Rex in the City

It was satisfying indeed to see Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul Sheehan get a walloping at the hands of Media Watch last night.

For those who missed it Sheehan a few years back did a Good Weekend piece on the properties of some Miracle Water, that had supposed remarkable curative effects. The story was picked up by A Current Affair who gave Paul Sheenan a big rap.

“The article's author, journalist Paul Sheehan, isn't the type to pedal a miracle cure, but he's proof that something curious is happening when this Unique Water — as it is marketed — is consumed.”

So if Paul Sheehan says it. It must be true.

The Media Watch crew discovered that another SMH writer Ben Hills was getting ready to publish an article debunking the water, and therefore potentially embarrassing Sheehan, but the article’s publication has been held up. Delayed, so that Sheehan can get a word in first, before he gets painted in a bad light: Allowing Sheehan to publish a spoiler.

It is telling that Sheehan. The Author of The Electronic Whorehouse a book deeply critical of the supposedly partisan views of left leaning journalists, particularly in his own Fairfax stable, is now needing Fairfax to cover for him. To stop him looking a fool.

I wasted my money some years back on a copy of Sheehan’s book. I expected to get an insight into how the media promoted the positions of the power elite. Instead we got a standard join-the-dots criticism of all the left-of-centre journalists, that we’ve heard a million times before. There was no attempt at balance. No mention of Albrectson, Ackerman, Bolt , but big swipes at Marr and Ramsay and so on.

Sheehan positions himself as a deep thinker, but he’s standing in the shallow end with his super-soaker telling all the other kids to stop splashing. He sees him self as above the fray but he’s not above shoddy, shonky and biased behaviour.

A nice line of Max Such’s sums it up.

“In fact the noise of all these opinions, including Sheehan's, may be the reason there is growing disillusion among readers with the quality press and an increasing reliance on the internet for alternative information sources”

That's right Mr Sheehan. Leave the ill-informed opinion to those of us best under-qualified to give it.