Sting that smells wrong
Questions abound in Al Jazeera’s investigation
CONGRATULATION S to Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern broadcaster owned by Qatar. Its plan to smash One Nation has succeeded.
The party will be shattered by the film Al Jazeera secretly shot of One Nation’s Queensland leader, Steve Dickson groping a stripper and discussing the sexual performance of Asian women he’d slept with.
In fact, to make sure of it, someone in Al Jazeera gave that footage to Channel 9 at no charge, to run on Tuesday on A Current Affair.
Bingo! Dickson, a grub, has now quit in shame and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been left looking a dupe, just when her party has slumped to only 4 per cent in Newspoll. No wonder she cried on TV.
That polling slump was in part because of Al Jazeera’s previous effort, secretly filming Dickson and One Nation adviser James Ashby asking America’s National Rifle Association for advice.
But Al Jazeera’s cunning editing of that footage – then screened on the ABC – made Dickson and Ashby seem to be asking the NRA for money.
Just why the Muslimowned Al Jazeera wanted the Muslim-hostile One Nation destroyed can only be guessed at.
But that it set out to destroy One Nation seems unarguable, given the amazing resources and time it devoted to nailing a small political party on the other side of the world.
Al Jazeera decided nearly four years ago to investigate One Nation and without
knowing if it had done anything wrong.
It got lawyers in three countries to help set up a fake gun lobby group, Gun Rights Australia, and hired a local, Rodger Muller, to run it with the help of a paid assistant.
It also flew Muller to London and the US for training in guns and hidden cameras and then ordered him to get close to Hanson, using his cover as a gun nut.
Al Jazeera producer Peter Charley said the investigation started with a hunch that proved false – that One Nation had links to America’s National Rifle Association.
“I decided to determine whether One Nation and NRA had in fact connected at that point. They hadn’t, as it turned out.”
So Al Jazeera decided to create the links that weren’t there. Instead of just reporting the news, it manufactured it.
It got Muller to tell Hanson he could introduce her to his NRA contacts. She refused to go with him to the US, but Ashby and Dixon did.
They were the mugs who were secretly filmed talking of what they’d do if the NRA ever gave One Nation money.
But they never actually asked the NRA for that money (nor got any). Don’t believe all the reporters this week lazily claiming the opposite. Just watch – carefully – the Al Jazeera report the ABC screened.
All you’ll see is Ashby asking the NRA for tips on campaigning techniques.
But Al Jazeera spliced in footage of Dickson asking for donations during a separate meeting with representatives of the billionaire Koch brothers, who subsidise free market causes.
Dickson is filmed there discussing climate change, not guns.
That was the footage Al Jazeera shared with the grateful ABC last month, generating false headlines such as “One Nation Secretly Filmed Asking NRA For Funding”.
A Current Affair repeated that false claim on Tuesday, as did reporters in a heated press conference with Hanson. Did none of them actually watch the film?
All this was damaging enough. But Rodger Muller had also gone with Dickson to that Washington strip club, taking his secret cameras. Why?
That is the footage Al Jazeera handed to Channel 9 and at no cost, as A Current Affair said twice on Tuesday.
Al Jazeera spent a fortune to get that footage and then gave it free to another station? How does that compute?
And note the timing: just before the election, when Dickson was running as One Nation’s second Senate candidate in Queensland. Maximum damage done.
Al Jazeera has since said the tape – two hours of it – was given to A Current Affair without its permission.
But how interesting that it was given to a reporter, Dan Nolan, who has himself worked for Al Jazeera and said “it was leaked to us from Al Jazeera”. Either way, Al Jazeera’s role is extraordinary. It created a false lobby group, manufactured the news and for years lied and spied – even followed a One Nation official into a strip club.
That cannot have been only about journalism. Something stinks and not just Steve Dickson’s morals.
AL JAZEERA SPENT A FORTUNE TO GET THAT FOOTAGE AND THEN GAVE IT FREE TO ANOTHER STATION? HOW DOES THAT COMPUTE?
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