served up this trash.”
…I laughed when I heard Karl’s blog described as ‘sad’, because it is, but the hyperbole to find him guilty of crimes to justify censorship and a blacklisting is such a deplorable misuse of press Gallery mana that it demands scrutiny.
Who else have the Press Gallery blacklisted?
Who else have they attempted to blacklist?
Why are these people blacklisted?
Why should we trust the Press Gallery is they are actively working woke purges and blacklists in the background?
Doesn’t that profoundly damage the mana of the Press Gallery?
The Press Gallery attempting to deplatform a Blogger for questionable guilt of woke dogma in an election year highlights the threat middle class cancel culture presents to journalism while exacerbating media polarisation.
The media are facing a level of abuse from social media that is wounding and frightening them, driving them into commentary that is focused on their own experiences rather than the wider values.
Again, no one should like Karl du Fresne, but deplatforming a Blogger using secret blacklists is so Soviet.
The woke would eat their own offspring if they weren’t all vegans.
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Typical of the woke bubble: They’re afraid of a contradictory viewpoint because they know they don’t have the truth on their side.
Do woke people actually realise they come across as woke? I’ve heard the term bandied about a heap over the last few years but can honestly say I have never really met a self confessed woke person yet. Mind you I live on the West Coast in a rural area but in saying that I am aquatinted with friends and associates with all manner of political opinion and social outlook but none you could call woke. At least in my humble opinion. Is it just a big city thing like yuppies and graffiti artists?
Urinalbushrat. Good question. I have one woke kinsperson, Wgtn govt department staffer who probably doesn’t realise they’re woke and nor would I dare suggest it. Hint: they’re always adamantly right, and loosely speaking, could maybe be categorised as what used to be the politically correct brigade, possibly worse than yuppies who were more surface skimmers, IMO. Graffiti artists can be talented creative original folk, so let’s leave them out of this.
Hear hear Martyn
Yep. I phoned du Fresne back in the mid 1990’s, when I think he was on the then “ Dominion” and I disagreed with something that he’d written, and he listened ok to my difference of opinion. I wouldn’t bother phoning any of them now.
Dare I say I quite like Karl du Fresne?
He is a bit right leaning and I dont always agree with him but I find many of the things he writes, quite well written and sometimes touching and often insightful.
I enjoyed his speech to Vic Uni for the Free Speech Union. IMO, his was hands down the best of the series they rolled out.
Karl does one thing well which I value a lot and that is to tug at our sense of who we once were He seems to be able to paint a picture of a lost NZ which I think is worth reading (Maybe not the right wing commentary that may come with it) but certainly that sense of That’s where we were and it wasnt so bad, so how did we get here? Maybe it’s rose tinted but I find I agree with him more often than not.