The Boredom Killing Business

There’s nothing that current affairs television likes more than a good stoush, particularly if its a debate between polar opposites over issues touching on religion and culture. For producers, it’s easy: Just bring the warring parties into the studio, light touch paper and stand well back.SBS Insight showed how it Read more…

Speed Quills

One memorable image from the media’s coverage of politics in recent months was from Sky News during the Labor leadership challenge. Comperes David Speers and Kieran Gilbert were gassing speculatively with their guest panel, whilst frantically scanning the incoming tweets on their mobile phones – seeing who would get the Read more…

The Futures Market

With news now an easily accessible commodity and the power of social media robbing journalists of their former monopoly in analysing events in real-time, newspapers increasingly are in the forecasting business. In other words, they no longer are journals of record, but of prophecy. It’s an understandable trend, given yesterday’s Read more…

His Master’s Voice

Along with the rest of the media, The Australian completely failed to prosecute the case against the putative government during the election campaign about their dodgy election costings. Yet the Murdoch machine winds up its fearless media editor Geoff Elliott today to assemble some carefully selected quotes from “senior media Read more…