It’s 11pm at a Coffs Harbour sports club. The lone gambler is $400 down and still waiting for the feature. This particular poker machine, The King of the Nile (pictured), is his favourite. When the coveted 15-free-games feature appears – all too infrequently – any winnings are trebled. Even better, Read more…
They squibbed it. Given the chance to tackle News Ltd’s stifling dominance of the metropolitan newspaper market in Australia, the federal government has left ownership issues out of the remit of its independent inquiry into the media.
That was really the only reason for holding an inquiry in the first place. Instead, the inquiry – to be led by former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein – will focus on print media regulation, including online publications, and the operation of the Press Council – a body generally considered to be next to useless. This is akin is calling an inquiry into the liquor licensing board in Capone-era Chicago. Until you tackle the gangsters running the show, the Keystone cops appointed to police the precinct are going to prove plod-like in their pursuit of wrong-doing.
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Hi, I’m Ricky Retire-Safe and welcome to Your Money or Your Life – the program where we reveal what today’s market movements mean for you, your children and your children’s children. And if we scare the shit out of you in the process even better. (more…)
Business institutions so large and powerful that they distort the democratic process; frightened politicians in the pockets of large monopolistic companies; a corrupted and constricted public debate and an ever increasing separation between the actions of those large institutions and the generally agreed standards of public decency: The grim pathology of the global financial crisis comes to mind when watching the beginning of the end of Rupert Murdoch’s malignant global media empire.
The details of the carbon tax are announced this Sunday. All the media are planning special wraparounds and editions. But here’s something we prepared earlier.
Meanwhile, in another media universe… ‘Geo Gina’: Iron Woman Robs Australians Blind The Australian, June 2, 2011 Outrage is growing in the Australian community at the involvement of multi-billionaire Gina Rinehart in campaigns protesting against action on climate change and efforts for citizens to earn a fairer share Read more…
What responsibility do journalists have to tell the truth? If the commercial or ideological interests of their
employers require them to misrepresent an issue or incite conflict or exploit partisanship, what protections are there for the public against that deceit? And if journalists are the professionals they insist they are, what sanctions do they face for breaching the ethics of their trade? (more…)
As people marvel at the immediacy of news via the internet, it is easy to overlook the fact that old fashioned steam radio has been doing this for 70 years or more. The words come out of the announcer’s mouth and they are worming into listeners’ ears in real time. And therein lie the potential problems.
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I don’t recognise this Australia. From where did it hail?
The Australia I have come to admire is one of the world’s wealthiest nations; rich in spirit and resources; a country that takes almost childish pride in its generosity of spirit, its good humour, its open-heartedness and its willingness to look after the underdog. It is the Australia that is always willing to extend a hand to the desperate and the needy. As the second verse of that song they sing at football matches goes, it’s the Australia that says “for those who come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share”.
What is it with the Australian parliamentary press gallery and its obsession with budget deficits? It seems every government initiative is met with questions about what it means for the Labor government’s election campaign pledge (extracted under pressure) to restore the budget to surplus within three years – as if Read more…