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ABC TV’s Emma Alberici wants us to believe that lice are twice as popular as US president-elect Donald Trump. In her 34-minute Foreign Correspondent special on Sunday night (20/11) she splices in (at 29mins) polling data showing 54% of respondent voters favored lice over Trump, while only 28% favored Trump over lice.
This doubtless had Alberici’s luvvie pals squirming with pleasure. It did nothing for the credibility of herself, Foreign Correspondent or the ABC. Nor did she see any inconsistency worth explaining between the lice “finding” and Trump getting 61 million votes in the election.
She provided no context for the lice poll, merely lifting the factoid in from a youtube clip. In fact, the poll involved 1222 respondents nationally last May, and generated a raft of other crazy memes like Trump being slightly more popular than haemorrhoids and cockroaches.
Needless to say, the pollsters never sought views on whether Hillary Clinton was more popular than lice, cockroaches or haemorrhoids, or whether Trump supporters hung up the phone rather than take any more anti-Trump insults. But it was good enough for Alberici as part of Foreign Correspondent’s juvenile stitch-up of Trump and his supporters.
Other gems from the episode:
- Alberici verbals Trump as boasting about “sexually assaulting” women. She edited the covert 2005 recording to delete his comment that the women consented to his advances
- She takes seriously supposition from New York Times Trump-hater Tim O’Brien, author of Trump biography TrumpNation, that if and when Trump family members work with him in the White House, they will plunder government money to corruptly enrich themselves. She even relays the hypothetical criminality to Republican congressman and budget executive Tom Cole for comment, asking, “How will you make sure he puts the American people first and not his businesses?”
- She lards her Trump “analysis” with further abuse from O’Brien:“His entire life has been short-term money-grubbing. That is the single biggest animating force, other than his need for attention” and “You mean you’re surprised that Donald Trump lies? He’s a serial fabulist to the point of almost being pathological. He will not hesitate to lie if he sees it in his short-term interest.”
- Another Alberici talking head, a comedian apparently, likens Trump to a tame chimpanzee “who seems fun but someday Coco is going to tear your f—g limbs off.”
- With cavalier imprecision, Alberici inserts grabs of Trump taking extreme positions, such as banning Muslim immigrants, without mentioning that Trump has already toned-down his policy to “extreme vetting” of those from terror-prone countries.
- Alberici mocks Breitbart News for a headline “Political Correctness Protects Muslim Rape Culture”. Alberici, bless her, has never heard of the recent rape epidemic by Muslim immigrants in Western Europe or the 2012 conviction of nine Pakistani Muslims for gang rapes of scores of women over many year in Greater Manchester, while authorities looked the other way rather than ruffle the multicultural harmony thery prefer to believe is the normal state of affairs.
- Her Main Street interviews with Trump supporters all happen to be white, fat. ageing, and working class.
- She produces a New York Times reporter, Tim Rutenberg, as sage and oracle about Trump, as if the NYT had covered itself in glory with prescient coverage of the Trump/Clinton contest. In fact, the NYT publisher issued a post-election apology and pledged to ‘re-dedicate ourselves” to good journalism.
- Alberici, post-election, gets on a New York subway carriage where, surprise, other passengers are staring out the window or accessing their cell-phones. “I feel like a ghost at a funeral,” Alberici says, as if people on the subway there normally engage in merry japes and folk dancing.
- She ends the program with a protester waving a sign, “Not Mein Fuhrer”, and a factory churning out hideous face-mask caricatures of Trump.
At least twice in the 34 minutes, Alberici asks her interview subjects how they feel about Trump “boasting about sexual assaults” in the Access Hollywood tape.
To black female Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault: “How did you feel when you saw that Access Hollywood tape with Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women?” (She plays her interview with Manigault with a straight bat, given that Manigualt seems to have triple Alberici’s IQ).
To two Trump-supporting women in a hair salon: “What about what Trump said about women when he was caught on the tape boasting about sexual assault?”
Alberici knew that Trump’s relevant words were:
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” (My emphasis. I’m not saying Trump’s words were tasteful).
So the context is that Trump, when he was an insanely rich media star, boasted that he had women groupies around him who would trade sex favors for access and relationship. To demonstrate her false point, Alberici aired the “pussy” bit of the tape while snipping off the key sentence, “When you’re a star they let you do it.” I’ve put in a complaint about this to the ABC, we’ll see how they (eventually) respond.[i]
In yet another tired “gotcha”, Alberici recycles Hillary’s debate claim about Trump calling women “pigs, slobs and dogs.” Trump in fact acknowledged calling TV host Rosie O’Donnell fat and a loser. In 2013, O’Donnell shed 50lbs after surgery. The pair had been insulting each other for a decade, with O’Donnell falsely calling him a bankrupt. O’Donnell followed up “snake oil salesman” with “[He] left the first wife — had an affair. [He] had kids both times, but he’s the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America. Donald, sit and spin, my friend.” The link, however, also shows Trump treating his foe O’Donnell with surprising courtesy and compassion during one of her illnesses.
Alberici is particularly respectful when interviewing some of the “tens of thousands” of post-election protesters on the streets, panning to snuggly signs like “Take Care of Each Other”. She apparently failed to notice that pre-election, the Clinton team had a field day predicting that Trump supporters would not accept his imminent electoral defeat.
To sum up, the ABC is and will remain clueless about how and why Trump won the election. It will continue to serve its public with mindless sneers about Trump in lieu of analysis, as seen in Foreign Correspondent.
As a public educator, Alberici is a disgrace. As a source of information, Foreign Correspondent is a disgrace. For tolerating and promoting both of them, the ABC is a disgrace. But we knew all that, of course. What we don’t know is why the purportedly conservative government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull disgraces itself by doing to nothing to clean out the national broadcaster’s billion-dollar stable.
Tony Thomas’ book of Quadrant essays, That’s Debatable – 60 Years in Print, is available here
[i] Alberici also verballed Tony Abbott when Prime Minister, causing the ABC to publish a correction.
> “… why the purportedly conservative government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull disgraces itself by doing to nothing to clean out the national broadcaster’s billion-dollar stable”
Thank you for the amusement, Tony, but the answer to your hypothetical question is that if Waffle dares to point an analytical question towards the ABC, why, then the banana will get it (or perhaps the pyjamas) – right between the eyes.
And just you see what that does to your poll ratings, Waffle.
I got a reply to my ABC complaint, with surprising alacrity:
Thank you for your note about our story “President Trump” and in particular how it dealt with Mr Trump’s recorded statements about groping women.
Given that sexual assault includes the sexual touching of another person without prior consent, I have no issue with the framing of Emma Alberici’s questions. I also note that Mr Trump’s staffer and the women Trump supporters in the hairdressing salon did not dispute the phrasing when the questions you mentioned were put to them.
Kind regards
ABC
Michael Doyle
Associate Producer, Foreign Correspondent
Well, what a surprise!
For the ABC, acceptable ‘framing’ is editing out a key sentence in the middle of a quote, then saying it’s OK because no one asked briefly to respond to the doctored quote took exception to the doctoring.
Interesting that the quick reply came from the program producer, not Audience and Consumer Affairs. ACA would have taken 6 months and 10 times the length to arrive at the same conclusion!
Presently we have in Communications Minister Mitch Fifield one of the least effective in that office, apart from the former incumbent who was the preoccupied appointee of Tony Abbott, and was referred to in The Australian 21/11 as the Homer Simpson of the Turnbull government.
Is Alberici not the spouse of another at the ABC, one who was given a make work position in the ‘Fact check’department?
You maybe confusing her with Virginia Trioli whose spouse has a make work job as head of the inappropriately named “Fact Check Unit” that confines it’s checking to other media. It does not check the ABC for it is accepted that the ABC will not make mistakes.
Alberici is particularly annoying because she holds herself in such high esteem. She seems to imagine herself not only a global citizen but also a member of the European (Italian) royalty which created the enlightened new political correctness. So Trump, for her, is a special insult. Her cultured fragilities have been doubly offended … more so than your ordinary couch feminist . She works and thinks ( and looks) more like a seductress than a journalist. More movie star than interviewer. She is the haircut the ABC wants for itself. However she may struggle to keep that under thirty ragamuffin look for much longer … as age settles her precocious bigotry into its rightful place.
Drain the ABC swamp!
And get rid of the anorexic Alberici. See here trying to negotiate a big steak on her program about Trump; she sat there playing with it around the edges then eating a carrot!! All the traits of the anorexic. And an intellectual one.
I do not begrudge Ms Alberici her toxic and jaundiced views about the President elect – that is the matter of personal choice and she is as entitled to the freedom of opinion as anyone else.
However, since she expresses these views on the Australian Government funded ABC, these views cease to be her own and become an opinion of the people and the Government of Australia.
That is entirely different matter, which concerns all of us. Being insulting and obnoxious towards the President of our most important ally as a private citizen is one thing. To be intentionally insulting and obnoxious towards Me Trump in her official capacity as a spokesperson of the publicly funded ABC is quite another. Implying that some parasites are more popular than Mr.Trump, Ms Alberici just might succeed in her attempts to be personally insulting and toxic at the delicate time, when Australian Government establishing a working relationship with the new American President. I am sure Americans and Australians are aware of the concept of freedom of expression and media independence. I was of the opinion , however, that this freedom does not extend to an intentional emission of bodily gases in polite company. You see, it does, somewhat, spoil an atmosphere in which this conversation takes place.
I thought the programme was a hoot. Here was Italo/feminist anorexic Alberici trailing her pussy around America in the hope someone would grab it.
Eeeeew. I just saw Alberici looking indifferently at the half-sized cow lying on her plate, playing with the food and never eating it. I’ve seen it all before in people who have eating disorders. Sad for her.
Get set for more Trumpian policy changes and ‘tone-downs’ on the fly (so to speak).
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/trump-ditching-reporters-is-a-terrifying-red-flag-w450900?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=111716_16
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-fury-and-failure-of-donald-trump-w444943
I don’t doubt it. But, as Paul Kelly says today, “Trump is not a conservative. He is a radical nationalist, protectionist and reactionary”.
I’d put my money on Paul Kelly any day of the week.
And Trump is dumping policy faster than the crew of an airliner can dump its fuel after a Mayday call. Which must be a tad demoralising for all those out there in the rust and bible belts of America who voted for him.
As I’ve said before, Trump will do what is in the best interests of Trump. Nothing more.
Alberici’s Foreign Correspondent special on their ABC is only one – albeit a particularly disgraceful – example of the the avalanche of programs and articles disgorged by the “progressive” media machine, both here and in the USA. The defining theme of everything they produce is the attitude that Trump’s victory is simply an unfortunate aberration, totally at odds with reality and contradictory to the good common sense of the vast majority of reasonable people all over the world. They appear to endeavour to speak to, and on behalf of that assumed, imaginary audience, reassuring them that they are not alone in their distress. I’m sure many do feel better for it. Or perhaps not?
Perhaps discovering that some parasites are more popular than Donald Trump has given her and all at her ABC a fresh burst of self confidence.
LOL.
Elegant and funny!
I must admit that I avoid and do not listen to the village idiot/s in my neighborhood as they have nothing to say that I need to hear. I place the ABC political stooges in the same category so the only disturbing news I hear is how much taxpayers funds are handed over to this crowd of circle jerks ( I think that is the new terminology). Hopefully one day in the near future we will have a minister/government/parliament that will bring this traitorous organisation to heel.