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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.
Hey, it offended the principles of physics, sound economics, and common sense. Why shouldn’t Earth Hour offend the principles *snort* of journalism?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 10 at 11:49 PM • permalinkSome staff were openly hostile towards Jaspan, and at times interjected as he spoke.
Ungrateful wretches. Goebbels never even had meetings.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 04 10 at 11:59 PM • permalinkJournalism is a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange seedy world full of misfits and drunkards and failures. A group photo of the Top Ten journalists in America on any given day would be a monument to human ugliness. Hunter S. Thompson
All newspaper and journalistic activity is an intellectual brothel from which there is no retreat. Leo Tolstoy
In an interview many years ago a journalist asked Joe Namath if he had majored in sandbox.
Joe answered “No, sandbox was too hard so I majored in journalism”.
A bit off topic, but this story at ABC Online beggars belief:-
“The Greens say Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should have visited one of the world’s largest solar power plants in China, rather than tour a clean-coal project.”
Could it be this solar plant they are talking about?
In that case, it definitely should have been on Krudd’s itinerary…...
Looking for explanation why every journalist who comes in close contact with Rudd adores him, I remembered Futurama’s brain slugs.
There can be no other reason why people who are expected to professionally cynical can be so gullible when it comes to Rudd’s spin. It is not like the spin is clever and sophisticated, it isn’t, but every time I turn on the TV there is some respected journalist gushing about Rudd like a teen girl with a crush. Only foreign journalists ask Rudd difficult questions. It leaves you wondering what a free press really means when the Australian press gallery’s minds are held captive.
What has this got to do with the Age? Well I thought the effects of brain slugs was permanent. Might be wrong.
Irony - who did AWB receive legal advice from in 2003 regarding their payment of trucking fees? Blake Dawson.
Posted by attilathepun on 2008 04 11 at 03:22 AM • permalink#12 - A little bit in Love with Rudd? I threw up a little in my mouth after reading this.
They’re no longer journalists, but a travelling posse of “Glory Holes”, each looser than the next.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 04 11 at 03:38 AM • permalink#14 Excuse the shouting but RUDD HASN’T DONE ANYTHING. It’s been all symbolism, stunts and tricks and the media is sitting there, their mouths agape, applauding and squealing with delight.
To use an aviation analogy, if Howard hadn’t left the plane so well trimmed it would now be in a death dive. There is no one at the controls - the crew is back in the cabin doing handstands, juggling tenpins and performing card tricks. How long the plane will continue to fly level is anyone’s guess but the drop in consumer confidence to Keating levels might be the first sign of turbulence.
I wouldn’t get too worked up contrail. Rudd and Swan have been busy lowering expectations for the economy ever since they got elected.
But you just wait ‘till budget day! All of a sudden
Treasurer Swanthe Ruddstar will pull a plus $20 Billion surplus out of thin air! And project a decline in inflation! And, through their careful diligence, interest rates have peaked and expected to decline! And you thought they were busy doing nothing but organise love ins for the latte set and signing useless bits of paper.It was hard work changing all the economic settings put in place by that vandal Costello, while all the time looking like they were doing nothing but announcing review after review!
We are lucky we have Rudd at the wheel you poor binge drinking, combi dwelling homeless bastards.
O/T, but it has to be said, Rudd is pada-ing to the Chinese again.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 04 11 at 04:51 AM • permalink#14 Nothing like securing a coveted KD Lang endorsement. Might be different if it was, say, Megadeath...
Posted by ErnestBludger on 2008 04 11 at 05:01 AM • permalink#17 - Boom-boom! It would give the Chinese olympic torch guards something to look after while they were here.
Posted by ErnestBludger on 2008 04 11 at 05:06 AM • permalink#12 Contrail; as well as the brain-slugs, I think The Tingler was in that room.
Next we will have Jaspan Ageism and Rudd Swansong in Sino-Tibetan Mandarin?
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 11 at 05:57 AM • permalinkI refuse to buy The Age until that reprehensible little turd Jaspan apologises to Douglas Wood for his comments on ABC radio following Wood’s rescue.
Here’s part of Jaspan’s quote.
“I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood’s use of the a—-hole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else.
“The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive.”
What an ingrate that Douglas Wood is - he didn’t even thank the kidnappers for killing his driver in front of him and saving him all that back pay.
How Jaspan retained his job after that, I don’t know. How any thinking person can buy The Age after that, I don’t know. And how John Faine failed to pull Jaspan up ... well, that we all know.
Arseholes, both of them.
#25 Mrs and Mrs Rudd sometimes I wonder, about the two of them.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 11 at 07:17 AM • permalink#24 Contrail
No, you were right the first time.
Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 04 11 at 07:28 AM • permalink#23 BB77; you are too fair to those pair of walking vomits; also of note, and previously noted by TB, from the fairfax pool of stagnant urine, is that streak of misery, peter fitzsimmons; marvel at his fatuity.
Jaspan quickly brought the contentious staff meeting under control by breaking a beer beer bottle and carving “Respect My Authority” on the forehead of the nearest sub-editor. The editor-in-chief was subsequently presented with a hostile staff resolution, which he rolled up, put in a bottle filled with his own urine, and forwarded via interoffice mail to the sports editor, with a note saying “Bon appetit!” Confronted once more by several staff members as he was leaving for the day, Jaspan began hooting and hurling his feces at them. Then he got in his car, backed over a secretary, and burned rubber tearing out of the parking lot.
...began hooting and hurling his feces at them.
I’m dyin’ over here! Stop it!
=^D
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 04 11 at 09:45 AM • permalink#35: Stop laughing, Spiny; journalism is serious business.
For example, check out these somber thoughts from the great H.L. Mencken.
#36
Serious business? Yes, it certainly is.
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
Heh™.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 04 11 at 10:54 AM • permalinkKick the ink-stained wretches to the curb Andy, and enact some serious business economies by outsourcing their ‘writing’ jobs to Singapore and India…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 11 at 11:19 AM • permalink#40
Yes, Fossett is still missing. I believe he’s been declared “officially dead” for legal reasons.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 04 11 at 11:29 AM • permalinkActually, Fossett was flying a 2-seat Bellanca Super Decathlon fixed-wing aircraft when he went missing, rather than a balloon. It’s a small aircraft and if there was no fire from a crash (if he ran out of fuel, for instance), it could stay hidden in the wilderness for quite some time.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 04 11 at 11:44 AM • permalinkSo Age “reporters” are upset that management spiked negative gerbil worming stories? Does this mean some of them actually aren’t buying the propaganda and actually tried to run facts for a change?
Hooey. Real reporters would have leaked to other papers to get the story out then watched management squirm. We used to do that all the time, and if the copy desk ever knew they said nothing to the suits because they knew we were right.
Of course, this was back in the Pleioscene when facts and accuracy actually meant something…
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2008 04 11 at 12:40 PM • permalink#40 #45 Yes, Fossett is still missing. I believe he’s been declared “officially dead” for legal reasons
And financial reasons. Cha ching. He may be adding recipes to the “Amelia Earhart’s Cooking with Coconuts”. There are rumors that he may be working on “Survival Guide for Multimillionaires”, as well as a relationship guide, “Long Term Relationships with Sport Goods”.
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 04 11 at 01:59 PM • permalinkReminds me of the old story when Melbourne outer suburbs after the War where not yet sewered, and the dunnypans were collected by contractors usually known as nightmen (after night soil) or dunny men. Anyway, one of these blokes, using the particular style still beloved of truck drivers, painted his name and business on his truck, vis: Joe Bloggs, SHIT CARTER. Well he got pulled up by some Council busybody (doubtless a nanny state precursor) and advised in the interest of public niceness to change the slogan to FAECES CONTRACTOR. Joe is said to have regarded the nitwit with utter contempt and said pityingly “Ya flamin’ prawn -if I could bloody spell “FEESEES” I wouldn’t be cartin’ shit!”
#54, That reminds me of the fellow who had a boat on the New River of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, who offloaded the toilets of the yachts anchored along the river in front of their mansions. He called his boat the Shit Scow, despite the prissy objections of his customers (I was honored to see the Shit Scow at anchor—- a crappy little boat, but obviously necessary to the health and wellbeing of the elite along the New River).
#59:
The Shit Scow pulls alongside the Royal Poinciana II; the Captain of the Scow walks to the starboard quarterdeck, thumping on his peg leg. He is clad in a blue and white striped shirt, a bright red kerchief hangs around his neck, and a cocked hat sits atop his bald pate. He holds a megaphone to his mouth.
“Hello, the Poinciana! Captain Sweet of the Shit Scow, out of Ft. Lauderdale! Heave to, and we’ll drain your heads!”
The owner of the Royal Poinciana looks down on the Shit Scow from his lofty perch on the uppermost deck; he scowls grimly, embarrassed that his yacht has been approached by a manure barge – and in the midst of a party he is throwing for a select group of nubile young ladies in Ft. Lauderdale on spring break. Dressed in a white yachting cap, double-breasted blue blazer, and neatly-creased white trousers, he looks like an admiral in the navy of the late Kaiser Wilhelm II, and possesses something of the arrogance of one
“Avast, there, Shit Scow! Wear away, and handsomely! I’ll not have your foul-smelling tub stinking up my ship!”
Captain Sweet swells with indignation at this slight against his boat.
“’Foul-smelling tub’, is it? ‘Arr, it weren’t a foul-smelling tub when you had your wife and her relations aboard last week, every blessed one of ‘em down with the trots from the bad food ye picked up at the Rusty Pelican – an’ you’ll recollect I warned ye about the grub there. Ye pra’tically begged me to come alongside, what with all the copious bowl work your folk were doin’ that day! ( Smiles maliciously) Say, Captain Vandermere, I don’t seem to see your good wife among that lot of females prancin’ about the main deck, there. I trust her gripes didn’t end with her bein’ sewn in a canvas sack wearin’ a 12-pound ball around her ankles?”
Captain Vandermere, fearing that his guests would hear the dialogue and take him for what, in fact, they did take him as - a randy old goat valued exclusively for his boat, food and alcohol – became increasingly angry.
“Get that floating septic tank out of these waters, Captain Sweet, or I’ll call the Coast Guard and have you driven off!”
“Arr, you will, will ye? Well, then, I’ll go, Captain, but not until you strike your colors and hand us down a case of Scotch.”
“You pirate! Get out of here!”
“Gunner’s mate Johnson!”
“Aye, sor!”
“Well, you ain’t nothin’ much to look at, neither, me lad. Load the air gun with some a’ them prime turds we took off that boat that was transportin’ horses down the intercoastal.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
A few minutes later.
“Primed and ready, Captain!”
“Arr! Ready on the uproll…Fire!!”
( A loud “Whump!”, and a horse patty flies in a high arc, landing among the girls cavorting on deck; much screaming ensues).
“Fire two!”
Whump!
Captain Vandermere appears on the bridge, his smart nautical uniform strangely discolored; his flag – a blue banner with a white anchor – is quickly lowered, and a case of scotch is lowered over the side.
“Arr! Johnny - lower the skiff, and fetch our prize!”
#25
Ahhh, Misser Ludd, the mandolin-playing Prime Minister of Austlalia ...
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Completely O/T but vital information-
Beer, Breakfast Ck Hotel, emphysema ward, 0700 zulu (that’s 1700hrs or 5pm for civilians), today. Kev’s recovered from his angiogram and wants to do so real collatoral damage to compensate.