Snarky left-wing email newsletter writer, Bernard Keane, a former Canberra public servant with no experience in professional journalism beyond a burst as an anono-blogger ‘Skeletor’ on a website that was later the subject of court proceedings before being unceremoniously closed, has entangled himself in a nasty spat this afternoon following a typically error-filled rant that was published in left-wing email newsletter crikey today.
Keane, without checking his facts in a way prescribed under the frequently-ignored ethics rules that govern Australian journalists, falsely accused News Limited’s Samantha Maiden of writing an attack on beloved lefty-artiste Cate Blanchett, who once attended the much-lamented 2020 summit of then PM Rudd, and, more recently, agreed to participate in a series of advertisements encouraging the little people to suck up the carbon tax because it’s good for them.
The hard-hitting “Iron†Maiden was having none of it and rightly took the grouchy little grub Keane to task on Twitter this afternoon.
Turns out Samantha didn’t write the story, it was written by promising Sydney journalist Brenden Hilles. This is obvious to anyone capable of using Google with which the elderly and retired public servant Keane appears to struggle. This is the original story.
Keane’s confusion, no more than could be expected from a curmudgeon of his age and occasionally poor health, arose from the fact that in some of the six Sunday publications for which Maiden writes some fused a story she wrote on Tony Abbott’s blockbuster performance at the Victorian Liberal State Council with the mean-piece on “Carbon Cate.†The story, as is the custom, was then jointly by-lined.
Keane liberally uses hair-dye but can’t stand the Tories or anyone who disses any of his favoured left-wing artistes…
For anyone familiar with how newspapers work, not a fate likely to befall the retired public servant and hair-dye-aficionado Keane any time soon, this is not an incident of great moment. It happens all the time.
One phone call or email from Keane to Maiden or to one of her editors would have cleared this up for the old bloke. But he didn’t bother. It’s the kind of lazy omission that would normally get a cultural foe of the Left drawn and quartered on the left-wing email newsletter or on Media Watch or both.
When called on his errorism by the feisty and very pregnant Maiden, Keane and a few otherwise idle pesky pterodactyls from his lefty email newsletter collective flew in, went dino-crazy and argued that she must have written it if it had her by-line on it.
Not necessarily so, as the by-line on this page amply demonstrates.
VEXNEWS (Archive) 
Landeryou, you are a tool.
“When called on his errorism by the feisty and very pregnant Maiden, Keane and a few otherwise idle pesky pterodactyls from his lefty email newsletter collective flew in, went dino-crazy and argued that she must have written it if it had her by-line on it.”
Matter of fact, Keane’s Twitter feed is entirely silent on the subject.
I note that Gerard Henderson has the same kind of erroneous anus in his segment entitled “Guardian-on-the-Yarra omits Carbon Cate criticism”:
http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/issue-97/
Henderson’s confusion, no more than could be expected from a curmudgeon of his age and occasionally poor health, arose from the fact that in some of the six Sunday publications for which Maiden writes some fused a story she wrote on Tony Abbott’s blockbuster performance at the Victorian Liberal State Council with the mean-piece on “Carbon Cate.†The story, as is the custom, was then jointly by-lined.
By-lines: How do they work?
Keane’s dignified silence, as asserted by William Bowe, the exception who proves the rule of Crikey mediocrity, is somewhat undermined by the troop of flying monkeys that swooped in to attack Samantha after she quite reasonably pointed out the error.
Keane – and at least some his flying monkeys – would almost certainly have known what we know which is that Maiden is very, very pregnant and could probably have been reasonably spared the aggravation at this time in her life.
No doubt, we’ll see the left-wing newsletter pump out articles soon on journalistic integrity, failure to fact-check and bullying soon.
They’ll have their own sins and omissions as real-life examples to cite.
We used heavy language to convey the magnitude of Keane’s error, egregiously compounded by the flying-monkeys associated with Crikey who attacked Samantha on Twitter. Andrew Crook seems to have been the principal offender and to quote George W Bush, he’ll be hearing from us real soon.
http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xc3714Flying Monkeys Attack! by overtherainbow333
yes, I can smell it from here.
Let’s hope Samantha’s child is not as vacuous or as precious as her.
He sounds a lot like you, Landy!
I’ve made bernard laugh a few times via twitter. If he is as curmudeonly as you suggestion, I’m doing a public service by being humorous.
It seems strange that Maiden can get so upset about this but feels no remorse when she does write misleading articles about other people.
If her name was used in a byline then I, and most of the readers, would accept that Maiden had agreed with the article.
Maiden works for a NewsLimited tabloid – enough said.
“Maiden is very, very pregnant and could probably have been reasonably spared the aggravation at this time in her life.”
Should she be temporarily withdrawn from public commentary like Elisabeth Murdoch perhaps?
Incidentally, in addition to Henderson making the same mistake in using the byline, there are versions of the article published with Maiden’s byline but no mention whatsoever of the Melbourne Liberal conference.
Perhaps your hyperbolic invective isn’t justified for the ‘crime’ of assuming a byline was connected in some way to authorship.
The error could have been easily avoided with one tweet, phone call, email or even using Google. What happened after Keane’s error was pointed out was the troubling part. Bullying is the only word for it.
The fact is it’s not just Dame Elisabeth who has expressed views that sound like the government’s on climate change. We’ve linked to speeches by both James Murdoh and Rupert Murdoch that could have been written by a Greg Combet speech-writer.
Interesting that the News Corp chairman gets so little credit for not interfering in the editorial direction of his newspapers on this issue. They just want to be on the side of their readers who worry about higher power prices and the rest.
Our invective – while coming straight from the Hyperbowl – was much deserved in this case. We stand by it, down to the last ‘flying monkey’.
Peace out.
I think Bernard Keane is quite a good writer, certainly better than the average crikey contributor.
He doesn’t appear to spend his evenings visiting conspiracy websites and also seems to have a good grasp of economics.
Bernard Keane has almost single headedly killed of Crikeys bi-partisan readership.
It is now read regularly only by the extreme left wing and some other political types who are unaware that Crikey has died. Seriously, Crikey is like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ where visitors are unaware that the host has died.
Its relevance no longer exists as it does not provide balanced perspective.
Crikey is an outstanding example of how poorly the Left understand the Australian body politic, and often how economically illiterate they are, regularly defending a Keynesian propensity to tax big, spend even bigger, and see Canberra controlling everything.
Crikey often indulges in the Left/Green climate Armaggedon scenario, and has at various times insisted that the Eastern Australian coast would never see rain, the Murray Darling would dry up, Europe would never see snow again, and that the East Anglia climate group were terribly misunderstood, and all that nonsense about falsifying data, and refusing freedom of information requests was just a Fox News beat up.
Keane is exhibit A, followed closely by that Left darling, sighing for a return to the glory days in Bulgaria and Havanna, Guy Rundle.
“email newsletter writer” … let me see pot calling kettle, come in kettle, can you hear me?
Sam Maiden was the whale he barked at latham “Are you faithful, Mr Latham? Do you believe in fidelity?”
Ever heard her moan that to Howard, or Abbott? And where is the buck’s night vid Sam? Still waiting for that – after all, you told us it existed.
I;m also not sure she pregas, I reckon she’s just obese.
@Eric, wow, how witty and original. As mentioned before, crikey is no longer essential reading fro any political observer. It is dead. And @Wendy, your real name would not happen to be Belinda Neil would it? Very typical of the angry left wing, they cross every line and go to any depths. I would tell you both to go back to Crikey, but it sounds like you know it is dead in the water as well.
Pedro: you are so right again! You cannot be Pedro Georgiou. He is left, not right. If it wasn’t for his genuine concern about human rights, he would be a total waste of space.