Australian detention centres and their treatment of refugees resemble, increasingly, the persecution of Iran

He graduated from Tarbiat Madares University in Tehran with a masters degree in political geography and geopolitics.

He wrote a paper advocating a federal system for Iran, protecting minority rights. The paper was delivered at a conference in France on his behalf after he was denied a passport to attend.
He had experienced threats and was under surveillance.

His accounts of his incarceration on Manus Island read like a Kafka nightmare.
He was one of several asylum seekers arrested and jailed without charge in Lorangau prison during a hunger strike early this year. He remained peaceful during this action.
He says his communications are monitored by Transfield, the company that operates the detention centre, and that, as a result of his reportage and his human rights activity on behalf of fellow detainees, he has been threatened, regularly searched and is subject to surveillance.
Instead of being imprisoned and harassed, he should be welcomed for his courageous stand for democracy and granted asylum in Australia. It is a profound irony that he is now experiencing levels of surveillance and harassment that have some parallels with his treatment by Iranian authorities.
I said: 'I am a journalist', but I did not get any respectful response. I was wondering why it is not important for them that I am a writer. When they transferred me to Manus, I said to immigration: 'Don't exile me. Don't send me to Manus, I am a writer.' They did not care."


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/iranian-journalist-behrouz-boochani-tells-of-the-horrors-of-manus-island-out-of-sight-out-of-mind-20150921-gjrdi8.html#ixzz3mQdyq43P 
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

Ground Report India: News from on the ground to keep us grounded

In our daily lives, in one of the best of the western developed countries, how often do we stop to think of the reality of the daily lives of people far away from us.  Dropping into my email from time to time is information from India by way of a site called Ground Report India.  India is a massive, diverse, and heavily populated country.  In so many ways, the very opposite of Australia.  Ground Report aims to do what it says - to keep us all grounded by giving news from on the ground - not higher up the food chain.

Below is the latest missive which is an extract from a book by Vivek Glendenning.  He can be found on Facebook.

Excerpts from the chapter from the first draft of the Book “Social Experiments and Experiences” by 'Nomad' (Vivek U Glendenning) :: part one ...

www.localgovernance.org chiefeditor@groundreportindia.org via googlegroups.com
to groundreport Unsubscribe

Running Education centers for beggars and migrant unorganized labourers  …………… Opening and running eight education centres for children of migrated construction labours and beggar children/ adolescents (teens) during student life 15-16 years ago. At that time, I was establishing education centres at different places in Kanpur. As I was alone, I used to teach at every centre twice in a week and attended two centres every day. Thus, I could manage six centres in one week. For few days of week college finished off at 3 o’clock and some other days at 4 o’clock. The day when college finished at 3, I used to go centres which were far away and the day when it finished at 4, I preferred to go centres which were bit near. I got very small monthly amount from home as student hence I had to cover a distance of 6 to 9 kilometre daily on foot to reach different centres. Some professors from IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, HBTI Kanpur gave away Blackboard, chalk, copy, pencil, books and emotional support to start these centres. Basis of this support was my personal relation with them. While running these centres I gathered innumerable experiences and enhanced my understanding towards ground reality. I am grateful to supportive professors and will be obliged forever. ……… An Education centre for Beggar Children/Teenagers at CTI Crossing, Govind Nagar, Kanpur : - There is a place in Kanpur known as CTI crossing and it is adjacent to Govind Nagar. A big and stinking sewer-nullah (sluit) flows and local people call it ‘Ganda Nala’. And on the bank of this nullah many families of beggar-children/teenagers used to live in hut-like structures made up of thrown away poly bags and torn clothes joined together and fixed on old spoiled bamboo sticks. Stench of that sewer nullah, which we cannot bear even for one minute while moving on the road parallel to the nullah, had a round the clock lively relation with those families. During rains, level of sewer increased and flowed through their so called huts. Except few starting days, I had to search out these children and teens while begging and then I took them to the education centre holding their finger. An SDO of UP Electricity Board had donated his portico for teaching for two hours, during which he used to keep his car out. He also helped for copy, pencil, chalk and blackboard. Sometimes children and teen used to pose strange conditions such as if you would not eat in our hut we would not study. So, sometimes I had to eat on the bank of sewer nullah whatever they cooked and ate. These children/ teens did not know how to read or write and it took many days to teach them how to write first letter of Hindi alphabet but in physical labour, making food and reading people’s psychology they were very dexterous . Their talks and practical understanding surprised me numerous times and taught me so much. This relationship continues for only for one or two years but these memories are still afresh in my mind/ are still lively in the corner of my mind. ……… 7 education centres for displaced Bilaspuriyan Construction Labours’ children/ Teens and bagger children/teens : - These centres were established and ran at Awadhpuri, Lakhanpur, Kalyaanpur, Vikasnagar, Naubasta and Barra. Characteristics of these centres were same as sewer-nullah centres, there were only a few differences which I am going to state in following lines. I no need to go far away to search these kids/ teens because these children usually found playing in their huts or near about areas. Their parents met almost every day, hence sometimes they also came to study. Place of study was hut of any of them, which changed after few days. These centres never continued for more than few months because after accomplishment of construction work of colonies they had to leave the place. So, every time after few months, these centres displaced 2 to 3 kilometres. I never showed false dream to children/ teens for study, never tempted them, never tempted them for sweets etc. I did not want them to suffer from any frustration or indulge in some impractical dreams. I knew these children/teens would face bitter reality hence I had no right to hurt their understanding of life showing them false dreams. As I was not showing any dream, not posing any lie and never tempted them so every time when I go to teach them first I used to walk 2 to 3 kilometre to find them and fetching them to the place for study and had to face their moods. I have candidly stated to children/ teens and their guardians that study was not going to change their status. Only thing is that there will be less possibility of being cheated and perhaps this study may be useful for a few. Today, when I remember this time, I find out, if I have not done during my student life, today I cannot be socially integrated, socially honest, sensitive and could not move ahead towards fundamental understanding of the society.  Regards Vivek U Glendenning ‘Nomad’ .

--
Dear Mentor,
Thank you for your continuous support.

I am trying to establish a "Social Accountable Media".
I go to the villages to see the ground works done by the common people. Some time for a report, I have to visit one area a few times.
Please support the idea and visit at
http://www.groundreportindia.org

I am also organising 206 community conferences and a 1,00,000 kilometres long inclusive national tour in the time span of 2012-2015 covering thousands of villages of hundreds of districts in all over India.

Your all kinds of supports are needed.
For more information, please visit at
http://www.environmentconferences.org

Thank you
Vivek U. Glendenning "Nomad"
http://www.nomadhermitage.groundreportindia.org

The Walkleys: Caroline Jones

News of Climate Change

From http://letters-environmentvictoria.nationbuilder.com/

Keep climate denial on the editing room floor

In October the world's leading authority on climate science released its latest report, finding that the science on climate change was now 'unequivocal'. 

In response, the LA times and now the Sydney Morning Herald have stated that they would no longer publish factually inaccurate letters denying climate science.

We call on The Age, the Australian and the Herald Sun newspapers to follow the leadership of their peers and stop publishing factually incorrect letters from so-called climate sceptics.

ADD YOUR SIGNATURE TO THE LETTER TO THE EDITORS OF THE AUSTRALIAN, THE AGE AND THE HERALD SUN

---

Dear Editor,

Following the Sydney Morning Herald’s decision to purge misinformation about climate science from their opinion pages, will The Age/Herald Sun/Australian do the same?

Opinion pages are among the most read of any paper. So they should be governed by the same standards of journalistic integrity applied to news reporting.

In short, errors of fact should not be published. As LA Times editor Paul Thornton put it, ‘saying there's no sign humans have caused climate change is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy.’

This is not a question of censorship but of accuracy.

On newspaper opinion pages climate change deniers have been allowed to hijack the public discourse on climate - hiding behind the mantle of ‘balance’ - and frustrating meaningful debate about how to tackle this global threat.

Enough is enough. With experts now as certain of the danger posed by anthropogenic climate change as that posed by smoking, the debate is over.

In recognition of the grave threat posed to Australians lives and property by rising sea-levels, temperatures and extreme weather events, and of the important role newspapers play in informing the public, please apply a ‘factual test’ to letters published in your paper on climate change.

Signed

Thank you for signing!

Vale Elisabeth Wynhausen - professional journalist and the blogger, Betty of Bondi

Wendy Bacon has reported on Facebook 

the death of the prominent journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen.

Please see the report of her death here.

Back in 2008, Elisabeth Wynhausen did a story for The Oz on goings on in the Murray River town of Robinvale.  I publish below that story.  The locals tell me that things have not changed much at all since Elisabeth wrote that story.

I loved Elisabeth's recent blogging foray which she wrote as Betty from Bondi.  I love the eastern suburbs of Sydney and when I lived there was a regular at Bondi from my studio in Elizabeth Bay.  The colour she brought to these posts of local life in a locale she loved and was part of was wonderful and displayed a beautiful spirit.  Some months ago, I emailed Elisabeth because the blog had not been updated. I received no reply.  I assumed that things were not good. Seems I was right.  

Elisabeth Wynhausen was a professional at her work and a delight in her assessments of the human race and its varying conditions.

~~~~~~~~

Trying to avoid the government you deserve? The Age pontificates & joins the push for a gender biassed storming of the Bastille.

Some of us - well, an awful lot of us - are well and truly over the political storms beaten up by the Mainstream Media (MSM).  Some of us want to hear strong and civil political debate and discourse.  Some of us are not into bigotry and political inanity.  Some of us don't respond like puppets at the end of a MSM string, ready to be jerked into movement and predictability.  Some of us are sentient beings who use our sensory faculties to come to our own decisions based on reasoning and the ambitions we have for ourselves and our nation.  Some of us are never polled about anything, Some of us can be the big surprise on election day.

That paragraph is a response that, to-day - Saturday 22 June 2013 - The Editor of The Age, the Fairfax daily in Melbourne, Australia has decided to tell us, the Australian body politic, how to vote in the forthcoming election.

The less senior journalists of the MSM have been baying breathlessly on the Prime Ministerial leadership and associated political polling for months now.  Well, it has probably been years - ever since the hung Parliament came into being in 2010 in the Year of Our Lord.  Not the first hung parliament in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia - but you could be forgiven for thinking so because of the five-minute memories and lack of research skills held by most of the current crop of journalists.  Fact checking and penetrating questioning seem to have been consigned to a by-gone era.

Our political discourse has become highly uncivil and filled with bigotry, gender bias, and hatred.  Perhaps a poll or some form of research that could attempt to co-relate physical violence in the wider community with the violent and hate-filled language spewing forth from the anti-Gillard camp might prove insightful.

It seems that a large proportion of our journalists have become "inept stenographers" producing "tainted journalism".

It seems to me that one could look at The Age and its political interference to-day as a last ditch attempt to influence the electorate.  Perhaps the powers-that-be at Fairfax (Roger Corbett, Gina Rinehart and their allies) feel that enough has not been done by their journalists (and remember there are few of the good ones left at Fairfax these days) to influence the electorate to rid itself of Julia Gillard, to insist on the overturn of Australia's first female Prime Minister.  

I would suggest to the Fairfax mob baying at the barricades to look around them; look at the company they are keeping.  The Fairfax language might be polite and civil but are they lining themselves up with the following: Alan Jones; Howard Sattler, Barnaby Joyce, plus a whole tribe of hate-filled men and the women who are their acolytes?

The Fairfax language may be polite.  The newspaper might have a liberal tradition.  All this counts for nought because one thing is clear, clear as crystal.  Fairfax have aligned themselves with the forces who want, who seek the downfall of Australia's first female Prime Minister.  They cannot wait for a September election to allow the Australian electorate to decide.  No - this is a gender biassed storming of the Bastille.  And there is one thing more that is not being considered.  If an Abbott Government trounces Labor so convincingly that it is all but invisible; if Abbott takes control of both Houses of Parliament with a huge majority, it will merely prove two things: 

• Australians will have the government for which they have voted
• Australia will have the government it deserves

While the Labor Government is going to this election with a raft of good policies and a history of sound management in the hung Parliament period, there have been dastardly deeds done. The continuation of the Northern Territory Intervention; the continuation of taxpayer funding to some of Australia's wealthiest schools while poorer state schools continue to suffer are two that spring readily to mind.

You see, naive as it may seem, I am a great believer in natural justice; that we reap what we sow.  All parties   (and I do include The Greens, to a lesser extent, in what I am saying) have sown their own crops of weeds which are yet to be harvested.  The harvest cannot be avoided.  It may be circumvented for a time, it may be postponed, but there will be a harvest from which our political parties and the Australian voters cannot run.

See also
Victoria Rollison in The Australian Independent Media Network
Kieran Fitzgerald gives it to the Editor of The Age in the same fashion that The Age has given it Julia
The Conscience Vote - For the sake of the nation, the media should do its job - and please take the time to read the comments to this article.  Some good discussion going on there.

Pharmaceuticals: cost, choice, medical collusion, adverse reactions in patients

I was most interested in this article published in The Age to-day under Dan Harrison's by-line.

I have written to Dan and the letter is set out below.  I would love to hear from others with similar experiences.

~~~~~~~~~

Picture from here

Dear Dan,

Would have liked to submit this as a comment on your article in The Age but could not find somewhere to do it.  That's why I am writing to you as author of the article.

I am an Aged Pensioner with a Health Card.  When I go to the chemist to get a prescription filled, I am asked whether I am happy to have a generic brand.  I always agree to generics.

Q:  Is this me doing something for the Federal Budget or does it not make one iota of difference?

My understanding is that in being offered a generic, I am being asked to accept a product which is in the same pharmaceutical class as that prescribed by my medical practitioner.

Q:  Is this correct?

I have grave distrust for pharmaceutical companies.  From my research on the internet, I understand that major pharmaceutical corporations are not allocating funds to research as well they might considering the large profits accruing from some of their best-selling drugs.  Instead, the PCs  look for other uses for their drugs.  

As well, because of collusion between medical practitioners and pharmaceutical corporations, virtually no attention is made to adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals in patients.  As an instance of this, I give you Lipitor manufactured by Pfizer.  I was taking Lipitor and other medications including nutrition supplements (some of these prescribed by my GP).  I was 66 years of age at the time.  I am 69 this year. I was most unwell and going downhill fast.  I thought to myself: I am on all these medications which, supposedly, are to make me well.  I was so unwell that I was on a walking stick.  Too reach out to turn a light switch on and off hurt.  I could not put my bra on in the time-honoured way.  It was too painful.  My shoulders hurt so much.  I had to fasten my bra at the front and then twist and turn to get it on correctly.  

I made a decision - without telling my GP.  I went off all medications - even vitamin pills.  

I sent the list of my medications to a pharmacist I knew.  He emailed back and said: I think it's the statin.  The statin was Lipitor.  After a few days without my medications, I began to feel better.  After a week, I was becoming markedly better and continue to be so.  I gradually re-introduced everything except the Lipitor.  Things remained OK - so, clearly, no culprits there. Definitely, the statin!  

After a month, I went to my GP and told her.  Oh, yes, she said, you can get a few tweaks and twinges on Lipitor.  I have refused Lipitor ever since.  This drives whoever is my GP at the time nuts!  Could tell you a few more stories about medicos and statins but you get the drift.  

There is a reason I have taken time to explain this experience.  That is the unscientific attitudes of the medical profession and their collusion with pharmaceutical companies.  You see, there is nowhere that I have been able to find - and I have searched and asked - somewhere to report adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals.  One GP who I complained to about this said: That's because we already know the contraindications.  My response was: Yes, you may know the contraindications but you don't have any data on how many contraindications to pharmaceuticals there are in Australia; whether the numbers are going up and down; their dispersion by geography, gender, age etc.  

Q:  Can you do a story on the this topic? 

Lipitor is not the only pharmaceutical to which I have adverse reaction.  The other is an antibiotic called Macrodantin.  Because of this medication, I ended up hospitalised with asymptomatic pneumonia (otherwise known as Walking Pneumonia because it doesn't have the same painful symptoms as ordinary Pneumonia). When I got out of hospital and recovered after this most debilitating illness, I looked up on the product site the contraindications for Macrodantin.  Turns out that one of the obscure reactions is Walking Pneumonia - one of the SARS group.  On admission to the hospital, I mentioned that I felt it may be an adverse reaction to Macrodantin.  No one discussed this with me.  No one came back and said we researched this and we found out that what you are suffering could be an adverse reaction to the drug.  In short, no one wants to know. Why?  In the absence of any other reason that I can think of, I consider it is because of collusion between medicos and pharmaceutical companies.  I would not be surprised to find similar collusion between governments and the aforesaid pharmaceutical companies.

I mentioned that I am an Aged Pensioner.  I have formed the view, based on my adverse experiences, that - as far as pharmaceutical companies are concerned - the aged and the chronically ill are repeat business; the same sort of repeat business that gambling, alcohol, and tobacco produce with the exception that the doorway to this repeat business is a university educated medical practitioner.  

I have described to you adverse reactions to two drugs.  You could also investigate the repeat business of anti-depressant drugs such as Effexor.  I am pleased that these drugs are there to help.  I have a family member who has been on Effexor for years.  She had tried to get off the drug and ended up hospitalised.  Last year she eventually did it - with the support of a helpful partner and a helpful website who gave a strict regimen for how to do it.  As the family member said, getting on Effexor is easy.  Try getting off!  Repeat business you see.  

Most ordinary citizens don't seek out prescription drugs to abuse.  People are actually abused by professional collusion.  One of the factors, I believe, is that such professionals forget that they are in professions based on science.  In science - even sociology which is part of my uni degree - one learns about the bell curve.  It seems that our medicos have forgotten this little fact: a bell curve has a lot of numbers at the top (where most people are at) but there are smaller numbers either side (the exceptions to the majority rule).  Medicos that I have struck seem to forget there are exceptions.  That people like me exist.

Back to the Grattan Institute. I have a suggestion.  If govt is to do precisely what GI want and save billions, then I want a Consumers Medical/Pharmaceutical Research Institute established and managed by government - not the medical or pharmaceutical institutes or corporations - which is based on the experience of consumers in the medico-pharma industry.  Now that might prove to be a good return on investment!

Lastly, I would refer you to this program from ABC's Catalyst: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2981241.htm

I particularly love this quote from the Catalyst program:

Prof David Le Couteur 
One of the joys of geriatric medicine is stopping medications and seeing people get better. We have phoenixes that rise from the ashes in geriatric medicine unlike any other specialty. People who come in that are very unwell and by the simple intervention of stopping medications we see people get better.

Would love to hear from you, @DHarrisonAgeSMH, that you can do a Walkley Award winning story about all this.

Tony Abbott's queried funds & their use; Margo Kingston; Tim Dunlop; the IPA; the ABC and The Drum

No doubt about veteran journalist Margo Kingston - she's good and she's a goer.

For those of us who use blogger as a substitute for shouting corrections at television journalists along with calls for fact-checking and greater research skills, her experience described here is a comfort albeit a disturbing one.

Read here how The Drum - you know, that television program which is like the curate's egg - backs the wrong horses.  The Drum, like the curate's egg,  is good in parts.  The parts where it is not good are clearly delineated, however.  These are the parts where a besuited smug looking young late 20s or early 30s male (always a male, it seems) speaks on behalf of the Institute of Public Affairs.

Complaints last year seemed to result in an easing off of appearances.  However, I have a sneaky feeling that they are increasing again. Tim Wilson is the one that upsets me most of all.  His overbearing presence topped off by that grin is too, too much.  

And who on earth does the ABC as well as the IPA think they are?  Does the IPA have a direct route to the ABC Board Room or The Drum Production Unit?  Clearly, the ABC has some information that I don't.  In my ever so humble opinion, I don't see a majority opinion anywhere near favouring the IPA and its libertarian views.  

Where are the political candidates standing directly for the IPA?  What are their polling numbers? Yet scarcely a week seems to go by (this may be an exaggeration but it sure feels like they are on at least once each week and sometimes more often!) without the sanctimony of the IPA strutting its stuff on The Drum.  So how dare the ignorami at The Drum ignore Kingston and her story!

Does questioning the Leader of the Opposition's deceptive use of donations make her inferior to Tim Wilson and Co from the IPA?  If so, could the ABC please cough up with the reasons which support their decision to run away and hide from Kingston's assertions?  Kingston has been tried - and in my view not found wanting - in the fires of significant political journalism.  The besuited boffins from the IPA tea-room cannot provide such a track record.

Keep up the good work Margo and more power to your arm.

A tale of two troglodytes: how Julia called time and changed the game!

This blog is a participant in Blog Action Day 2012.

The theme is the Power of We -

which I believe the women of Australia

have demonstrated in support

of our first female prime minister, Julia Gillard,

and in support of reasonable civil discourse.

This is quite a story.

This post is Part 1.

I expect to follow up this afternoon with Part 2.

This wordcloud has come from  Turn Left 2013

I will leave it to a feminist PhD candidate to collect every last thread of this story.  Collecting the most recent and prominent threads has been enough.  Below please find a list of mainstream media links relating to Julia Gillard's speech last Tuesday 9 October 2012.  Among these links both the video and the transcript of the speech are available.

I believe a number of factors led to the speech of 9 October.

Firstly, the ongoing vileness day after day, week after week by conservative forces and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.  Please go here to see some of the images used against Julia Gillard.  Many women face sexism and misogyny every day and have to let it go by with dignity - so it has been believed.  There is no doubt that Julia let it go by with dignity - but we do suspect she may have mentally rehearsed what she would actually say given the opportunity.

Secondly, she faced the Canberra Press Gallery to answer challenges which had been going on for a long time regarding events in her earlier life. Julia stood there taking every question the gallery asked and answering in detail.  My view is that if they had stayed there until midnight, she would have kept up her strong demeanour and kept answering their questions.  As it turned out, the gallery ran out of questions after 55 minutes.  But it was a tour deforce with Julia remaining composed, answering lucidly, and even giving some interchange.

Thirdly, what doesn't break me makes me stronger. Unfortunately for the conservative opposition, the Liberal National Party Coalition, they have continued their hardline and vile tactics for over two years. Australia has a 'hung' parliament with the government holding on by a thread with support of a mixed bag of independents and teeny-tiny parties. For Julia and her manager of government business, Anthony Albanese, some days it must feel like herding cats.  Every day that parliament sits, the Labor government is only a vote or two or three away from defeat.  Yet Labor has not toppled as the Opposition expected ... and day by day their frustration, their hatred, their violent language has become more putrid.

So while some believe that Julia Gillard remains the Prime Minister of Australia by luck and with the help of petulant independents, her misogyny and sexism speech proves beyond doubt that this is a strong woman with a sound intellect who is competent, competitive, and determined.  This is what electrified and transfixed Australia - and, as it turned out, the world - last Tuesday.

Now we see and hear a mystified mainstream media trying to play catch up.  They focus on what led to the speech - matters surrounding the now resigned Speaker of the House of Representatives.  They say they had to give context to their reporting.  I have yet to hear any of our senior and serious journalists acknowledging that a number of narratives can co-exist and run concurrently, each with their own context.

The context of the eruption of social media was that a significant number of Australians - perhaps the majority - and possibly a majority of women were fed up.  We have been fed up with the negativity of the opposition.  We have been fed up with the vileness and violence of their language which has poisoned public discourse in Australia.  We want good government.  We don't want either our economy or our nation talked down to glorify the negative agenda of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.  Over and over with spontaneity since last Tuesday Australians have said "Enough is Enough".  I am not sure whether we have to wait a little longer to declare Julia's speech cathartic, a national release, rejoicing, breathing out at last.  We will wait to see if that is really the case.

But last Tuesday was significant.  I believe that the women of Australia reached a new milestone then.  Our drooping shoulders could now be lifted and braced. The misogyny and sexism and ridicule and diminution of women would now be fought with dignity and strength.  Men who share the values of Abbott and Jones will have to either shut up or justify themselves, their words, their actions.  Game on! Thank Julia!

For a distinguished review of the vile things
that have been visited upon Julia Gillard
please go to Anne Summers site - The Looking Glass.
Please note Anne's warning: there is a vanilla version,
then there is the R rated version, and then the pictures.
~~~~~~~~~

Here are a few blogs to give you a flavour
of the mood among women in The Land of Oz

boeufblogginon

Turn Left 2012

Blue Milk

Cafe Whispers

I realise that these blogs are only a minute representation

of the blogosphere on this topic.

Please, Networkers, feel free to send me

the name and URL of your favourites for inclusion.

Media: ethics and public manipulation with Robert Manne, Kenneth Davidson and Louise Connor

MEDIA: ETHICS AND PUBLIC MANIPULATION

Speakers: Robert Manne, Kenneth Davidson and Louise Connor. The Australia Series: Four panel discussions co-hosted by the Search Foundation and The New International Bookshop on the topics most critical to Australia’s economic, political and environmental future. 7pm, Trades Hall Meeting Room 1, 54 Victoria St, South Carlton. Entry to the Australia Series talks is by $10 / $5. For more information about the or to confirm your place on the night please contact The New International Bookshop on (03) 9662 3744 or at nibscoordinator@gmail.com 

The Public Interest Journalism Foundation - the latest news from Melissa Sweet

A missive this morning from Melissa Sweet - 

probably best known as the writer of Croakey.

Dear friends of the Public Interest Journalism Foundation

First, apologies that we have not been in touch for some time. We have been in a transition period, setting up as an independent organisation, and can be found care of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at Melbourne University.

We have plenty of news to report:

• Please see our attached letter to Senator Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, calling for tax deductibility for not-for-profit media organisations in the wake of ongoing media upheaval. Please feel free to circulate the attached media statement to your networks.

• Please put Friday and Saturday, August 24 and 25, in your diaries for the New News conference in Melbourne. It is being held by the Centre for Advanced Journalism, in partnership with the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Public Interest Journalism Foundation, and supported by the Melbourne Press Club and Copyright Agency Limited. The program is due for release in a few weeks time, and will include many stimulating and timely sessions, particularly in the wake of developments at Fairfax and News Ltd. A preview of one of the sessions is here:<http://www.pijf.com.au/any-ideas-for-a-new-online-publication-covering-a-health-related-area-of-need/> 
• A report on some of the discussions at a recent Meet Up in Canberra discussing the future of public interest journalism.<http://www.pijf.com.au/reporting-on-some-informal-conversations-about-the-future-of-public-interest-journalism/> 
• We are regularly sharing news from around the world on innovation and developments in journalism and the media via Twitter. Follow us at: @PIJF_au

Finally, a quick request.

One of our members, Associate Professor Margaret Simons, has moved to a new role as director of Centre for Advanced Journalism. Margaret is inviting PIJ supporters to also join the CAJ mailing list. This would enable you to receive newsletters about CAJ events and news (some examples are here:http://www.caj.unimelb.edu.au/ <http://www.caj.unimelb.edu.au/> )

If you do NOT wish to join the CAJ mailing list, please let me know by July 17.  If I haven’t heard from you by this date, I will forward your details to the CAJ database.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’ve ideas for events or for engaging with the Public Interest Journalism Foundation. We plan to hold another Meet Up, with a focus on data journalism, in Sydney later in the year.

Thanks
Melissa Sweet, on behalf of the Public Interest Journalism Foundation

Melissa Sweet
Freelance journalist and health writer
Adjunct Senior Lecturer
Sydney School of Public Health
University of Sydney

Ph      02 484 10601
My associations and competing interests are detailed here:http://www.sweetcommunication.com.au/
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Can Citizen Journalism enliven a distracted, de-professionalised media?

Picture at left from here.

In Australia, Murdoch and Fairfax are making their way to some form of transition from the print to digital age with more or less success, and more or less revenue. In Britain, The Guardian makes no bones about what it is about. It's policy is definitely digital. As part of its digital publishing, The Guardian is mixing its stable of traditional journalists with enthusiastic laypeople.  


I am out of love with large sections of the media - print or otherwise - these days.  My trust is given to only a handful of very senior (yes, you can read very old into that!) journalists.

Once upon a long ago, journalism was much like learning a trade.  A university degree was not required.  Some, like my cousin, graduated from being a linotype operator writing about motorbikes for his favourite magazine to real-life journalism and crime reporting.

Getting ink on fingers seemed to be a prerequisite.  Learning was experiential and transmitted - transmitted from those who had gone before.  It seems to me - and I apologise to Networkers who have heard this chant, this plaint before - that our current crop of journalists has only five minute memory and no research skills in spite of having a university degree.  How else to explain the display and promotion of ignorance regarding national affairs that seems to permeate the news stream without correction? How else to explain not being able to see the wood for the trees?  How else to explain the elevation of the unimportant into national catch-cries? And the serious points cast into the darkness of a netherworld never to trouble an intelligence?

'Citizen journalism' can do no more harm than current journalistic standards.  It may well do better.


Besides requiring good memories, hefty diaries, and excellent and deep research skills, I would require a strong community base from the citizen journalist.  Our news is filled with churned out press releases repeating themselves from every quarter - served up to the general public without question and - in many cases - without any alteration.  Journalists go to politicians, corporate and financial players for their 'serious' reporting.  They espouse the cause of celebrity whether it is physically talented sportspeople or vacuous vamps.  Out there in the interaction of real life , community affairs are ignored - except for ambulance, fire engine, and police car chasing.  Oh, I'm sorry. Like the politicians, the journalists are in awe of polls and focus groups and sampling. I must also draw attention to the stentorian  voices of racism, bigotry and populism which promulgate lies and manipulate ignorance.  All this is part of what passes for professional journalism in the second decade of the 21st century.

Some of us can do better than that.


And thank you to the Public Interest Journalism Foundation 
whose latest newsletter contained the link to the article 
which stimulated this rant.