Comment on change of editors at the AJN

By Les Rosenblatt on the Galus Australis site:
http://tinyurl.com/m5km9d

Les Rosenblatt says:
September 16, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I expect australia’s small Jewish community mainly based in melbourne and Sydney will continue to look to the AJN for its social reflection in all the photos of well-groomed would-be noticeables at various fund-raisers, openings, etc.
It will also read with more or less interest the odd bit of coverage of scandal in the courts, stresses in the jewish education system, the latest on Jewish births, deaths, marriages, and Australian/Jewish political system/personages interaction.
In other words, standard ethnic community newspaper fare – tabloidish, parochial commercial, social, cultural and sporting material.
Where the AJN has been remarkably disappointing is in its hard-faced denialism of complexities of Jewish identity, religious belief, and political diversity amongst Australian Jews with particular reference to the contradictions and complexities of Jewish nationalism in relation to global and middle-east (including Israeli-Palestine conflict) issue engagement.
It was sadly evident that the sportingly fair-minded (to the extent that a former sports editor turned AJN editor could continue to be so) Ashley Browne would run up against the Jerusalem Post-loving owner of the AJN who would be happy to see the Likud/Irgun/Labour militarist orthodoxy of Israel embraced as the pre-eminent beacon of security for Jews nervous about their place in the world.
Absolutely no need to even admit to any alternative possibilities. Simply give AIJAC its weekly column, extract large slabs of copy from the Jerusalem Post, publish press releases from the Israeli embassy,and showcase Michael Danby as local hero. The rest is spam or real estate.
Ashley did allow a variety of opinions in his letters columns and did at least try to be reasonably inclusive of the not too controversially border-line article. But it was not going to wash with the owner and his command of his property.
I predict the new editor will last perhaps 18 months and be a bit like the Jonathan Shier effect in the ABC during the Howard years – a dull flash in the same tarnished pan.

Les Rosenblatt.