Is it lonely up there in your ivory tower?

Ever a source of unintended  comic relief, the Border Mail’s Bradley Worrall ran this jibing flurry of rabbit punches trussed up as an opinion piece (right).

Thanks to Alpine Opinion’s Ray Dixon for bringing it to my attention.

Taking a general swipe at the “Border’s blog authors” (sic.) Brad has demonstrated his inimitable capacity to be so wide of the point it defies belief.

So in the context of an unidentified subject, the rest of the piece is unquantified, unsubstantiated drivel.

It’s as baseless and absurd as having a go at “most taxi drivers” or “most school teachers” or “most green eyed bricklayers working in outer Mongolia” in fact any broad unquantified, unsubstantiated generalisation.

It’s just utter tripe.

It’s not journalism, it’s an out-of-touch goose having a whinge.

But I digress. Let’s take a look at Mr Worrall’s track record on some of the points he raises shall we?

Some of you may remember, a while ago I ran a piece on another site (the now defunct Wodonga Online Times) about Wodonga Mayor Rodney Wangman’s (and two other unnamed Wodonga councillors) plan to run a “slab” of candidates (ie stooges) and fill all seven seats on Wodonga council with pro-development members using preferences directed from that “slab” of stooge candidates.

Since the original was removed I’ll block quote the text of the article;

Wangman’s secret plan to stack Wodonga city council.

Wodonga Mayor Rodney Wangman (pictured above) has spoken privately
about his plans to stack Wodonga city council by running a “slab” of
candidates in the upcoming election in November.

The source who wishes to remain anonymous revealed that Wangman is at
the head of a co-ordinated move to see an unprecedented number of
candidates run for election in the hope of occupying all seven council
seats with candidates sympathetic to council development plans.

The plan intends to use the premeditated strategy to concentrate votes
using the preferencing system as well as minimising informal voting
by spreading out the number of votes over a larger number of
candidates.

“The plan is a deliberate and calculated effort to manipulate the
democratic process and ensure that only one point of view is
represented in council” the source said.

While my source is certainly reliable, as a matter of principle I refused to divulge said source as I believe it would not be in their best interests to do so.

It strikes me as curious that Bradley would complain that “Rarely do they seek the comments of those they seek to slander”. Suerly he wouldn’t demean someone else for a shortcoming he himself was routinely guilty of…would he?

Touche Brad, in researching the article you wrote in response to that story did YOU contact the editor of Wodonga Online Times? His contact details were plastered all over the website it seems a glaring omission.

You obviously spoke to Rodney Wangman but it seems you weren’t interested in getting the inside scoop on the other side of the story. Why IS that Brad?

I think if we dig a little deeper we’ll find the true root of the problem, I think people like Brad Worrall are of the opinion that public information is the exclusive domain of “real” journalists, you know, the ones that take home a cheque signed by Rupert Murdoch (or in Brad’s case David Kirk, CEO of Fairfax) to print the stories HE wants to see every week.

Dissemination of public information on a decentralised basis!! How will we ever regulate that?

How do we make sure people read the news and opinions WE want them to read and not become discerning enough to source their own information?

They’ll be thinking for themselves next.

I think we see the “problem” do we not?