October 30, 2009 – 2:24 pm
Last Tuesday was the official opening of the new Age building in Melbourne’s Docklands. Can you imagine what a big occasion this would have been for the city if it had taken place a decade ago? Most of us old farts can remember when anything concerning The Age mattered in Melbourne. The opening of its [...]
October 28, 2009 – 4:48 pm
I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle from ABC Managing Director Mark Scott’s lecture two weeks ago to say this, but the dust doesn’t seem to want to lie down.
So I will say it anyway. I think we have missed the main point.
Sure, the attack on Emperor Rupert was entertaining and an easy headline, [...]
October 28, 2009 – 2:10 pm
Would be Fairfax Board member and former Australian Financial Review editor Gerard Noonan has written an elegant piece for Inside Story on why he is attempting mission impossible in seeking election.
He opens with an amusing Conrad Black anecdote, and has the nice line:
Unlike what Conrad Black thought, I’m not simply a campaigning journalist out to [...]
October 28, 2009 – 1:34 pm
It has become apparent that the Australian Press Council is at a critical moment in its history. Yesterday I interviewed its incoming chair, social activist and reforming lawyer Julian Disney.
Disney was guarded, as befits a man who does not yet have his feet under the desk. Yet it is clear that he has been sought [...]
October 26, 2009 – 1:31 pm
Good on Ken McKinnon. As I have reported in the Crikey email today, the departing chair of the Australian Press Council has used his final Annual Report to tell it like it is, giving the industry a serve for falling short of its own ethical standards and for demonstrating a lack of commitment to industry [...]
October 25, 2009 – 10:13 pm
An article on Technorati’s regular analysis of the blogosphere suggests that it is time to rethink what we mean by the term. The income figures for some bloggers are breathtaking. The lesson seems to be that some bloggers make their money by using the prominence and kudos that blogging brings them for other purposes.
October 24, 2009 – 8:55 am
Late last week, News Limited’s Director of Corporate Affairs responded with a cross email to my Crikey story about ABC journalists writing free of charge for The Punch. I responded to him, and placed the correspondence on this blog here.
Yesterday afternoon, Baxter wrote again. Here is his email, with my response below.
Hi Margaret,
I don’t care [...]
October 23, 2009 – 2:48 pm
The Australian Press Council is to have a new Chairman – social activist and reforming lawyer Julian Disney.
Disney, described by The Bulletin a few years ago as one of Australia’s 100 smartest people, takes up his position in January, after the incumbent, Professor Ken McKinnon, steps down.
Disney, with his reputation for championing social justice, [...]
October 23, 2009 – 2:02 pm
Found among the online responses to the (London) Daily Telegraph’s leader on the Vatican’s new offer to Anglicans:
Let us look to some facts. Anglicans are devided into two blogs. This happens first. Secondly a part of Anglicans go to Rome and ask for a solution. The Pope noticed this and [...]
October 23, 2009 – 1:18 pm
Followers of this blog will have heard about the Foundation for Public Interest Journalism, which was recently founded within the Institute of Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology. I am the Chair.
A few months ago we appointed an impressive board of journalists, publishers, new media innovators and community representatives. Today, we are announcing three [...]
