Alan Jones has taken the ABC’s Media Watch to task over a hatchet job on him that aired last night.

The program, which claims to be “Australia’s leading forum for media analysis and critique” regularly targets Macquarie Radio.

This time it insinuated Alan’s pre-election interviews with Clive Palmer were only aired because the billionaire was preferencing the Liberal Party.

Footage from ABC Media Watch

The show sent Alan a request for comment in advance and received a lengthy and detailed reply by its specified deadline.

But all they saw fit to show viewers was 12 words from the final paragraph.

“None of that was presented in the program last night about me. It was as if I’d just ignored the whole thing,” says Alan.

“This is what gets the ABC into trouble because none of that was revealed to the viewing audience. Virtually none of it.”

Host Paul Barry said Alan’s full statement was on the Media Watch website but they buried it at the very bottom of the full written transcript.

Alan says the show and its host need to be held to account for its consistent bias, under the guise of journalism.

“Who is Media-Watching Media Watch in their total distortion of the truth and their abuse of journalism?

“The grub who is in charge should be dismissed.”

Click PLAY below to hear Alan’s comments in full

Like all of the ABC, Media Watch is funded by taxpayers.

The once-a-week, 15-minute program has nine staff members listed on its website.

That’s more than Alan Jones has, as he broadcasts 17.5 hours of radio every week.

Alan’s full response to Media Watch
27 May 2019

MediaWatch up to its old tricks. Where would MediaWatch be without Alan Jones!

However, inresponse to your e-mail let me make the following points. If the programme is to be fair, which it rarely is, though I can’t confess to watching it (cynicism was never a long suit of mine) it can offer the following on my behalf.

You sent an email 2.09 pm Friday to 2GB and Channel Nine. It may surprise you to know that, given I’ve been up since 2.30am, I’m not in receipt of business e-mails at 2.09pm. Nor do I check e-mails from Friday until I come off air on Monday.

I now note the e-mail re Clive Palmer. There are some points of agreement.

I was scathing of Clive Palmer in 2016. In fact I went to Townsville to address the workers, at my own cost.

But if you cared to listen to my interviews with him, I raised this issue again. I think I talked about “clearing the decks”. I have checked correspondence between Palmer and the liquidator in relation to moneys owed. I made the point about taxpayers’ money and I thought Palmer answered the question about liability in a way which indicated that the responsibility for payment may not have been his. I asked also about third-party payments and cited examples. The answers are there for anyone to hear.

But I was in receipt of continuing correspondence about what he was saying in those ads. I believe the substance of what he was saying was consistent with public concerns about the Labor
Party’s policies. My “supportive comments” were based on his prosecution of those points.

Unlike MediaWatch, I don’t believe people are wholly bad or wholly wrong. I am still corresponding with Mr Palmer to seek answers on the Coolum issue but on the detail of the advertising, his views were consistent with many in the electorate and he proved a significant force in educating the electorate about the difficulties that lay ahead under a Shorten Government.

Of course MediaWatch can’t avoid the cynical. Obviously you have your noses out of joint because some of your Labor mates didn’t prevail. Hence this latest communication with me. But you can
check with Mr Palmer and anyone else. My interviewing of him had nothing to do with preferences, though he made it quite plain that his whole role in this advertising campaign was to prevent Mr Shorten from forming government.

As to the reason for interviewing Mr Palmer, I offer the usual response to MediaWatch. Mind your own business.

But the reason is consistent with everything we do, designed to better inform the public. Unlike MediaWatch we offer all sides of the argument.

Perhaps you can offer this answer to your e-mail. As requested the answer will be delivered by 10am.

Yours sincerely,
Alan Jones AO