MELBOURNE, VIC. — Rita Panahi firstly claims in her op-ed that “a new poll revealed the majority of Australians believe One Nation is ready to govern.” This poll was removed by 6 News, but remains on Sky and Murdoch print newspapers are using the inaccurate poll as ‘the gospel truth’. It isn’t.
“The poll was taken from 38% of voters who indicated they already intended to vote ONP—and WITHIN that group, just 50% think the party is ready to govern now. 6News’ AusPoll6 quietly deleted its version with no correction,” Dr Tracey Westerman AM stated on Facebook.
“No, 50% of people do not believe One Nation is “ready to govern now”, despite what you may have seen thanks to a poorly interpreted — yet widely shared — poll by YouGov on Sky News yesterday.
“As pointed out by psephologist Kevin Bonham, the data was first misleadingly presented in an online article by Sky. As more clearly shown in the video broadcast, the “ready to govern” question was only asked to the 38% of people who were already considering voting for One Nation, which is much less impressive, no matter which way you dice it,” Crikey reported.
“Hanson understands that most of the media, whether taxpayer-funded or not, are not her friends,” Panahi’s op-ed continues.
Journalists are not supposed to be friends with those in power. The media, ‘the fourth estate’, is meant to hold power to account, not get “all Mr (or Mrs) Matey” with them. That is the entire point of journalism in a democracy in the first place: to hold power to account. Perhaps Panahi missed that subject at journalism school, too?
Panahi is clearly an agent of power. Not people. Not those she claims to support with her ‘journalism’. Panahi is an agent of Rupert Murdoch and his whims, not the people, despite her ongoing attempts to disguise such. As such, Panahi is an agent of power, not the people she claims to represent in her fiery op-eds for the Herald Sun.
“Facing a hostile audience, Hanson articulated her party’s vision for Australia … ” Panahi reports. It is supposed to be a hostile environment where political journalists ask politicians and those in power questions that they do not wish to answer. Again, Panahi needs to go back to journalism school and start again.
“Barnaby Joyce also condemned the stunt: “It’s so dangerous when you think about it, they got in there and managed to rig up a sign and had the capacity to lower it. What if it was a bomb?” Panahi repeats. It wasn’t a bomb, not even a flare. A screen, like a projector screen, came down.
Whilst annoying, sure, and someone, somehow, rigged it all up, Panahi here is helping Joyce to conflate a harmless banner coming down, a political stunt, sure, with “a bomb”?
Panahi, whilst cheering on Hanson, never mentions that she is a dual American-Australian citizen, is a Shia Muslim and was born in Iran. Her parents fled to the USA. They later arrived in Australia as refugees.
That’s right, folks, Rita Panahi is a Shia Muslim whose parents were granted refugee status in Australia. She now spruiks her racist crapola about Muslims in most of her often racist and anti-immigration op-eds, whilst never closing that she herself arrived in Australia as a refugee.
If Rita Panahi truly stood by her words and those of Hanson, whom she supports, then she should move back to Iran or America and prove her point. Or, ya know, actually do journalism.
Clearly, Panahi is an activist for the far-right, Hanson, Advance, the IPA, neo-Nazis, Monica Smit, Bec Freedom and Rupert Murdoch’s whims. She is not a journalist by any definition of the term. She’s an agent of provocation and racism on behalf of Rupert Murdoch.
Strange for a Muslim refugee from Iran, via the USA, ain’t it?
Maybe if Pauline does win, we can campaign to have Panahi on the first plane back to her homeland?
