The media, especially the modern Western media is among the most evil institutions of all. It seems to be fighting for democracy, accountability, transparency and freedom. However, it is only when one looks beneath its seemingly noble surface that one realises it has a more sinister agenda.
Leigh Sales from 7:30 reports seems like an innocent journalist. She is intelligent in the eyes of some, but biased and cunning in the eyes of others. Her interview with federal opposition leader Tony Abbott which won her a coverted Walkley Award, is perhaps most revealing of her biased agenda to support the government, or who knows what else.
First, she keeps on insisting to Tony Abbott what former CEO of BHP Billiton Marius Kloppers said about capital tax from a source that she does not reveal. What Kloppers says is obviously to protect himself and look after his money and power. Klopper's statement is a biased source and cannot be used alone to give authority about the implications of the capital and mining tax.
Tony Abbott has been smart enough to read a statement of another party who gives an opposing view. It is either that Sales is pushing forward an agenda to destroy Abbott's credibility or that she fails to see how Klopper's statement cannot be used alone. Sales, however, is shrewd enough to know that Klopper's statement cannot be used alone as an authoritative source. So, it can be reasonably inferred that she is attempting to attack Abbott's credibility as a politician.
She even asks Abbott if he has read the judgment. Whether he has read it or not does not matter, as the capital and mining tax are economic issues, not legal issues in this particular context. This is exactly what Abbott should have said. Sales in an arrogant journalist who pretends to know everything, even things she does not know. She has successfully hidden her intention by her sweetly supercilious, plastic smile.
Secondly, she asks Abbott about why he said that asylum seekers are illegal. As a law graduate, he should have explained that they are illegal in the positivist sense in Australia because they bypass the immigration passage designated by the state. This allowed Sales to rudely barge in and expresses her mere opinion that she doesn't think asylum seekers are illegal. She has successfully crafted a straw (wo)man argument that asylum seekers are legal because they are all innocent and legitimate. The whole point of processing asylum seekers is to determine whether they are genuine, legitimate asylum seekers as opposed to fugitives, or worse, terrorists.
Sales assumes her moral high ground when she is of no moral standing. She is a cunning devious journalist who has no place in the ABC.
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