Andrew Bolt

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Bolt.
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Pundits
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And a dirty dozen more
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“”...He'd know all about catching out journalists for being dishonest, misleading, grossly careless, or picking them up for having factual errors or selective misrepresentation, or distorting the truth or lacking care and diligence, or being gratuitous, cynical, disrespectful, intimidatory, inflammatory, derisive, and not acting in objective good faith, because Andrew Bolt has been found by the courts to have done all those things himself in his own journalism.
—Shaun Micallef, [1]

Andrew Bolt is an Australian talk radio host, television pundit on Sky News Australia, and columnist for the Melbourne-based Herald Sun and Sunday Mail tabloids. He is, depending on who you ask, a bold and martyred freedom fighter for free speech or a sexist, homophobic, racist, pseudo-intellectual shit-stain on the underpants of society.[2] He attempts to cover scientific issues and usually fails spectacularly.[3] Global warming denial is one of his pet topics,[4] along with his other ramblings on anti-environmentalism. In the wake of the Fukushima meltdown, Bolt displayed the high editorial standards of his employer by reposting an Ann Coulter column on the "health benefits" of radiation and how radiation might be good for Japan![5]

Bolt has received multiple accolades, most notably the 2011 Golden Ernie Award for the most sexist person in Australia, for a column he wrote suggesting that male soldiers would become escorts if women were allowed to serve on the frontline.[6]

He was also the defendant in a racial vilification case (under laws that are seldom exercised in Australia) for whining at length at "pale-skinned Aborigines" who were parleying their partial Aboriginal heritage into affirmative action.[7] He was found liable (not "guilty", as it was not a trial). Despite predictable attempts from all sides to paint this as a defeat for free speech, usually without the slightest clue as to what the facts of the case were, the truth of the matter was that he systematically lied about the careers and personalities of nine "professional Aborigines" unfortunate enough to come to his attention and was called on his falsehoods. Australia's racial vilification laws allow for the expression of racism "in good faith" - that is, speak the truth as you know it in the public interest - and, by lying shamelessly, Bolt had shown he was not acting in good faith.[8] End of story. Afterwards, he received glowing defences from his fellow journalists, including the terms "oxygen thief", "champion of the overdog", and a "self-parodying buffoon" with "delusions of adequacy".[9] These were probably overly generous assessments of his worth as a human being.

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References[edit]

  1. ↑ Shaun Micallef on Andrew Bolt
  2. ↑ Hint: it is the latter.
  3. ↑ As he said in one column, "Many of these issues are over my head, and I was not there in any case."
  4. ↑ Andrew Bolt. "Opposition Leader Bill Shorten getting in over his head on climate change"
  5. ↑ Andrew Bolt. How Bad Are Low Levels of Radiation Really - Herald Sun. March 20, 2011 (retrieved 2015-02-18).
  6. ↑ Andrew Bolt receives Ernie award for 2011 - The Sydney Morning Herald. October 18, 2011 (retrieved 2015-02-18).
  7. ↑ Jeff Turnbull. Aborigines sue columnist Andrew Bolt - The Sydney Morning Herald. March 28, 2011, (retrieved 2015-02-18)
  8. ↑ David Marr. In black and white, Andrew Bolt trifled with the facts - Sydney Morning Herald. September 29, 2011, (retrieved 2015-02-18)
  9. ↑ John Birmingham. How Andrew Bolt should be punished - Sydney Morning Herald. October 4, 2011. (retrieved 2015-02-18)
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