The opinions above are my own and I share them proudly with myself... Please forgive the rude expletives but I won't rescind...

 

Yesterday I wrote: "Oh the hypocrisy of Alan Stokes... "I love youse, blah blah..." Sure there must be far more university years in him studying political science (artistic bullshitry) than with me since I have none. But as an old war horse from two revolutions and one military occupation, I know where you can stuff the Judas who is there to do 100 per cent Tony Abbott's Liberal (conservative) bidding under the guise of a love-in..."

 

I made a mistake... It was not two revolutions... It was one military occupation, one coup and one revolution in that order. Though the media was still a branch of whatever propaganda arm then, I never saw such ludicrous crap coming from any world media than from the Australian frontline media at the moment... It shames Frontline... So, I insensitively place(d) the entire profession of journalism in it... Unfortunately, there is far more astute journalists who are not participating in this war against Julia than there are spruikers for Rudd and Abbott — but the quiet ones are too quiet. As I have mentioned before the spruiking lunatics are the one who get the headlines, the column space and the microphones. And the one who do not approve of this, go in their little holes and say nothing, worried that should they say something contrary to the bandwagon, the bandwagon would run over them... Sad. Typical of lynch mobs...

 

I never ever saw a media like it in the entire world... All of course driven by a rabid Mr Murdoch stable, (strategically a bit more quiet in the last few days), now letting other dung beetles do the dirty work... I know good journalists who know Rudd is a dud but can't say any of this, in articles with proofs, otherwise they'll loose their job... Sad. 

 

This morning apparently on Breakfast ABC V, they were quoting a US website that presented Kevin Rudd as the most media attention seeker IN THE WORLD, ahead of of all the celebs... Media tart indeed... Media pancake...

 

GRAHAM LLOYD, The Australian’s environment editor, has fallen foul of the Australian Acoustical Society, who are threatening to complain to Media Watch and the Press Council if their letter responding to Lloyd’s latest anti-wind farm article isn’t published.

This latest of a series of negative articles concerned a recent study by the South Australian Environment Protection Authority. The study found that wind farms do not cause infrasound and sound pollution. Lloyd’s article, however, attacked the study, on a supposedly scientific basis.

In response, the Australian Acoustical Society (AAS) has published an interesting letter on its website. It seems that the experts believe that Lloyd’s article was wrong. It turns out that the EPA study was, in fact, based on good science and Lloyd’s ‘experts’, it seems, the real purveyors of junk science.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/more-hot-wind-from-the-australians-graham-lloyd/

 

For those who don't know who Graham Llyod is, let's say he is an "environmentalist" who seems to be writing stuff on behalf of Uncle Rupe and his coal/nuclear mates...:

Chris Mitchell, defending against the charge that The Australian‘s coverage of climate change is biased, said:

What people do not like is that I publish people such as Bjorn Lomborg. I will continue to do so, but would suggest my environment writer, Graham Lloyd, who is a passionate environmentalist, gets a very good run in the paper.”

Does Lloyd’s reporting provide a counterpoint to Lomborg in The Australian? He’s only just become the environment writer [2010], so there aren’t many stories to go on, but on those his record is similar to that of a predecessor, Matthew Warren.

For example Graham Lloyd’s extraordinarily one-sided story on wind power. Lloyd prints the opinions of twelve critics of wind power along with his own criticism, claiming that wind power is too expensive, is unreliable, is unsightly, is harmful to human health, kills wildlife, destroys communities, reduces real estate values, and causes corruption. Lloyd even claims that it makes birds explode (not true, of course). Lloyd includes comment from just one person on the other side for “balance”, and that’s the same Matthew Warren mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

 

The cherry Lloyd picks to go on top of his story is a sidebar on Danish wind power. According to Lloyd:

a controversial assessment … by Danish think tank the Centre for Political Studies [CEPOS] … gives the lie to claims that Denmark is supplying 20 per cent of its energy needs from wind sources. … Up to half of Denmark’s wind electricity is exported but paid for at high cost by Danish power consumers.

Lloyd tells us that the assessment is “controversial”, but doesn’t tell us why, so I asked Henrik Lund, a professor in the Department of Development and Planning at Aalborg University. He told me that author of the study had admitted that there were mistakes in the study and that has been commissioned and paid for by the American coal and oil lobby. Lund et al have written a scientific report correcting the errors in the CEPOS study.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/05/the-australians-war-on-science-54/

 

So, while Klan was penning more than 80 reports of “widespread waste”, gaining him nomination for a prestigious journalism award, in fact, less than 2% of the complaints coming in to the Taskforce over the same period concerned value for money. Of course, a figure of less than 2% could hardly equate to “widespread waste” when the Taskforce had set 5% or less as the marker for determining the scheme’s success.

The First Report (which followed the interim one), published in December 2010 states in the Executive Summary:

“We conclude that 17 schools have not received value for money.”[7]

It goes on:

“Of those that have failed the value for money assessment, 13 are from the NSW Government system.”[8]

Is it balanced journalism to report this as “widespread waste”?

Frustrated by the Opposition and Murdoch’s joint campaign to unfairly discredit the schools stimulus program, Crikey’s Bernard Keane retaliated with a fact-filled response.

Headed:  “The BER outcome:  time to correct the record”, the “120,000 jobs”, “sorely needed infrastructure” and a “derisory” complaint rate of “3% of the 10,000 odd school projects” amounted to what Keane described as “gold standard”.[9]

In short, he said the BER Report was a comprehensive demolition of the Opposition’s and The Australian’s campaign.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/the-australians-ber-campaign-building-an-election-result/

I no longer read the CRAP you write of Gus . I hear and see some of it on the TV and Radio before I give both the flick . How sane straight thinking people (voters) will vote for Abbott and Co (horts) defies logic . What does he , and his unpublished intentions regarding Policy, on how the Liberals would run the Country do , to give cause to such stupid action of even thinking the they deserve getting a single vote , let alone enough to run the Country .I am still waiting for one person/individual to explain to me how they are worse off now than what they were before Julia was made Prime Minister . I say Julia because that is to whom all the derision is pointed at . She is the sole person that is blamed for all that voters are unhappy with . I am a married pensioner , with a wife ,  living in my own home , and we manage to do so through having had to do so all our life . I can tell you now it is far easier today than it ever was , really . Don't live beyond your means otherwise you will become an angry ant and blame it all on the Government , no matter whom is driving the big bus . Your first thoughts are , to not exceed your capabilties and responsibilities , and don't expect the government to hold your hand all the bleeding time .

 

Damn her he she does and damn her if she doesn't....

 

Yes, we're a bunch of grandiose whingers... 

 

A while back the Federal Government got brickbats for cutting down on general Overseas Aid and now that Julia Gillard targets some specific Aid projects with a little more cash we blast her again. So we whinge because we want her to send a truck load of cash to the Queenslanders who got flooded... Sure... Meanwhile we forget Julia Gillard has diverted about 100 million dollars from a useless anti-terrorism fund set by John Howard towards exactly that, the mitigation of future floods — in Sydney and in Queensland — to the great applause of the insurance industry which of course we despise because the premiums are going up at a rate of knots — because of guess what : global warming...
As well, the Queenslanders have booted Labor out of their Sunny State mainly due to the "great big nasty carbon tax" which in the future should save their arse from far more flooding than they have experienced to date... But we want instant gratttt..... I don't mean gratitude... I mean instant gratification... We want pay-off now... We're a bunch of selfish idiots.

 

 

February 5, 2013: Gillard contributes $1 million the Queensland Flood Appeal.

So here’s what Julia Gillard and Bob Carr have given away, of your money, since the Australia Day long weekend, the weekend when tropical storm Oswald smashed Bundaberg.

February 11 2013: Gillard contributes $15 million to rehabilitate 40 kilometres of main road in South Tarawa, Kiribati, which has been undermined by rising sea levels and coastal erosion.

February 4 2013: Gillard contributes $5 million to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) .South Sudan

February 4 2013: Gillard contributes an additional $3 million in humanitarian assistance for people are still reeling from the impact of Typhoon Bopha in the southern .Philippines

31 January 2013: Bob Carr today pledged a further $10 million in humanitarian assistance for people affected by the worsening conflict in .Syria

30 January 2013: Bob Carr today pledged $15 million to provide better access to education for the boys and girls of .Myanmar

30 January 2013: Bob Carr has pledged $5 million in humanitarian assistance for  and the surrounding region to assist hundreds of thousands of people affected by conflict and food insecurity.Mali

25 January 2013: Gillard provides a further $2 million to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

25 January 2013: Gillard announced a further $2 million to help (Fijian) children get back to school in the first term of the school year following the devastation of Tropical Cyclone Evan late last year.

So between the Australia Day long weekend and 11th February 2013, Gillard & Co has given away $57 million to various foreign aid beneficiaries. I’m sure the  flood victims could have used the $57 million to help them out?Queensland

In all about 4224 properties were damaged with 2302 deemed uninhabitable. More than half of those uninhabitable properties, about 1321, are in Bundaberg.

And to really rub salt in the wound, on 8th February 2013, Gillard reprioritised up to $375.1 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the 2012–13 financial year to support asylum seekers waiting to have their claims heard in . The support will cover food, shelter and other essential items.Australia

The reprioritisation represents a small portion (around 7 per cent) of Australia’s total aid program, which is still expected to reach around $5.2 billion in the 2012–13 financial year and is consistent with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) Reporting Directives.

Only Labor would treat fellow Australians in their time of need as an inconvenience.

 

Crap?... This is selfish crap.

Okay... You don't wan't to read more crap for Gus... Graham?... It's your choice, not mine...

Though I am sorry to hear that. In fact we are on the same page. Julia Gillard gets the blame for everything that have mostly gone... well. But the media craps on her day-in day-out and present crappy sneaky lying Abbott as a god... I don't like this either... 

 

As one scans through the merde'och press opinionated crap (sorry, here I am, using the word crap again), one can see a pattern of "Hate Julia — Love Tony" dichotomy. 

Most of (all) the opinionators (except Philip Adams, whom I believe does not like Julia Gillard either) are hell-bent on ignoring facts. They are in love with Tony Abbott's lies. End of story...
Yes, these priests of the press love the same silly Tony who a while back told us in full confidence that the climate was warmer in the days of Jesus than it is now, since he was quoting directly from god himself: Ian Plimer. The same Tony who claimed one day with certainty that "global warming is crap" but, as he wants you to vote for him, he'll claim "he did not mean it" without referring to the fact he "changed his mind" like Julia did (or did not) on the carbon "tax" which Tony, of course, once supported — before being elevated to Abbott-Detritus-Rimmer, commanding officer of a garbage ship lost in space for the last 3 million years — and became the erudite voice of "ditch-the-bitch campaign" on this subject.... 
Actually, Julia did not change her mind and what she delivered is a Carbon Pricing which, if one is genuinely remembering, she mentioned as what she wanted to do... If you don't know the difference of this with a carbon tax, go jump in Lake George and swim in the mud... A carbon "tax" would apply across the board, as it should, to all of us... We use carbon base products, we pay a carbon tax. 
Meanwhile, the merde'och press tells us we should read Maxine's book, in which the lovely Max dirties Julia and whitewashes Kevin, telling us "Labor lost its mojo when it walked away from the climate change" — which of course LABOR DID NOT. Labor only changed tactics because of you guess what — Tony Abbott was behaving like a little shit...
At present only the biggest users of coal and gas pay an extra price to the government, per tonnes of coal used, some of which money is then used as subsidies to the renewably energy sources, including solar panels over private roofs, to wind farms. 
Some of this money is also used to compensate low income earners that are like all of us charged more by energy suppliers due to the carbon pricing. The NSW Government estimates that green schemes and the carbon "tax" (pricing) adds $316 a year to a typical 7MWh household bill. Low income earners are compensated for this extra charge by the Federal scheme. Simple.
The process has helped reduce Australia's emission of CO2 by more than 6 per cent since its inception 9 months ago... As well, renewable costs are competitive with coal and gas energy generated supplies. Now, of course, the merde'och press wants to get rid of the carbon pricing for no other reason that it was introduced by Julia... NOTHING ELSE. The whole carbon pricing has not destroyed the country as claimed by Tony Abbott and the Armageddon touted by the ratbags of the merde'och press. So far the carbon pricing has improved our standing in the world on the subject of carbon emissions, though there is still a lot to be done. 
Meanwhile Tony's solution of removing this pricing and creating a new loopy stupid scheme which he calls a "direct action" will cost the earth in the budget and do nothing much to reduce emissions. Simple. Even Turnbull said so himself until he was told to put a cork on it... 
As well, the merde'och press HATES the NBN... An efficient NBN, cable to cable, to your house is Murdoch's arch enemy... He presently has a monopoly on cable. See? Do we need to say more?... He does not want you to access anything else directly via cable... So he's pushing the LNP conservative more complicated broadband system which would home-deliver the last leg by the old copper network in your street, with a box of Christmas light tricks in between... The delivery of stuff from the LNP "solution" won't be much better nor much faster than what you're getting now... But that's the aim, ain't it?
Meanwhile, with all the usual spruikers at merde'och headquarters, the crap sauce (sorry, here I am using the word crap again) is fortified with crocodile tears... For example, Andrew Bolt cries foul that Abetz and Morrisson of the LNP have been badly ambushed by a nasty media (other than merde'och of course who loves them both dearly) for uttering stupid things and contradictory nonsense...
Then we have Janet who, still living in the middle-ages, pours her usual anti-feminism woman's scorn on prime Minister Gillard like boiling oil, from a high-up dungeon. The "dismal Gillard experiment" as she calls it may actually have brought some of the finest policies — including the carbon pricing — this country ever saw, despite a few set-backs... Of course Janet also tells us that the Abbott-knockers (us) are "out of touch" as Mr Abbott is god and an Abbott's fart is a heavenly perfume wherever he goes. Not a single mention of the stupid crap and the lying crap (sorry, here I am using the word crap again) and idiotic rattles Tonicchio has been dishing out with nastiness and snide.
We also have Miranda who tells us: "THE last time Julia Gillard ventured out to Rooty Hill RSL, the locals had her for breakfast." Great line if I may say... "That was when she debated Tony Abbott before the last election, in a town hall style meeting organised by The Daily Telegraph."
Magic. These days, Julia may still be eaten alive by the frothed-up Daily Telegraph force-fed natives out Sydney's west but at least she's organised her own stay in residence. 
Then we have Argas telling teachers they have a "lot to learn" as the eastern states are "freeing" schools to do as they please with education... and "the schools" do not want to hear about Gonsky... Of course the teachers know that they will be shafted, destroying their commitment to proper teaching under the "new rules" being at the mercy of the local principals... if the teachers don't tow the state LNP line...
If you have kids, you're allowed to worry about what Mr Newman, Mr O'Farrell and Mr watizname in Victoria are doing to their education, including creationism presented as science in the banana bender land.

But the one item of merde-och news taking the cake today (4th March 2013) is : 
SUPPORT is growing among senior Liberals for former prime minister John Howard to become Australia's next governor-general in the likely event that the Coalition wins this year's federal election.
"He would make an excellent governor-general. It's his if he wants it," one Liberal powerbroker told The Australian yesterday. "But the big question is: does he want it?"

NO-NO!!!  the big question is does the majority of Australian want this little sneaky puff-cake warmonger as the next GG? NOOOOOooooooooo!!!
The next step for Labor is to push for a republic. The queen, who is getting beyond ancestral and is now in hospital with digestive problems (probably the family capers becoming less and less palatable, having no royal fibres) will need a replacement soon —and one can only hope that this country frees itself from the foreign royal family with a nice gesture. "Rack off" would be totally improper of course, though "thanks, but no, thanks we don't need you anymore" would show this country has grown enough to enter the long trousers section at Lowes.
Rattus as the next GG, CRAP! (sorry, here I am using the word crap again)...
I nearly forgot to mention "GREG Sheridan says we need the Joint Strike Fighter for our security"... Brother! A plane that would be blown to smithereens in combat, by its own ancestors... "We need the Joint Strike Fighter for our security" is the line taken by the merde-och press... Idiotic c... (sorry I won't say it)
But the merde'och press is an entity where I've yet to see the line: The opinions expressed here are those of the various authors and contributors and do not reflect those of the paper, the site owners or hosting agencies. I never saw any counter-opinions in the merde'och press... Am I blind?...

 

Two thousand and twelve was a bumper year for the breaking of political conventions in Australia. For the first time, a national political leader was investigated and pursued for her professional conduct before winning elected office. Led by the Australian newspaper, a group of right-wing fanatics ran a smear campaign against Julia Gillard targeting her time working for the Slater & Gordon law firm in the early 1990s. No other prime minister has been treated this way, judged on their pre-parliamentary career rather than the traditional focus on parliamentary service.

In 2012, for the first time, a political staffer was the subject of sustained criticism from the other side of politics – a cowardly attack given that members of staff are limited in their capacity to defend themselves publicly.

Right-wing commentators such as Chris Kenny, Andrew Bolt and Michael Smith laid into the prime minister’s communications director, John McTernan, essentially for doing his job – that is, devising communications strategies for his employer. The hard-right in Australian politics confirmed that, in its obsessive pursuit of Gillard, no one is off limits.

For the first time, an Australian political party tried to manipulate and abuse the court system to cripple a democratically elected government. In December, Justice Rares ruled in the Federal Court that the sexual harassment case brought against Peter Slipper by James Ashby and his Liberal National Party backers had been politically motivated. A leading culprit was Tony Abbott’s friend and candidate for Slipper’s seat of Fisher, Mal Brough. Despite the adverse findings against Brough, Abbott supported him publicly and re-endorsed him as a Liberal candidate.

For the first time, the grieving family of a political leader was attacked for political purposes. In September, Alan Jones accused Gillard of contributing to her father’s death, of ensuring he “died of shame.” The instructive feature of these scarifying comments was not so much that Jones made them, but that dozens of so-called conservative commentators rallied to defend him – an example of immoral groupthink. A truly conservative response would have been to condemn Jones and move on to more edifying subjects (the way in which Malcolm Turnbull, for instance, handled the matter).

Yet for weeks, the far-right agonised over their champion’s plight, inventing increasingly ludicrous defences of the broadcaster. In their final, delusional argument, Jones was positioned as a victim, supposedly suffering from “Fairfax’s vilification” and an unreasonable lobbying campaign (urging companies to withdraw advertising from his 2GB radio program). This exposes one of the fallacies of right-wing ideologues: they claim to support the liberal ideals of freedom of speech but, in this and other cases, they denounce the public’s freedom to object to Jones-style hate media. At 2GB itself, in a brazen act of censorship, one of the station’s regular contributors, David Penberthy, was taken off air for daring to criticise Jones.

In its final form, the Jones affair highlighted the moral decline of Australian conservatism: its inability to unreservedly condemn wrongness in public life. As long as its enemies are under attack – no matter how indecently, no matter how far removed from community standards – it defends its own and rationalises away the immorality of the attack.

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/rise-new-right-mark-latham-7780

See crap at top and read articles below it...

 

We now cross to Canberra, where IA reporter Camo presents an exclusive interview with political correspondent Mr Press Pack in the wake of yesterday’s Labor leadership spill.

CAMO – Thanks for your time, Mr Pack

PRESS PACK – No wukkas [sips beer, farts].

CAMO – Thanks for that. Five second warning next time?

PP – Who smelt it, dealt it.

CAMO – No, you dealt it. I saw and heard it.

PP – That’s not what’s going in my report.

CAMO – Your report? I’m the one doing the interview.

PP – If you say so. Just hang on a second I have to write this down… Outrage as Press Freedom Attacked!

CAMO – An expectation to report facts is a restriction on the press?

PP – OBVIOUSLY!

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/life/satire/interview-with-mr-press-pack-canberra/

Fairfax business journalist Paddy Manning has been sacked for writing an opinion piece fiercely critical of the publisher's recently-announced restructure and its use of so-called "advertorials".

The senior reporter was dismissed yesterday afternoon after writing an online piece for Crikey, in which he attacked the company's restructure plans and the editorial practices at the Australian Financial Review.

Manning described a new Commonwealth Bank-sponsored column as "rubbishy" and said it was a perfect example of why the business sections of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age should not be merged with the Financial Review Group.

He said such "creeping advertorials" came at the expense of proper business reporting and analysis.

Manning's axing is likely to overshadow this afternoon's planned meeting between Fairfax journalists and the media union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

The MEAA is yet to comment on the sacking, but will meet with journalists to discuss the company's restructure plans.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-09/fairfax-journalist-sacked-over-critical-crikey-article/4617316

The Ashbygate Trust started as a result of one man’s frustration with a “corrupt”, self interested mainstream media, Geezelouise explains what’s at stake.

SO HOW DO YOU get complete strangers to commit more than $50,000 in two weeks, and what would prompt you to even ask?

What makes someone think that they can take on a country’s mainstream media and show that they are a bunch of hacks and delinquently corrupt?

How do you go about exposing the dirty underbelly of a national political machine?

Why would you even try?

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I believe that Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon. I believe that fluoride helps prevent tooth decay and is not a sinister mind control strategy. I believe that vaccinations are an eminently sensible public health initiative and are not the cause of autism. I believe that thousands of prominent scientists from all over the world are legitimately concerned by evidence proving the reality of anthropogenic global warming and are not secretly meeting to hatch a dastardly plan to take civilisation back to the medieval period.

I am not one given to seeing a monster in every shadow. It took more than reading George Orwell’s 1984 to come to the realisation that the media in this country is corrupt.

The journey proper started about a year and a half ago, when I had intimate firsthand knowledge of an issue that became something of a media plaything. I got to see how truth and balance were not just sacrificed but deliberately ignored to give preference to a narrative and agenda that suited preconceived prejudice and vested interests. This stark demonstration of how deliberately wrong and how mendacious the media can be forced me to a realisation that has subsequently caused me to interpret everything I see, read and hear through a new prism of skepticism.

Not that I wasn’t already skeptical. TV journalism only rarely rises above advertorial, radio journalism is a cesspit of filth and paranoia and print journalism suffers, as everything inevitably does, from the corrupting influence of monopoly ownership.

But I was always inclined to my father’s words that given a choice between incompetence and a conspiracy, incompetence will be the explanation 99% of the time. My direct and lived experience however showed me that, in at least one episode, incompetence was not the explanation. No matter how self evident the injustice there is precious little you can do about it when you try and tackle the might of the mainstream media on your own.

Having had this firsthand experience, and understanding that this particular issue was not an exceptional circumstance – that my family, the business and I were not so special as to receive an extraordinary treatment – I concluded that this kind of thing must be happening to others.

Hitherto I had been comfortable ignoring the majority of the mainstream media. Once you become familiar with the Internet and have access to the source of a news story, no longer having to rely on an agent for its transmission, you realise that everything you read in the paper or see on the TV is really just a stale homogenisation of an issue whose facts have been sacrificed on the altar of expediency. It is forced through the machinery of the delivery system to arrive on your doorstep conveniently pre-digested, allowing your mind to absorb it without any effort. This leaves the audience docile and receptive to the real point of the whole exercise, persuading you to purchase things you do not need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t know.

If you really want to know what is happening the mainstream media is the channel of last resort. It is where people who are the last to know find out what is happening.

I am no activist; I have never carried a banner in my life. However, when you become aware of a situation that is so irretrievably broken and causing such corrosive damage to the society in which you live it takes a kind of a morally corrupt and selfishly mercenary personality, the type I unfortunately do not have, to sit idly by and watch it affecting everybody around you.

Like many others, the Peter Slipper/James Ashby issue brought me to my feet. After months of hyperbolic front page scandal and salacious gossip masquerading as national crisis I was literally astonished when the undeniable truth, as articulated by Federal Court Justice Steven Rare’s, that the whole episode had indeed been a conspiracy, sank like a stone with the previously slavering media.

I have no great compassion for Peter Slipper. I have never met the man or corresponded with him. I can however, through my own experience, empathise with what he has been through.

My overriding concern was the deliberately abject failure of the media to concern itself with the facts. There had been an attempted, albeit bloodless, coup on the parliament of our country. It patently involved senior members of one of this country’s main political parties – yet the media was not interested.

The Federal Court of Australia had exposed not just the passive corruption of inherent bias and professional incompetence, but the more sinister explicit corruption forcing the country’s media to act against every convention and historical pattern of behaviour formally taken as standard.

I would much rather spend my days in ignorant bliss sitting in the sunshine on my back verandah watching mother nature quietly ply her humble trade, but at some point in everyone’s life you come to that moment when you realise your choice is to become part of the problem or part of the solution. With a weary and cynical heart I found myself unable to continue sitting idly by.

As I said, I have no great compassion for Peter slipper, indeed if he is to receive any benefit from the activity of the Ashbygate Trust it is only as a consequence, not as an objective.

What is really at stake is the nation’s right to be able to rely on the most fundamental tenet of any democracy, that being the right to something that at least approximates a free and honest press. If the population of this democracy is being deliberately deceived then it can only be to our detriment.

The complication in addressing this problem is that the medium you would normally use to bring people’s attention to the problem is in fact the problem. Thank science for the Internet.

Certain of my own ordinariness I had to assume there were others out there who were equally concerned with what can only be described as an existential threat to our democracy.

There must be other people who were equally fed up with justice and equity being afterthoughts that get squeezed into the nooks and crannies left over after the serious business of building structure and fortification around the coordinating principles of greed and power is completed to the satisfaction of the maniacally insatiable.

There must be other people who believe that we simply cannot let those currently in charge continue to be responsible for the lifeblood of our democracy – Information.

From here it was a straightforward proposition. With naive arrogance and an anxious hope in the existence of community-minded citizens I believed this was an issue of such importance to our rights to a fair go society that all I need do was let people know I was taking a stand and support would come.

And it did. From everywhere. From across the country and around the world. From Paris, from London, from Hanoi, from Toorak to Tenterfield, from Peppermint Grove to Paddington. From $20 to $2000.

And always the accompanying message was the same. Corruption of the media had gone too far and we could only rely on ourselves to fix it.

So how do you fix it? Pleas to reason were impotent – no amount of pointing to the obvious was acknowledged by the mainstream media, let alone addressed.

In Australia we are lucky to have a vibrant, if nascent, 5th Estate. Independent Australia is arguably the most genuinely independent investigative outfit currently going around. David Donovan and sub-editors are a tenacious crew, but with limited resources you can only do so much. Independent Australia had a comprehensive background on the story and the intent to follow it but they lacked the capacity to really go after a story of this magnitude.

If the players behind the issue had managed to effectively muzzle the entire nation’s mainstream media, including its public broadcaster, then you are going to need some decent firepower to even make a start. Journalists, investigators, lawyers, support staff, expenses, it takes a lot to cover a story like this. How much? Let’s say $50,000, just to give ourselves a half decent chance.

Why would people, in this era of compassion fatigue, put their hands in their pockets to the tune of $50,000? What could be done differently to the mainstream media that would give people faith that the outcome would be any different?

What would give people hope that their hard earned and scarce resources would not be deployed in another sanctimonious exercise of arrogant journalism where the audience is presented with the story the journalist sees fit with no correspondence entered into, where questions and alternative views shall only be treated with condescension and derision?

You know, the old journalist knows everything, audience knows nothing paradigm.

For a start there was Independent Australia’s track record of covering stories that the old media tried to ignore and uncovering information the old media had missed. Independent Australia had led the field in giving balanced reporting on the Craig Thompson imbroglio and was virtually alone in carrying the candle on the Ashbygate scandal. It also had a proven commitment to sourcing news and information from outside the echo chamber of the “professional” journalist industry., a commitment to giving a platform to raw information from real people. So Independent Australia was a great place to start.

Secondly, we wanted to pursue a different model. Currently the mainstream media thinks that first you should give them your money and then they will decide what is important for you to know. Through establishing a trust in which contributors are part owners, we encourage the audience to be part of the story, to assist in directing what they are happy to pay to know. Through the use of polls we actively seek the input of those paying for the information. This is about citizen journalism from the ground up, not institutional journalism from the elites down.

It’s an experiment we don’t know the outcome of yet but one thing is for sure, it can’t be any worse than what passes for journalism these days – and if we don’t try and get to the bottom of this disgraceful episode no one else will.

The consequences of a group of people being able to hatch a conspiracy to overturn a democratically and legally constituted government, and get away with it by virtue of the protection they receive from the monied elites portends a future that does not bear thinking about, let alone living in.

Did not some old guy once say something about liberty and vigilance?

This article was originally published at nofibs.com.au.

For more information about the Ashygate Trust please click here.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/why-people-gave-50000-for-ashbygate-investigation/

 

See toon at top...

The story of how Australian quality journalism fell victim to a commercial market failure has been known to insiders for years, but it has largely been withheld from consumers of Australian journalism because the mainstream media has conspired to censor and spin the truth. Australia’s newspapers of record have deliberately ignored the story of their own decline, and its impact on their own readers and the health of society, instead of covering it as they would the decline of any other important industry or profession. They have shown a deep reluctance to disclose or explain that large-scale commercial journalism has become unviable, and no one has yet found a formula to subsidise “public trust” journalism in the way newspaper advertising did.

For Australia, the story is more significant than just the demise of an industry business model. In a small robust democracy with relatively little commercial quality journalism, it has the makings of a civic catastrophe. That’s because the serious journalism of influence in Australia, apart from the government-funded ABC, resides mainly in four newspapers – the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Australian Financial Review and the Australian. Between them, these four mastheads provide most of Australia’s coverage of politics, justice, economics, business, science, health, welfare, public policy, international affairs, arts, culture and ideas. Until recently, these four employed around 1500 journalists. Today that number is closer to 1000. Within two years it could be as few as 500.

read more http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/july/1372600800/eric-beecher/death-fairfax-and-end-newspapers