When the truth is never as simple as Black and white

Kevin Murray writes: Taking Guy Rundle’s point about Stan Grant as a seasoned media performer in “Stan Grant affair: progressives get a wake-up call, others hit the snooze button”, I think we should credit him the smarts for his send-off on his final Q+A. Looking for maximum impact, he intuited that we were looking for some ubuntu moment, whereby the victim becomes a unifying force. Yindyamarra deserves to become part of our vocabulary as a political circuit-breaker. It has the same potential as Gandhi’s satyagraha or, dare I say, Christ’s turning the other cheek.

I certainly took issue with Grant’s grandstanding against China, but it did show that he could read the room.

It’s almost impossible to imagine yindyamarra as a social media meme. But that may be the point. It’s about saying the word in someone’s face. I hope it becomes part of our political theatre, building on Anthony Albanese’s “gratitude”.

John Millard writes: Guy Rundle’s piece could only be written, I feel, by a white guy.  I appreciate that it is truly hard or perhaps impossible for us white guys to ever go close to walking in the shoes of a Black guy like Grant or his people. It is far easier to pretend that we can and write as if we know what we are talking about.

John Lyons writes: Rundle is right. I am still voting Yes.

Rob Addington writes: I’m not a fan of Stan Grant and it has nothing to do with his heritage. It is his long-winded opinions on anything and everything that end up being about him. I’m also not a fan of Andrew Bolt, Paul Murray, David Speers, Peta Credlin and others for a variety of reasons — but mainly because I disagree with their approach to issues. Guy Rundle has explained why I feel this way and I thank him for that. (And his revelations on Patricia Karvelas are truly fascinating.)

Andrew Dunn writes: Rundle is simply brilliant. (Will we see a reinvented Stan Grant appear from the ashes now — similar to Karvelas’s new persona?)

Hildegard Matulin writes: A voice of reason at last. Both Stan Grant and the ABC had questions to answer. Both are supposed to present both sides of an argument. Grant as an ABC employee should present unbiased facts. 

I was going to vote Yes for the Voice, but now I am unsure. I am over the fact that we are supposed to feel guilty for the past and colonisation. History shows that when countries were invaded the inhabitants were mainly annihilated or made slaves — not a nice fact, but we can’t change it.

My parents were made to leave their country of birth and migrated to Australia. It wasn’t easy and they weren’t welcomed by the locals, but they survived.  I think the Indigenous peoples were treated very badly and many atrocious things were perpetrated. But I am beginning to wonder if one can trust those at the top. Even Indigenous people are not agreeing, so I am totally confused.

Keith Lister writes: I read Rundle’s article right through to the end. Aced it.

Dominic Quigley writes: Guy Rundle has got it right and Christopher Warren (“The ABC doesn’t need News Corp — News Corp needs the ABC”) has got it wrong. I was relieved and pleased to see Crikey present such opposing views on the ABC and the Stan Grant resignation on the same page.  How refreshing to have that sort of balance.  

I am not about to defend The Australian as I don’t read it, and I will not enter the debate about racism and the media. However, I am deeply disillusioned with what the ABC does these days because it is so trite, heavy-handed and so obviously tokenistic in the way it tries to deliver a more inclusive and representative view of our diverse society. Its intentions are commendable but its delivery is a failure. 

Stuart Littlemore and David Salter summed up the problems at our national broadcaster accurately in their recent article. There are so many examples of conflicted editorial decisions in news and current affairs, so many appalling mistakes, so much inept and vacuous news reporting. The elevated status of many of its “senior” journalists that makes them the story is exactly what the commercial media have been doing for years. That was once anathema to the ABC. This is one of the reasons we now have the Stan Grant affair. The editorialising by many of its journalists is so blatant that they have clearly lost the ability to make the distinction between news and opinion. 

As a tertiary-educated, inner-city “boomer” of the left (a member of a significant ABC demographic) I once exclusively tuned into ABC radio and television as my primary source of news, current affairs and entertainment.  These days that rarely happens. I am one of the thousands who have drifted away in disillusionment and disappointment at the self-indulgence and self-reinforcing agenda of a “fake left” that has an embarrassing disregard for what really matters to so many Australian families who are struggling with the realities of living in a very unequal society.