Mum's the word

What an interesting day in Murdoch land.

The Daily Telegraph took a pretty bizarre decision to run as front page news that Bill Shorten didn't include in his Q&A explanation about his Mum (that she wanted to be a lawyer but to support her kids she became a teacher) enough detail about how she later did go on to study and practice law, although only for 6 years as a barrister.   Unsurprisingly, Shorten had publicly discussed his Mum's late career in law before - it's not as if it is a secret.  

So it was a ridiculous decision to try to make a mountain out of a molehill.  In fact, I'm not even sure that it's a molehill - there's nothing to show Shorten was being deceptive given his mother's career was already a matter on the public record.  

Yet the Tele's opinion editor, James Morrow, who I recently noted has always seemed to want to live up closely to the first part of his "Prick with a fork" nom de plume, turned up on twitter promoting the story.   Tim Blair also noted it on his blog with approval, and hopeless partisan hack and enriched canine admirer Chris Kenny defended the story too. 

On the other side of the Murdoch fence, though, the Herald in Melbourne decided not to run it, and Andrew Bolt has defended that decision.

The overwhelming take on the matter on Twitter that this is a real misfire and is much more likely to help Shorten than hurt him.   

Here's my take:   I wouldn't have thought it's likely to be any sort of key turning point of the campaign - it didn't exactly attack his Mum, even though the headline was ambiguous - but gee it shows what ridiculous editorial judgement pervades the Daily Telegraph.  (And the Courier Mail too, apparently.)

As a semi-gotcha, it might at most have been worth appearing as a small part of some opinion hack's mid section column - and it is the sort of useless rubbish that Tim Blair now excels at in his blog.

But when even Andrew Bolt can see that putting it as the front page lead story is wrong - well, as I say, it's a weird day in Murdoch land.

Update:  I see that Shorten has elaborated on his Mum's legal career, indicating that the late start did affect it:

Mr Shorten elaborated that while his mother had eventually studied law, she was a victim of age discrimination - despite her academic record, no law firm hired her to complete her articles and when she did join the bar, she only received about nine briefs.

"It was actually a bit dispiriting," he said.

Update 2:   since I first wrote the post, I have re-read what Shorten said on Q&A, and realised he had made it very clear she did study and practice law.   (When I first posted, I was going by memory of part of what he had said.)   I have therefore amended the post.

It just makes the Daily Telegraph's story, and all who defend it, look pretty idiotic.

Update 3:  jeez, I was right the first time - I thought I was reading transcript of the Q&A show when it was an interview or talk he gave somewhere else.  Now that I'm sure I have read the right transcript, I see that he didn't go on to say on Q&A that his Mum had gone on to study and try being a barrister in her 50's - after a career in teaching that had not been her first preference.