Trust me, I’m the Minister
As SBS makes its final preparations to absorb the National Indigenous TV channel in July, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have to take it on trust they’ll actually get a place on the SBS Board. Expressions of Interest for two Board vacancies close on Friday (11 May) and although the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy have their fingers crossed that good Indigenous candidates will apply, there is no guarantee one will be … Read entire article »
Others in the schoolyard created this radio bully
Sydney radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands shows all the signs of being a classic bully, but it is hard to argue he is an entirely self-made one. For although he’s bright enough to be a successful bully – just bright enough to be dangerous, as the saying goes – he has had considerable help along the road to being a thoroughly unlikable tormentor. One does not need to probe his childhood, ask whether he was picked on … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, General, Journalism, Media, Society
Suffer little children
People in most walks of life suffer moments when they wish they were doing something else. Sometimes it is because they’re bored or they want more money, they are not achieving or their job no longer excites them. And sometimes it is because they are utterly ashamed of the behaviour of others in their particular field of work. In journalism, these moments come more often than in most professions. In the annual Ipsos MORI survey of trustworthy professions … Read entire article »
One man’s meat …
It’s all very well – and probably necessary – to expect the peddlers of hate to bear some responsibility for Saturday’s multiple murders in Pima, Arizona, if only because of the atmosphere of hatred their rantings helped to create. It is too early yet to say what drove 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner to kill or wound 20 people, including a US Congresswoman, a Federal Court judge and a nine-year-old girl. Was it partly the crass ravings … Read entire article »
Filed under: General, Journalism, Media, Society
Cable leaks war on News Corp: Hold the front page!
If the first casualty in war is truth – even a war involving News Corporation – then the second casualty is Vince Cable. Ironically, they were both hit by the same bombshell. The British Government’s Business Secretary is yet another victim of a current outbreak of honesty. Perhaps it’s just his small ‘l’ liberal-democratic naivety or perhaps collateral damage from several months of WikiLeakage – 2010 will forever be known as the Year of WikiLeaks – but Cable … Read entire article »
Don’t try this at home, children
The release by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of confidential US government emails has turned the spotlight on some serious and long-submerged issues about honesty in public life. The US Government and many others mentioned in these supposedly secret emails are genuinely embarrassed and understandably angry that they have been made public. They and their supporters outside government – including sections of the media – say it is impossible to undertake sophisticated modern diplomacy if everything one … Read entire article »
Australia failed to score – so what?
Losing the bid to host the 2022 World Cup may seem like the end of the world to Australian soccer fans, but as the teeth grinding and recriminations slowly fade, the rest of the nation issues a collective sigh of relief. Those uninterested in football – Australia still doesn’t know what to call “the world game” – will be relieved on several fronts. Of course many will tut-tut at the unfairness of the process and the insult … Read entire article »
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Endless war between newsroom and classroom
March 19th, 2012 | 3 Comments
There has long been hostility between media academics and conservative journalists, but the Finkelstein review has opened up a new and bitter war of words between the two camps. Why has it come to this and can they both be wrong? The story so far: Acting on growing complaints and spurred on by the News of the World phone hacking scandal in Britain, an Australian inquiry chaired by former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein recommends, among … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Journalism, Media, Society