Captain Carlton, the AFL mascot accused of causing an "anti-semitic furore" when he "stormed out" of a bat mitzvah after learning he would be performing for Zionists, lays out what actually happened for @osmanfaruqi.bsky.social and @scottmitchell.bsky.social in Lamestream:

There is some smart analysis in the UK and US Guardians on Mamdani but here we get takes from guys who spend their careers trying to elect our version of Cuomo.

Exclusive from me: The mascot Carlton fired for alleged anti-Semitic comments and “storming” out of a bar mitzvah breaks his silence to share his version of events. Shockingly, but unsurprisingly, the Herald Sun didn’t speak to him before writing their story. www.lamestream.com.au/exclusive-ca...

The latest edition of @osmanfaruqi.bsky.social and @scottmitchell.bsky.social's Lamestream is a cracker. As progressive parties around the world are handed more and more platforms, Australia's Greens could learn a great deal by listening in:

Not for the first time, Australia's biggest, self-declared progressive news organisation re-writes independent media coverage of a story and pretends like they are the first too it. The Guardian is actually third to the story on Hedges and the NPC (after Lamestream and NPC) but doesn't mention that!

Exclusive: Correspondence obtained by Lamestream show the National Press Club confirmed Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges as a speaker, before cancelling him because was “in favour” of Palestine. www.lamestream.com.au/exclusive-na...

This is a bizarre thing to publish on the day the federal court awarded a journalist $220,000 for being unfairly dismissed from an on-air role for their political views. In Australia it isn't just private companies that cave to pressure, it's the public broadcaster www.smh.com.au/national/why...

A less than ideal family tree

The people running the once quite good and important newspapers in this country are absolutely taking the piss. The worst columnist in the country doing a completely incoherent interview with a seemingly self-published author who isn’t sure what she believes in www.smh.com.au/national/peo...

i don't think Australian journalists are aware of how deep we are into The New Stupid. They certainly aren't equipped to deal with it. They are being asked to parse hieroglyphics at breakneck speed when they're modes of thinking are stuck somewhere around 2012.

"Meanjin’s performance and sustainability were the focus of a review commissioned by MUP. Its report, delivered a month before the publisher’s controversial axing of the 85-year-old journal ... did not include closing Meanjin." —@nickfeik.bsky.social www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/16/m...

It’s ridiculous framing for a question the paper then uses as a proxy for support for AUKUS generally.

Incredible stuff here from the Nine papers to combine “I don’t have strong feelings but I accept the fact we have purchased these submarines” with “support”.

I agree, the far-right doxing tens of thousands of people who didn't respond to Kirk's death the way they wanted is exactly the same as... the ACLU maintaining a glossary on extremists. Maybe the worst, bad-faith take on the Kirk stuff published in Aus yet www.smh.com.au/world/north-...

Really odd to me that over the past 5 days the far-right, aided by the Murdoch media, have launched harassment campaigns against prominent Australians for their comments on Kirk and the “progressive” media… just isn’t reporting it? We discuss in our latest pod podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/l...

I found the original Cheek Media most to be incoherent and very weird, but a federal politician being bullied by the far-right into unliking an Instagram post, and putting a media release out about it, is a grim reflection on who controls discourse and culture right now.

Ezra Klein using Kirk’s death to celebrate some imaginary version of liberalism that only exists in his head… as the US right is using it to further entrench fascism and obliterate anyone who doesn’t echo Trump’s views on Kirk and what lead to his death… Insane.

"mainstream media called them 'anti-immigration' rallies...even though the speakers' lists were littered with people using white supremacist talking points". Journalists may be worse on racism today than when Pauline Hanson emerged, says @scottmitchell.bsky.social. shows.acast.com/lamestream/e...

This week's episodes of Lamestream is packed with great media analysis, as always, but bravo to @osmanfaruqi.bsky.social discussing the state of arts journalism in this country - and outlining why blogs and substacks aren't necessarily the answer to fill the gap. open.spotify.com/episode/003u...

Great story by Izzy Lewis about the travel TikToker vs. “news influencer” controversy that raises some interesting questions about journalism and social media www.lamestream.com.au/the-afghanis...

The "85% of Indian Australians vote for Labor" figure obviously absurd, and you need to question the rationale of a pollster going on a stream hosted by two prominent anti-immigration activists to share it. www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

Very odd that progressive think tanks that champion transparency don’t disclose all their donations — including big ones by billionaires. Seems like a dumb own goal www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Extremely funny watching the press gallery try to write about Indian Australians but being unable to avoid a whole “who are the these peculiar creatures from this strange minority that I have never interacted with before” vibe.

For a political and media establishment that wouldn’t shut the fuck up about social cohesion for the past two years, there’s not been much commentary on Zionists shouting “Go back to Lakemba” at Bondi. In fact, both Teal and Liberal MPs have instead attacked those who were the victims of the abuse.

Allegra Spender describes the pro-Palestine event in Bondi as “provocative” and says she wishes it was held elsewhere. Also unable to explicitly condemn the racist language used by pro-Israel protestors.

Breathtaking stuff from Zoe Daniel in The Guardian, accusing the Greens of promoting the hate and division that fuelled the far-right.

This is a good piece! People need to understand that a news influencer’s desire to create content that boosts them in the algorithm (even they are “dunking” on the far-right) can also have the consequence of just… boosting neo-Nazis. There was plenty of that in the lead up to March for Aus.

The government and public institutions, along with traditional media companies, have totally abandoned arts journalism. Surely there some non-Zionist arts patrons who understand the importance of this stuff. Get in touch!! Would love to make arts and culture the next pillar of what we are building!

Yesterday Jacinta Price, in very underreported comments, accused the Greens of supporting genocide against Israelis. But this morning every news outlet just carries her absurd, inflammatory lines about immigration? The whole media ecosystem is just a flywheel for this stuff, amplifying garbage.

New podcast on my experience covering the March for Australia on the ground, how the media fuelled the protests, and the political reaction: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/l...

More MPs yes! Fixed terms yes! Longer terms boo! www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

The Nazis are going to steamroll Australia imho. We have a media environment unequipped to do anything other than amplify their views, a federal government that either enacts their policies or creates the conditions for their success, and a liberal populace who think eating dumplings is anti-racist.

It’s pretty funny one of the ABC’s most senior journalists, who wrote the only “analysis” on the March for Aus the broadcaster has published, clearly wrote it before the rallies actually took place. Scratch funny, it’s actually bizarre. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

What is a “multicultural person”?

This is laughable from the ABC. The only “analysis” published so far on the March — 90% handwringing about Bob Katter vs a journalist, then these completely pathetic paragraphs at the end.

It would be a massive mistake for progressive folk to convince themselves the March for Australia was a bust, or can safely be ridiculed. It was an alarming escalation of far-right action, and we need to reckon with it. More thoughts (un-paywalled) here: www.lamestream.com.au/how-mainstre...

Genius policing here. Ended up with both groups metres away from each other in front of parliament.

Basically what’s going: Police are using the vast majority of their resources to block and disrupt the left-wing counter protest. Meanwhile the March for Australia are running around wherever they want, to Parliament, the State Library, all over Elizabeth St.

Because of the weird police strategy, the far-right protest peeled off onto Elizabeth St and bypassed the counter protest — as a result I don’t think the counter protestors really saw how many were at March for Aus. It definitely wasn’t tiny.

Cops totally fumbled whatever they thought they were doing in Melbourne. Hundreds of riot cops at the counter-protest, far-right protest basically wandered wherever they wanted, could see the moment police panicked. There’s just thousands of protestors everywhere.

Every single publicised arson attack on a synagogue has now been linked to criminal gangs and/or Iran. You’d imagine this would be front page news, considering how the media has sought to blame pro-Palestine protestors for two years. But it’s nowhere. www.lamestream.com.au/the-media-bl...

Exclusive: Hundreds of previously unreported Facebook posts, Telegram messages + Instagram comments show how Dezi Freeman openly fantasised about killing and torturing police officers in years leading up to the alleged Porepunkah police shooting www.crikey.com.au/20...

The media blamed pro-Palestine protestors for a spate of high-profile anti-semitic attacks. How many of those are now attributed to hired criminals, with no connection to the protest movement? Just about all of them. Great stuff from @osmanfaruqi.bsky.social www.lamestream.com.au/the-media-bl...

Everything the pro-Israel media think the pro-Palestine movement is (racist, extremist, building up violent hate) is actually happening with the anti-migrant “March for Australia” but with a fraction of the outrage.

The Greens are having a blinder post-election hey. Condemning Snoop Dogg and wholesale endorsement of the anti-terror regime. Albanese is the luckiest PM since Howard.

The incredibly muted political response to sovereign citizens being responsible for the murder of four police officers in 12 months is remarkable. The police / spook / political / media extremist framework is clearly only designed to be deployed against Islamic extremism, any other form breaks it.

I imagine ASIO will probably get less questions on this than they otherwise would have thanks to their big announcement today.

On today’s podcast, we discussed the media’s (terrible) coverage of the far-right and the “March for Australia” and looked at why journalists are so reluctant to call out Israel’s obvious foreign interference into Australian politics.

Hamas never congratulated Albanese. This was a manufactured story published The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that has been debunked. But the damage is done - it’s now the basis for a diplomatic assault from Netanyahu against Albanese.

At some point the now constant flooding across the east coast should be a political story? But the climate wars are allegedly over, the Teals are too busy being Zionists who want to cut tax, and the Greens are just like… AWOL.