I watched Australian Story, on the nurse-whistleblowers who exposed the management-sanctioned career of Patel, the Butcher of Bundaberg.

Hedley Thomas is the Courier-Mail journalist who got onto Patel's trail of past infamies. Thomas choked up a bit when describing the moment he realised the nurses (and others) were right, much more than right, and they were going to pay a high price for their courage.  (It gave me a few moments of thoughtfulness, too.)  And I thought investigative journos were tough guys! It's good to know there are a few still around.

I recommend Juan Cole (Informed Comment) to keep up to date (by the hour with RSS) on the feverish actions by US media to throw a blanket over Iraq. We do not, cannot, will not, get anything like Cole's kind of coverage of the tipping point in our dailies, because, it's, well, you know, not good for the career path, to disturb the status of the consumers paradise.

After all, thousands of full-fee-paying students diverted away from US universities, after 2001, to avoid the marshals. Now, with the reputation of the Oz tertiary education business on the nose in Asia, it's all the more important to project the image of Oz as a place apart from the real world. Now, remind me, which media mogul has a finger in the tertiary education pie? I expect that Hedley Thomas will be fully employed, poking into the entrails of state Labor governments. If someone like him got loose on the quality of information provided to Australians, where would it end up?

The price is $1.20 for a full-page, glorious colour pic of Warne's bum.

TG writes about Hedley Thomas choking up about the Dr Death story. Remember TG, Hedley was on camera. Do you think he would have choked up if not on camera?

How can a top-line journalist write and be objective if he chokes up. To choke up means he is emotional and then that emotion takes over or colours the story. No way, that interference would be picked up by the editor when he was a cadet years ago. Journalists don't feel anything. They just tell you they do because they need to be seen as real people. They have to be credible so people will tell their story to them.

No TG to be a good journalist means you are unemotional and tell about the emotions of other people. How many times have we heard "How do you feel about..." beginning from journalists to the interviewed. Journalists don't feel anything. It is just a story. If they knew how people felt with passion and emotion and tears they would be able to write the story without interviewing anyone.
In a TV interview if the director does not think the interviewer has nodded his head enough in the interview to show agreement those 'nods' are put in later in editing when everyone has gone home.

No TG journalists are not tough guys It is not tough to be without feelings.

Sorry Gus, that you are so sensitive that you have feelings that you are not a journalist. You don't know what you are talking about.

I was once a journalist who actually lived the issues. I left and did better work at the Salvation Army and in Crisis Care.

You are just one of the millions who have been fooled Gus. Journalists don't have feelings. Go back and read my story again as you did not comprehend it. I have been there done that and gave it up and became a carer for the disabled. All journalists do is write stories like Mother Goose.

Hi Len, it never ceases to amaze me how right you think you are and how wrong you think the rest of the world is.

I personally think that if you choose to work for the disabled you should do it from your heart, not so that you can throw it at peoples faces to try to make yourself appear better, more worthy and more special.

You are very angry and very bitter and I feel for you Len.

In the ... what! Daily Tele?? It couldn't be used as soiled linen to brandish at Sydney's Lebanese community, could it?
I predict more of this story from the Murdox, carefully massaged to avoid too much reflection on Howardowner's genuflection at Musharraf. Pakistan is a new-found, nuclear primed, emergently democratic, friend in the  GWoT, and has earned our undying gratitude for providing a safe haven for Usama.

This latest event in the story is all over the world.

Pakistan rape victim wins first appeal TVNZ, New Zealand.

"This is not a case of simple rape, it was an act of terrorism," he said outside the court. "It was meant to create terror and fear in the community."

Here's a firm prediction. If Miranda, or one of the shock-jockettes writes it up, there will not be a re-use of the "terrorism" label, because that would only diminish the sanctity of a prevailing Bushism, dilute our commitment to the cause and play into the hands of the Commies and Greens at the ABC. See 'T' is for 'freedom fighter' at the ABC.

Long Before Woodstein by William Fisher, www.dissidentvoice.org, June 28, 2005.

Paradoxically, the world is today better equipped technologically than ever before to find and disseminate thoughtful, probing news -- but far less motivated to do so. It may be that Internet bloggers -- citizen journalists -- will ultimately provide enough competition to drive a new era of investigative journalism.

From Mark Herold

The Foxification of U.S. - and global – corporate media has a corollary: the Pentagon considers independent (un-embedded) journalism an act of subversion. An investigation by the Paris-based Reporters without Borders has reached the same conclusions. Most covering the war on Iraq remember how the Pentagon intentionally targeted the media-saturated Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, killing a Ukrainian and a Spanish journalist. Four months later, the US Army absolved itself from any possible mistake. In November 2001, U.S. warplanes bombed the Al Jazeera office in Kabul. No apologies ever offered. Both Pakistani and U.S. journalists doing independent reporting outside the Bagram propaganda center were roughed-up by U.S. troops during the Afghan campaign: no apologies ever offered. Laura Logan (CBS) is the type of journalist the Pentagon loves (see photos data base).

“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country”
       - Hitler’s Reich Marschall Herman Goering on April 18, 1946

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