Shortly after I started, the printing press was closed and that magic became a memory, a period of time I was lucky to experience in an industry that has been in flux since.

But when I was lucky enough to get to stay around and watch the paper get put to bed, you would also get the benefit of learning from the salty news dogs who’d spent decades in journalism and learnt some universal truths.

They were usually on the night shift because they were no longer fit for human consumption, but also because they’d spot the errors others wouldn’t even know to look for (like an ad for funerals on the same page as a horror car smash or a story on air mattresses across from a sky-diving accident) and if they liked you, they’d tell you how little your university degree had taught you.

That was where I was told about “whinge and win”. It’s not specific to journalism, and it’s also known as being the loudest voice in the room.

Whinge and win is how the bullies, the incompetent and the plain annoying seem to always get their way. It’s easier to give in than to stand and fight, because the whinging winners have enough audacity to outlast all but the most staunch.

It’s how issues that aren’t issues end up dominating everyone’s agenda. How the worst people you know seem to always have victories, reinforcing their delusions the world is there to bend to them.

Because the flip side of whinge and win is suffering in silence. Which is what most people do, because the fight seems so overwhelming.

Watching the fallout over the BBC Panorama Trump documentary and the attempt by some Liberal senators to apply those issues to the ABC brought the issue of whinge and win front of mind this week.

At the same time as the Liberals are tearing themselves apart over the whinge and win Nationals strategy, Victorian senator Sarah Henderson used the BBC fallout to prosecute her own case against the ABC.

Henderson wants a parliamentary inquiry into what she sees as the ABC’s failings, which she says includes a bias against conservatives.

This is not a new argument. There has never been a time when the ABC has not been accused of bias. As the national broadcaster, it’s held to much higher standards than other media outlets and people feel personally invested in both the broadcaster and its content.

Because of that personal connection, the risk of feeling disappointed or let down by something it has produced is higher. ABC staff know this and are often told that the honour of working for the national broadcaster comes with responsibilities, including not having personal public opinions.

Ideological enemies of the ABC know this and use it to attack the broadcaster in its entirety. Sometimes this is valid. Often it’s not.

But given which voices usually end up disappearing from the ABC (hint – it’s not conservatives), the idea that the ABC is biased against conservatives is not only demonstrably untrue, it’s an argument that has been used so often it’s lost all meaning.

It keeps coming up because it works. Conservative governments have long found populist capital in attacking public services, and the national broadcaster has been one of their most rewarding hunting grounds.

It can become easier to just not hear from the progressive voices that trigger conservative attacks – and so the debate becomes narrower overall. Media in Australia tends to be more conservative than the population it serves anyway, and News Corp has always been ideologically opposed to a national broadcaster (for being a taxpayer-funded “competitor”), and so it’s very easy to take conservative claims of bias and turn it into a culture war.

Whinge and win. And they do.

But watching the madness of the latest issue of Liberal Party self-destruction on Wednesday, you have to wonder why anyone would still be listening.

That, in itself, is a form of self-flagellation, but also conditioning built over the past 30 years of conservative cultural dominance. The Liberals have proven time and time and time again they are out of step with Australians. The base they appeal to and act on behalf of is not the one deciding future elections.

So as we enter this next round of whinge and win, it might be worth remembering that while the loudest voices usually get the cookie, they are rarely the majority. Whinge and win works only if you listen. Something those doing the whinging rarely do.