On Wednesday evenings TV news the big story was President Elect Barrack Obama. I saw Prime Minister Kevin Rudd being interviewed and offering his congratulations to Barack Obama. I heard him say.
“25 years ago Martin Luther King dreamed of an America where men and women will be judged not on the colour of their skin but on the content of their character,” the Prime Minister declared.
“Today what America has done is turn that dream into a reality.”
Now any student of history or in fact an Agmates reader on that day would have known that it was in fact 45 years ago. But when I read it in the Australian the next day, this is how it was quoted: -
“45 years ago Martin Luther King….”
So I thought oh I must have misheard it. But on the Crikey web site today (no link as its in the paid subcriber section). Crikey’s Bernard keane points out:
“If you google “Martin Luther King Rudd Obama” “and you can see that “25″ appears to have originally been used by The Age and The Australian, but click through to the actual stories either 45 is used or the quote is omitted.”
But a number of overseas media including the UK Telegraph and ABS/CBN that one assumes the Prime Ministers minders can’t influence have the PM as saying 25 years, which is what he actually said.
As Bernard Keane points out its not a major issue, just a slip of the tongue, by the PM. It is however concerning that the Australia’s mainstream newspapers would change what he actually said or leave it out all together. I would have thought their role as ‘independent media’ is to report the news as it happened. But apparently not in all cases.
But I guess following hot on the heals of the PM’s embarrassing George Bush G-20 ‘porky’ he hardly needs to be ‘off side’ with the new president elect – even before he gets to the White House. As Bernard Keane points out.
“But given Barack Obama wouldn’t have been overly impressed by an Australian Prime Minister who appeared not to know the basics about the man who was, until Wednesday, the most important African-American political figure in US history, a little hasty editing probably spared some blushes.”
Its a little sad when our main straem media has to start rewriting stories to ‘protect’ our Prime Minister’s international reputation.
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