No comment

The thought of anonymity makes Andrew (57) nervous. "As an intern you can easily ask for help, but as a journalist, I feel I should be constantly dog whistling to attract attention" 

Mastering life on the Right is just one more of life’s hurdles for Andrew. His story is incredible. 

Andrew was born in Singleton and grew up in a housing commission place in Stockton. His white mother struggled with five children and life was difficult at best. When he was 15, Andrew left home and put himself through the rest of high school, the only child in his family to do so. He didn’t get a great finishing mark - struggling to get his facts right at exam time - but when a friend suggested he pretend to be a white middle class male he agreed and was encouraged to start blogging. When people actually read his inflammatory copy, Andrew says “I nearly fell out of bed.” 

Andrew was admitted to journalism after pretending to be part of the old boys program. He went to Southbank from 8am until 9am and then worked on radio until 9.30 am to make ends meet. In his first year he became engaged and had to cope with learning opera as well.
Andrew is now deciding between climate change denialism or racial profiling as his specialty.

(No comment for legal reasons)

Why can't I be free to speak?

I am the son of journalist parents who came to Australia the year before I was born.

For a long time, I have felt like an outsider here, not least because my family moved around so very often.

You know how it is when you feel you don’t fit in. You look for other identities, other groups, like climate change deniers, to give you a sense of belonging, and perhaps some status.

So for a while I considered myself a Journalist, and even worked for a newspaper.

Later I realised how affected that was, and how I was borrowing a group identity rather than asserting my own. Andrew Clot’s.

So I chose to refer to myself as a defender of  free speech, as one of the many on the Right who claim that any criticism or inconvenient fact checking of our claims is an attack on our freedom of speech.

Yet even now I fret about how my free speech is being silenced here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

So that’s the background to the calamity that hit me yesterday.

That’s why I believe we can choose and even renounce facts, because I have done that myself.

No politics

No politics until further notice. Principles to selectively weigh up. Petulance to maintain. Self-righteousness to keep. Sorry..

UPDATE

After discussions, I now feel free to slander without reference to accuracy. So I shall. In tomorrow’s column. I apologise for the conceit, but I wanted to feign indignation before matters had been resolved. I had to be churlish with my employer and to my readers, and I apologise if you think I’ve had the balance wrong over the past 10 years.

Thank you to everyone who has telegraphed, rung, faxed, offered their children or commented on this post, here and on radio.

 

Blog readers laundry

A new series: the laundry of typical readers of my blog.

Adrian has a bit of work ahead of him.

LeftRightOut forgets his basket.

Beryl has a lovely basket.

 

Views from the windows of my blog readers

Views from typical blog readers:

Reader Alison looks out her window.

Reader James lines up for Lord Monckton's public address.

Reader Tim takes a break from reading my blog.

The view today of my blog reader

A new series: what typical readers of my blog have seen through their window.

Today it’s reader David.

Goodbye - for the week

That's it for The Clot Factor - well for a week. So while my critics continue to try to silence me, in this case I'm on holidays, returning on Monday 13th June.

In the mean time the comments section is open to allow your usual racist, bigoted and inflammatory discussions to find a home.

I’d love to believe it, but the credit is all theirs

Peter Brent is furious:

Recently, someone told me that a friend of theirs had heard their daughter's kindegarten teacher say that a Labor “insider” had told them that rightwing journalist, blogger and broadcaster Andrew Clot was “not worth two cents”.

He’s right to say this is wrong. I’m not a journalist at all.

 

How to Write a Blog - Lesson 1

Many readers have asked me how I write my blog:

How do you do it? How do you explain to people what they want to hear?

Here are some simple rules.

1 . The Headline. 

This is the most important part of any post. Readers should rarely look past the story title before commenting.

Some examples of good headlines: “Govt steals more of your money”, “If it's science, where's the evidence?”,  “War on middle class welfare”, "Another boatload of welfare recipients".

Other examples are anything with "Tim Flannery" or "Al Gore" in the headline.

2. Provide links.

It doesn't matter where the link goes. For example, I like to link to previous posts as evidence to support the current post.

3. Simplicity.

When writing about complex problems only present a tiny piece of the puzzle. This is sufficient to draw your wide ranging conclusion.

4. Inference is more important than relevance.

 Is something cooling? Did a warmist catch a plane? Or use electricity? Is it raining in Melbourne again?

More lessons next week...

Attacking my right to free speech

My critics continue to try and silence me:

Thursday, May 12, 2011
Blogger will be in read-only mode while we resolve some maintenance issues.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted at 12:34 PDT

Friday, May 13, 2011
Blogger is back now.
Posted at 10:32 PDT

 

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Trial of a New Blog Format

In response to a flood of reader suggestions, tomorrow, for one day, I will trial a brand new approach to my blog.

I will publish only a story title without any content.

Nearly all my readers have told me that they have little need to read past the headline before commenting on the story. So in response to this demand, and after judging tomorrows trial, this format may become a regular feature of my blog.

Never let it be said I don't give my readers what they want !