Newscorp revenge campaign
Too many people believe what that read in the media outlets of the same organisation bidding for the rights. Always nice to see pandaram taken to the cleaners
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/news-corp-s-rugby-revenge-campaign-kicks-on-20200309-p548b2
So much for Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany's assurance late last month there were "no hard feelings" towards Rugby Australia for taking its broadcast rights to other bidders.
"The last two cycles of the rugby have gone to market," Delany told The Australian (which also reported the pursuit of rugby’s rights by Amazon and Network Ten).
Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany has never said that Foxtel will not bid for the rugby rights and has studiously avoided confirming any of the “walking away” attributed to him by gormless stablemates. AAP
Seems nobody got the message at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Its "exclusive" by Jamie Pandaram on Thursday (which The Oz also ran online), "Optus to secure Rugby Australia broadcast rights on cut-price deal", was astonishingly wrong in both fact and premise.
"Three weeks after putting their broadcast package to the open market," it claimed, "Rugby Australia has not had a single offer, leaving Optus to snap up the broadcast rights in a new low for the game."
Rugby Australia is running a blind bid process which is yet to close. The governing body is currently engaged with multiple parties in its expressions of interest phase (which was, unremarkably, extended by a week). So no, it "has not had a single offer" because the bidding hasn’t started yet.
"Current broadcast partners (sic) Fox Sports have (sic) not signed RA’s nondisclosure agreements and will not, leaving Optus as the lone digital option…" The logic here is in perfect lockstep with the grammar – it simply doesn’t compute.
Elementary aptitude in the English language is certainly no precondition to employment by inarticulate News Corp tabloids; indeed, it may render a person ineligible. Especially in a newsroom presided over by Ben English, a born deputy. His name’s already ironic, so let’s just call him Ben Bradlee.
A headline in The Sunday Telegraph this week? "Revealed: Suburbs where people are the most happiest." Just. Special.
But returning to Holt Street’s slovenly rugby vendetta and we note The Oz’s oblique aside that "some reporting on the bid had claimed that Foxtel was running a revenge campaign against Rugby Australia". More accurately, some reporting on the bid has noted that News Corp’s publishing assets are running a revenge campaign, a crusade so black of motive and dim-witted in execution that it reads like a thread on HotCopper.
Delany has never said that Foxtel will not bid for the rugby rights and has studiously avoided confirming any of the "walking away" attributed to him by gormless stablemates. Ben Bradlee needs to teach his scribes to read between the lines – right after he learns how to himself.
