I have just been sent the following by the Chair of the Australian Press Council, Julian Disney. It is the detail of his agreement with News Limited CEO John Hartigan about the audit of editorial expenses to be conducted in Australia. It allows for independent oversight, but on first glance seems to me to be [...]

Margaret Simons on the State of Journalism from Des Ryan on Vimeo.

I am in my hometown, Adelaide, at the moment. Last night I was given a strong martini by my old friend, Des Ryan, who edits that city’s InDaily website. Then he told me that there were no free drinks, and I had to be interviewed for InDaily in return for the excellent martini. Here is [...]

Greens leader Bob Brown is about to call a media conference at which he will announce a push for a comprehensive Senate Committee inquiry into media regulation in the wake of the News of the World scandal in the United Kingdom. In a briefing paper distributed earlier today, the Greens say that while there have [...]

13 July, 2011 Dear Colleague, As disturbing events continue to unfold in London I believe it is important to keep you up to date with our position in Australia. Some media outlets, certain commentators and some politicians have attempted to connect the behaviour in the UK with News Limited’s conduct in Australia. This is offensive [...]

Earlier today I mentioned that I had posed some questions about the new Herald and Weekly Times policy, and how it sat with the News Limited Code that has been the subject of all the dust ups over the last few days.

I have received the following from Genevieve Brammal, the HWT’s Corporate Communications Director.

In an alternative universe, the little dust up I have been having with News Limited over the last few days would have taken a different course. Imagine if it had been this way. After I wrote this article in the Crikey email, News Limited’s spokespeople might have said something like this: “We dispute your claim [...]

Fresh developments in the stoush with News Limited. See the Crikey email for the news, but in the interests of completeness, here is the latest correspondence. Also, The Australian’s media diarist Caroline Overington has taken a shot. Not much there worthy or response, but I’ll write a bit more about that here later today. From [...]

Earlier today, I got a couple of emails from News Limited spin doctor Greg Baxter in response to this story in Crikey today. To read Baxter in full, see this earlier post. What follows below are my responses, interspersed with his comments Margaret, you have misrepresented me badly in your item today for Crikey. I [...]

If you are coming in late on this, you might want to read the previous few posts. I wrote in the Crikey email on Friday that few News Limited journos have read, or even know about, the company’s code of professional conduct, which CEO John Hartigan described, in the wake of the News of the World Scandal, as being at the heart of how News Limited journalists work.

As a result I got some correspondence from News Limited spin doctor Greg Baxter saying, basically, that it wasn’t so. As a result I put out a call to News Limited journos past and present, asking for their experiences. You will find some of the results up until this morning in previous posts and on the comment threads. Here is a selection of the latest material, following another story summarising all this in the Crikey email today.

From James Hunter of Metford, New South Wales:

Reading the email from Greg Baxter  contained  in your Crikey article today; one thing that amazed me was his use of “Ect.ect.” How any organisation can progress someone to the position of “Director Corporate Affairs” whose command of the  English language is such that  within a serious piece of  communication they either  have to resort to Junior High School  padding or have so little regard for the intellect of the intended recipient that they feel they can get away with it  is beyond my comprehension.

From a former reporter from News Limited Community Newspapers: