Andrew Bolt

Andrew Bolt (born 26 September 1959) is an Australian newspaper columnist and conservative pundit. Bolt is a columnist and associate editor of the Melbourne-based "Herald Sun". He also writes for Brisbane's "Sunday Mail", and regularly appears on the Nine Network's "Today" programme and the weekly Australian Broadcasting Corporation panel programme, "Insiders" as well as Melbourne station 3AW. In 2005, Bolt released his first book, "The Best of Andrew Bolt - Still Not Sorry". [cite book | author=Andrew Bolt | title=Still Not Sorry: The Best of Andrew Bolt | year= 2005 | id=ISBN 1-921116-02-1 | publisher= News Custom Publishing ]

Background

Born to newly-arrived Dutch migrants, Bolt spent his childhood in remote rural areas such as Tarcoola, while his father worked as a schoolteacher and principal. After graduating from secondary school, Bolt travelled and worked overseas before returning to Australia and completing a year of university studies. He quit after obtaining a cadetship at "The Age", a Melbourne broadsheet newspaper.

He worked for "The Age" in various roles, including as a sports writer, prior to joining "The Herald", which in 1990 merged with "The Sun News-Pictorial" to form the "Herald Sun". Bolt also worked as a political advisor to members of the Australian Labor Party.

He is married to Sally Morrell, a fellow "Herald Sun" columnist. They have three young children.

The "Herald Sun" asserts that "Andrew Bolt is now Australia's most read and talked about columnist" [cite web | url=http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun | title=Herald Sun homepage] . His blog (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/) exceeded one million hits for the month of July 2008 [cite web | url=http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24109727-25717,00.html | title=One million blogging warnings to a lazy media | publisher="Herald sun" | author=Andrew Bolt] .

Controversy and criticism

* Bolt often supports economically liberal and socially right wing conservative views. His statements have often been seen as controversial; he says that his columns are well researched and based on fact, rather than popular opinion. He is sceptical of the hypothesis of a racially motivated Stolen Generation of Australian Aborigines, argues that the dangers of global warming have been greatly exaggerated, and supported the Iraq War in 2003.

* Bolt became involved in a heated dispute with David Marr following the 21 July 2003 episode of "Media Watch" in which Marr claimed that Bolt's column "A Kick Up The Arts" (2 June 2003) had unfairly represented author Alison Broinowski. Bolt had claimed Broinowski, a recipient of three taxpayer-funded arts grants, had written a book saying the 2002 Bali bombing "was largely Australia's fault". Marr said Bolt had misquoted the author, who had in fact written that "racist bigots in Malaysia" thought Australia deserved the Bali bombing, and that he had also erred on the number of grants Broinowski had received. (Marr later retracted the second accusation). In a bitter exchange aired through both the "Herald Sun" and "Media Watch", Bolt demanded Marr apologise for lying about him, while Marr countered that Bolt liked dishing out criticism, but could not take it himself. [http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s906782.htm] . Bolt frequently accuses the ABC, "The Sydney Morning Herald", "The Age" and some other newspapers of strong left-wing bias. [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/and_here_is_the_news_from_the_abc/]

* In June 2003 Bolt published an article criticising Andrew Wilkie in which he quoted from a classified intelligence document written by Wilkie as an intelligence analyst for the Office of National Assessments. It was claimed, but never proven, that someone in Alexander Downer's office had leaked the document to Bolt. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/bolt-from-blue-sets-tongues-wagging/2006/03/24/1143083983213.html] The Australian Federal Police says it doesn't have any "admissible evidence" to identify the culprit. [http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1766227.htm]

* Bolt accused journalists of "passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists" in their coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, especially claims that wrote an Israeli missile had been fired through the roof of a Lebanese Red Cross ambulance. [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_not_the_whole_truth/] He cited photographic evidence from media coverage to argue that the initial reports were clearly false, noting an essay [http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/] at the Zombietime website "whose research I've drawn on". He followed up with posts on his blog, including a detailed rebuttal [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/sticking_by_the_hoax/] to two stories criticising him in "The Australian", an independent debunking of the "hoax" by an Australian military source [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_ambulance_hoax_why_no_missile_could_have_done_this/] and a detailed analysis of contradictions in newspaper reports. [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/fake_but_true_the_age_defends_the_holey_ambulance_hoax/]

* Bolt also denounces the state Labor government of Victoria (led by Premier John Brumby) for its refusal to dam the Mitchell River, which is prone to serious floods, or re-direct rivers to deal with the on-going water shortage crisis. He commonly refers to those who espouse left-wing and green ideas (university students in particular) as victims of "groupthink". Bolt is a relentless critic of broadcaster and journalist Phillip Adams. He sometimes writes of his liking for cycling and poffertjes.

* Bolt has frequently clashed with Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at La Trobe University, notably about the Stolen Generation. Bolt claims that there were no large-scale removals of children "for purely racist reasons". After Bolt challenged Manne to "name just 10" children stolen for racial reasons, [http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,19610693-25717,00.html] Manne gave him a list of 12 names which, Bolt contends, includes children rescued from sexual abuse and removed for other humanitarian reasons. [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/stolen_generations_my_writers_festival_speech/] Manne has recently argued that Bolt's failure to address the wealth of documentary and anecdotal evidence demonstrating the existence of the Stolen Generation amounts to a clear case of historical denialism [http://www.theage.com.au/news/robert-manne/the-cruelty-of-denial/2006/09/08/1157222325367.html] . Bolt has noted multiple incidents of contemporary Aboriginal children being left "in grave danger that we would not tolerate for children of any other race because we are so terrified of the 'stolen generations' myth." [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/another_stolen_life/]

* Bolt argues that taxpayer-funded arts grants, particularly in Victoria, are in spent on "festivals for the wealthy elite," and funding for left-wing writers. He denounces the Greens, claiming that they preach "Gaia worship" and has drawn parallels between the anti-humanism of Greens and Nazism. ["Hitler: Green guru", Herald Sun, 17 July 2003, page 21] ["Dangerous fanatic", Herald Sun, 27 October 2003, page 19] He is highly critical of Global Warming and climate change proponents such as Tim Flannery. Bolt has also been extremely critical of the Earth Hour environmental event which was promoted by another newspaper, the "Sydney Morning Herald".

* In 2006, when the Greek National Football Team came to play Australia in a friendly match at the MCG, Bolt wrote an article in the Herald Sun claiming that the people of Greek heritage who supported the Greek team and brought Greek flags to the game were unAustralian. This claim was rejected by Greek-Australians as being plainly ridiculous, and they accused Bolt of bigotryFact|date=August 2008. These comments also were not welcomed by other Australians of foreign heritage Fact|date=August 2008.

Defamation case

In 2002, Magistrate Jelena Popovic was awarded $246,000 damages for defamation after suing Bolt and the publishers of the "Herald Sun" over a 13 December 2000 column in which he claimed she had "hugged two drug traffickers she let walk free". Popovic contended she had in fact shaken their hands to congratulate them on having completed a rehabilitation program. The jury found that the article was not true, that it was not a faithful and accurate record of judicial proceedings and that it was not fair comment on a matter of public interest. It found that the column had, however, been reasonable and not malicious. [ [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2002/220.html Popovic v Herald & Weekly Times Limited & Anor (No. 2) [2002 VSC 220] , 6 June 2002] Bolt emerged from the Supreme Court after the jury verdict, insisting his column had been accurate and that the mixed verdict was a victory for free speech.

His statement outside the court was harshly criticised by Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno, who later overturned the jury's decision, ruling that Bolt had not acted reasonably because he did not seek a response from Ms Popovic before writing the article and, in evidence given during the trial, showed he did not care whether or not the article was defamatory. Justice Bongiorno included $25,000 punitive damages in his award against Bolt and the newspaper for both the "misleading" and "disingenuous" comments he had made outside court and the newspaper's reporting of the jury's decision. The Court of Appeal later reversed the $25,000 punitive damages, though it upheld the defamation finding, describing Bolt's conduct as "at worst, dishonest and misleading and at best, grossly careless." [ [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2003/161.html Herald & Weekly Times Ltd & Bolt v Popovic [2003 VSCA 161] , 21 November 2003]

On-line forum

In May 2005, Bolt established an on-line forum in which readers could offer comments, feedback and questions in response to his columns. He posted some of these comments, together with brief responses, in the late afternoon of every business day, on the "Herald Sun" website. (The forum does not appear in print.) Despite its low-budget format, the forum was a pioneering experiment in Internet-aided "interactive journalism".

Bolt's forum changed to a more conventional blog format in July 2006. The blog covers a wide variety of topics, including climate change, Australian politics, the ABC and issues concerned with multiculturalism and Islam. Comments are open and do not require registration, but are moderated to remove defamation of third parties, obscenities and so on. Bolt states that abusive commenters will be banned, but opposing voices will not.

References

External links

* [http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/columnist/0,,25717,00.html Andrew Bolt's Herald Sun site.]
* [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/ Andrew Bolt's Blog]
* [http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2003/161.html?query=%5e+%20%28%28andrew+bolt%29+and+%28on%29%29 Transcript of the Bolt/ Popovic Case]
* [http://www.ipa.org.au/files/review56-2.pdf June 2004 Interview with Bolt by the Institute of Public Affairs]