Thursday, April 10, 2008
AGE RAGE
Earth Hour seems to have raised the awareness of Age staff:
Journalists at The Age yesterday condemned management for undermining the Melbourne newspaper’s editorial independence, claiming reporters were pressured not to write negative stories about Earth Hour ...
During what reporters called a “volatile” and “hostile” staff meeting on the editorial floor with the paper’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan, journalists also criticised his decision to attend the 2020 summit and attacked the publication in February of a letter by Fairfax chairman Ron Walker about the Liberal Party …
Some staff were openly hostile towards Jaspan, and at times interjected as he spoke. At a subsequent stop-work meeting, staff passed a resolution saying recent developments had undermined the separation between commercial considerations and editorial independence.
In a statement accompanying the resolution, staff said the Earth Hour partnership placed basic journalistic principles in jeopardy.
(Via Andrew Bolt, who has lots more)
UPDATE. Further good news in local media:
The Australian’s Caroline Overington has won this year’s Blake Dawson Prize for Business Literature for her story of the kickbacks paid by AWB to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Overington was last night awarded the $30,000 prize at State Library of NSW, for Kickback: Inside the Australian Wheat Board scandal.
Beaten: Barry Jones and Chris Masters.