A report on the state of the Australian media says press freedom is being stifled by a raft of unnecessary secrecy laws.

The latest of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance's annual reviews of press freedom was launched in Sydney last night.

It says there have been some welcome reforms in recent years both to Freedom of Information and journalist shield laws.

Read the full report here.

But it points out there are more than 500 secrecy provisions which criminalise making government information public.

"Many of these secrecy provisions are just kind of added in as a bit of a meaningless persiflage in the legislation," MEAA federal secretary Chris Warren said.

"But in accumulation they create a climate of secrecy which means people can't know what's going on in their society."

Mr Warren says the Government needs to address this urgently.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-05/secrecy-laws-stifling-press-freedom-report/3993048

The Associated Press news agency has apologised for sacking a reporter who broke the news World War II was over in Europe a day before the agreed embargo.

Ed Kennedy defied the military censors to report the Nazi surrender on the night of 7 May 1945 in France.

The UK and the US had agreed to suppress the announcement for a day so that Russia could stage a second surrender ceremony in Berlin.

AP has now said Kennedy did the right thing in breaking the embargo.

"It was a terrible day for the AP. It was handled in the worst possible way," said president and CEO Tom Curley.

Sworn to secrecy

Kennedy was one of 17 reporters taken to witness the formal surrender of German troops to the Allies at 02:41 on 7 May 1945.

The group were sworn to secrecy by US military commanders, told not to report the news until 15:00 on the 8th - a full 36 hours later.

But when Kennedy heard that German radio had announced the surrender at 14:41 on the 7th, he went ahead and published his story an hour later - a day ahead of the competition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17968282

THE Federal Government is revamping the bonus for school children because it is panicked over the impact of the incoming carbon tax, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will today unveil the bonus for one million families with school-aged children to replace the existing education tax refund.

Hi Gus,

Thanks for a great piece.

An amazing gathering, although the non-attendance of Alan jones et al was probably unsurprising, as he himself has acknowledged ... "I'm not a journalist" .... "I'm a broadcaster" .... same arse, same hole, same rubbish, just delivered at a different speed!!

Cheers,

JR

Shock jocks are deliberately destroying information... It's their job specification in the cog of wealth "collecting" (as opposed to wealth creation). They are not journalists — or if some of them claim to be they do not abide by the rules set out by the former AJA (Australian Journalists Association) now called something with "Alliance" in it...

The shock jocks, including those who claim to be journalists but aren't, hog 90 per cent of the commentariat... They spruik the easy con, they have an opened mike to themselves and to your lounge room... They crap on the easy anti-anything line...Their purpose is to destroy anything that has a social benefit or equality element in it... Look at yourself in the mirror... You were born under the rotten stars of the sick, the infirm and not-so-the-full-quid, and of poordom, weren't you?  So the shock jocks — you cannot stop listening to them because of their grave important voice and the smart twist of the tongue like priests of the news — promote wealth and the concept of wealth into the brains of lollipops (our brains)... but most (all) of their spruik is aimed at making sure their masters (and themselves) collect the wealth, by giving you the illusion that you — the average struggling moronic punter (me included) — can do the same. Bollocks.

It's a sweet illusion that of course we all aim for (especially when we buy a lottery ticket), except we cannot succeed there like we fail at the lotto, mostly because we rotten luckers but we know subconsciouly we will destroy something in the process... Most of what "wealth collecting" does, is destroy the environment and other people... And there is the guilt attached to being a scrooge if you come from the honest bottom while only a greater greed prevails, passed a turning point. Yes the priests also spruik reverse psychology like pulpit spruiking warriors to deflate your opinion of common wealth: if you're rich you'll end up in hell, so you're ambivalent... and stay clear of demanding your soup, while eating your thin broth... Ah, the great con of religion mixed with the rich being so rich to make you believe the rich are "poor fellows"... and that these rich bastards will end up in hell forever-after, while you'll be basking in sunny paradise... They're laughing at you secretly because they know there is no forever-after and since they don't feel guilty about crushing anything that does not bring profit, then there is no shame... 

Wealth collecting is very different to wealth creation. I mean here that wealth creation should benefit the most without destroying the earth... Wealth creation should be smart, generous and caring... Sounds easy and simple, but greed (and greed on credit as well) cannot care about most of us nor care about the planet, as we can bloodsuck them all, till they give us their last dollar or ounce of gold...

Welcome to the ugly shock-jockery where the golden-mikers spruik the easy lines, the anti-science... The spruikers are jokers, nasty jokers indeed and we're stuffed. We have no superman to fight the crap they dish out, day after day after day... They don't hurt your body like a good flogging would, but they fry your brains in the same way... Against your better judgement you fall for the con, the glitter of fool's gold... and you find yourself slaving a term under an Abbott — a lying wooden puppet of the superior masters full of cash and still vacuuming the crumbs left in your pockets... And they will claim it will get better for you will sucking that last drop of blood, but you know it won't but you don't want to admit you made a mistake to trust Abbott so you trust him again, because the spruikers tell you so... You are brainwashed to the hilt, hoping that your kitchen walls will be papered with gold... In your dreams... sick dreams...

From Independent Australia

A handful of media organisations, through their editors, journalists and commentators, have given Abbott a free ride. So they write about politicians not being honourable, or believable, and constantly accuse and denigrate them for ‘spinning’, when much of what is published is exactly that, whether presented in major newspapers, TV, twitter, or blogs.

They twist and edit a politician’s words — and deny us fair, balanced and factual information from both sides. They take to these forums with their own interpretations of an issue or statement as if it was gospel! As if they were God!

With their sarcastic – supposedly humorous – witty commentary, they take to the airways as if they themselves are so much better than everyone else.

What would happen if we turned the tables and started hounding them day in day out about their private and/or professional lives. I bet there would be litigation faster than you could say “Clive Palmer”!

What if the public demanded that media proprietors, and their associated vested interests, not just promise, but ensure, that editors, journalists and commentators are able to conduct themselves in a professional manner — without fear or favour.

This piece is the strong personal view of Denise Allen, a former MP, and may be seen as offensive by some in the mainstream media. It is, however, becoming an increasingly common view in society, as standards of public trust in the popular press plumbs new depths.

Independent Australia would like to make plain that we are not anti-journalist — mainstream of otherwise. In an increasingly confusing media landscape, we know that journalists are under siege in this country, and elsewhere, with job losses and outsourcing occurring on an ever increasing scale — and with individual journalists expected to be more productive with less resources – and thus more overworked – than ever before.

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See article at top... and below it... Let it be known too that YourDemocracy isn't anti-journalist either. We know many good journalists... Many work hard to get to the bottom of things... But these are swamped by the lazy, the opinionated and the shockjockery... Some "journalists" like Laurie Oakes who writes things like a "rooned" opinionated piece, still carries on doing the bidding for Tony Abbott — by faint reprimand disguising praise by default — and avoiding at all cost giving the present Labor Government any inch of proper kudos on what has been achieved so far in such little time...

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I also wrote this, a few blogs below to top article:

Shock jocks are deliberately destroying information... It's their job specification in the cog of wealth "collecting" (as opposed to wealth creation). They are not journalists — or if some of them claim to be they do not abide by the rules set out by the former AJA (Australian Journalists Association) now called something with "Alliance" in it...

The shock jocks, including those who claim to be journalists but aren't, hog 90 per cent of the commentariat... 

FOR YEARS, in the tabloid media and on talkback radio, we’ve been hearing about the domination of Australian politics by a “new class” of left-wing “cultural elites”, but the Rinehart ascendancy at Fairfax confirms quite a different trend: a new conservative elite now rules the roost. One backed by cold hard cash and reported demands for control of editorial agendas.

To see this new elite at work one only has to look across the hard-line conservative network that seeks to dominate public debate on a range of scientific, economic and social issues such as global warming, taxation, and human rights.

It stretches from Lord Monckton’s (Rinehart-sponsored in 2010) global-warming-denialist roadshows, to think-tanks such as the Institute for Public Affairs, to the Liberal Party and the Labor Right, through to the news and opinion pages of the Australian, to Alan Jones’ radio shows, to the opinion pages of the Telegraph, to Andrew Bolt’s columns and blog in the Herald-Sun and television show on (the part-Rinehart owned) Channel Ten.

Just as the old left toed a party line, so this new media machine offers a more-or-less homogeneous, and entirely predictable, view of the world. The rhetorical strategy is clear. Rather than being debated on their merits, every issue, now, even those founded in science, is refracted through the culture wars of the 1990s as a do-or-die battle between left and right.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/gina-and-a-new-class-of-conservative-elites-now-rule-the-roost/

'We're rooned... see article and toon at top....

Alan Jones ordered to do journalism training

Controversial broadcaster Alan Jones has been ordered to undergo basic journalism training by Australia's media watchdog.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) says Jones will have to undertake training on "factual accuracy and significant viewpoints" as part of measures agreed with his station 2GB.

The shock jock has been deserted by sponsors and advertisers after telling a Young Liberals conference that Prime Minister Julia Gillard's father had "died of shame" because of his daughter's "lies".

But ACMA acted after finding that Jones breached commercial radio codes of practice in a statement he made about carbon dioxide emissions in March last year.

The ruling states that Jones said on air:

"Remembering all this when the percentage of man-made carbon dioxide Australia produces is 1 per cent of .001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air. Nature produces nearly all of the carbon dioxide in the air. Human beings produce 0.001 per cent of the carbon dioxide in the air and Australians produce 1 per cent of that. That's 1 per cent of .001 is .00001 per cent of the air. 1/100000th."

ACMA ruled that an ordinary reasonable listener would have understood the material as a statement of fact, not opinion.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-18/alan-jones-ordered-to-do-journalism-training/4320534

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Hello? Anyone at home? Listening to radio or watching daytime TeeVee?... Hey! Mr Jones prides himself on the fact "he is not a journalist!"... And he's not alone in this category, though some rotten spruikers like Andrew Bolt may have a journalist's accreditation (I have no idea — ask the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance), their ways of cooking the news is not worth a rabbit's fart...

See article at top... At least Gus does not claim to be a journalist but his opinionated reports are more accurate than the alignment of the railway gauge on the Nullarbor plain... Straight down the barrel on both sides.

The list of spruikers masquerading as journalist is long and I would even add here Jonathan Holmes, who nearly got it right in the last Media Watch but still muffed it by not understanding the full dynamics of the press gang.

Jones going back to school?... BASIC TRAINING?... Makes me cry with laughter... He'll be the one telling them how to run the course with shaff bags on their heads...

see toon at top... Note a few journos in need of going back to school... and read the article below...

Very funny indeed, ACMA... Even to the point that once its chairman was David Flint (when ACMA was the ABA), a close buddy to Alan Jones and an elegant ignoramus himself... Fact checker is one area that is always a problem in our (humans — in general) promotion of illusion to buid a comfortable neo-reality... When this neo-reality gets too far removed from say scientific analysis, we enter the world of fairy tales, religions and porkies that are used as formats for beliefs and opinions... As you know persons like Alan Jones proud themselves in not being journalists, but act as if they were in front of their slanted microphones while spruiking opinions with no facts to back them up, but since they are very skilled at being blabber mouths, their ill-views often prevail. Even when a Jonathan Holmes (who used to be an average journalist with a certain lack of vision) makes a mistake on Media Watch, he will bunker behind a wall of opiniated bullshit to justify his own existence...

Here is the take of David Donovan on the state of journalism in Australia...:

No, I have no problem with journalists and, in fact, I reckon Australia produces some of the better reporters in the world. I stand proudly with our dwindling stock of mainstream news hounds, as they try to ferret out the news with dwindling resources, while working in the shadow of an ever looming axe.

What I’m not particularly interested in is when journalists move beyond their remit to offer their frequently amateurish, half-formed, opinions on current events. I really don’t want to be switching onThe Drum to see Joe Hildebrand assertively extolling his paper thin understanding of political events, or economics, or foreign affairs, when I could be hearing the incomparably more profound insights of, say,Professor John Warhurst, the eminent ANU political scientist, who has over 40 years experience in this field, including decades as a columnist for the Canberra Times. But, you will never see him on The Drumor Q&A (you can get a sense why here).

This is not to say that I think journalists, or anyone else, should be prevented from offering their opinions. No, I am totally relaxed about Joe Hildebrand carrying on writing his occasionally even close to amusing smackdowns of hipsters, Julia Gillard and the carbon tax for his employer, The Daily Telegraph — and if they continue publishing his views, well good luck to him.

But here’s the rub: since Joe already has a substantial platform to amplify his views to the world, and is not an expert in any particular field, what is the justification for the ABC to provide him yet another pulpit to spout his skewed analysis on Q&A, The Drum or any of its other shows. Frankly, Joe’s opinions – and, indeed, all other journalists’ – are no more worthy of a place on the public broadcaster than yours, mine, or the bloke behind the counter at your local bottle-shop ― maybe less so.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/journalists-interviewing-other-journalists/

read article and toon at top

In Colvin’s lecture, he puts the crisis of credibility down to events such as the News Limited phone hacking debacle and the BBC’s Jimmy Savile scandal. But I don’t think this is the main cause of the loss of confidence in our media. I think the bigger problem is the way they have reported the news. To put it bluntly, they’re just not very good at their core reason for existence. Instead of information containing interesting and relevant facts, we get trivial nonsense, sensationalised exaggerations of reality, punditswho are campaigning for some vested interest and huge swathes of nothingness on topics that are incredibly important to our society.

While newspapers are quickly disappearing across the globe, consumers are expected instead to visit corporate media’s websites to access their news and opinion. However, as I wrote last week, social media has provided consumers with an alternative to the online mainstream press. We now have a place where we can discuss the news of the day, and share it amongst ourselves, without the influence of old media. I like to think of social media and independent blogging as the democratisation of media. You no longer have to work for a large corporation to contribute to the conversation. This is obviously incredibly threatening to the media industry, who are used to behaving like dictators; they are used to deciding what we talk about and which information is made available to us. But this has all changed. It’s no wonder media executives see social media as damaging to their ‘authority’ and in turn their ‘finances’. With more of us on social media than ever before, the media corporations think we’re using it instead of visiting their websites. They correctly think fewer consumers mean fewer advertising dollars or people willing to subscribe to pay-walled content.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/why-mainstream-media-are-losing-it/