All-time low for Australia’s press

This is especially dismaying as Gillard herself alerted them in a doorstop that ‘The story that's on the front page of The Australian newspaper today is completely untrue.’

Did any of them think to read the story again and check? It seems not. They all went yapping away like stupid puppies chasing a diseased hare.

When Ms Gillard challenged the veracity of the story virtually all reporters jumped to the foolish conclusion that she was denying that Bob Carr had been offered the job.

Why would they assume this? The approach to Mr Carr was not the subject of Wednesday’s front page. That had been established the day before. No-one had disputed it.

Wednesday’s story was this: ‘Ms Gillard's attempt to assert her authority and create a ‘circuit-breaker’ from all the bad news surrounding the leadership challenge has now been undermined as senior ministers and factional leaders veto her actions.’

Despite being totally false it spawned countless follow-ups, virtually all of them repeating the essential falsehood. About 190 stories are accessible here. Many of them labelled the PM a liar for insisting the story was false.

All major news outlets are culpable. ABC’s News Radio had Shanahan crowing about his scoop on Wednesday. ABC ‘journalist’ Steve Chase asked none of the glaringly obvious forensic questions about the reliability of Shanahan’s ‘information’. 

In the Fairfax media Michelle Grattan reached a career low with her piece ‘Failed Carr overture fuels Abbott attack on PM’.

First up, in what sense is an Opposition attacking a Government news? Since long before Grattan was a cadet this has been unpaid political advertising.

She then proceeded to make several baseless statements: ‘Gillard's authority has taken a fresh knock’, ‘aborted discussions with former New South Wales premier Bob Carr’, ‘Joel Fitzgibbon tipped to return to the ministry’, ‘the proposal was dropped in a telephone call to Mr Carr from the Deputy Prime Minister’ and ‘Mr Smith is now favourite for the foreign affairs job’.

The prize for amplifying the fabrication, however, again goes to Murdoch’s Andrew Bolt. ‘Julia Gillard yesterday panicked and appears to have muddied the truth about a stupid bid to recruit former premier Bob Carr,’ he wrote in one of several error-riddled pieces. A ‘serial liar’ he called her in another.

For Mr Bolt to question anyone’s handling of the truth is hilarious. He has learned nothing, it seems, from the hiding he copped from a Federal Court judge last year who in a racial discrimination action found Bolt to have made 20 factual errors – in just two articles.