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3 stenographers follow the script

An article so dry it leaves you gasping for water

How do three people write an article?
How do three people write an article so dry that you’re left gasping for water? This was my response to a story in Saturday’s Australian Financial Review. The “journalists” David Martin-Gruzman, Tom McIlroy, and Finbar O’Mallon have collaborated on a work noteworthy for its collegiality and for the division its underlying concepts promote. Our media has failed us. There are no insights. No effort to discuss or describe anything outside politicians’ proclamations. I use this article as an example and probably spend too much time pulling it apart.

The AFR 3 presented appalling notions like mandatory mass vaccination, including young children, forced unemployment for unvaccinated workers, whimsical lockdowns, mandated masks for children indoors and other restrictions. Am I exaggerating on this whimsicality? In an adjacent article, NSW Chief Health Officer, Kerry Chant says: “The evidence around curfews is mixed but I also think it sends a significant signal about the crisis we are facing”.

“The evidence around curfews is mixed but I also think it sends a significant signal about the crisis we are facing”.

NSW chief medical officer, Kerry Chant
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Keep Your Hands Off the Levers and No-one Gets Hurt

Scott Morrison Miracle Man

When I bought the Australian Financial Review on the Monday morning following the May 18 Federal election, there was something strange about it.  It felt like a small brick.  Excited by the prospect of this bumper edition, I sped to my local café for a great morning’s reading.  By the time I’d reached page 3, it was clear what had happened.  Each sentence was lined with smug.  Some particularly heavy pages at the back were recorded in schadenfreude font.

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KFR 9th June 2019

Katoomba Financial Review logo

WHO ARE STIRLING GRIFF AND REX PATRICK?
You’re going to hear a lot about this duo in the next three years. Unless Pauline Hanson gets over her sulk at being jilted for Clive, these two Centre Alliance radicals will hold the balance of power in the Senate. You thought the Senate would save us again. No, we will have to rely on the sensitivity and compassion of a Young and Rubicam marketer and a former Liberal staffer, electronics technician and submariner. The Liberal Party’s only other hope is Jacquie Lambie and based on her election night threats I’d be sticking with Rex and Griffo, if I were Scotty. It all looks pretty rosy for Scomo and his team with initial indications that these two Centre Alliance (formerly Nick Xenophon’s NXT) members will pass all three stages of the tax cuts. With salary increases for our politicians passing this week, what is there to complain about?

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Greed is Good – experience luxury for $4

About once a month I buy the Australian Financial Review.
I like to know what the financial spivs and their colluding journalists are up to. I rarely get a laugh out of it but a recent edition was a real knee-slapping, side-splitter.

From the middle of the paper dropped the 46th edition of Luxury. This was the Jewellery Issue. The feature story was about the Paspaley family and their pearl exploits.

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