Media Watch gets half an explanation from The Northern Star

ABC.NET.AU

Last week Media Watch highlighted "churnalism" in regional media and pointed to an article published in Lismore's The Northern Star on 25th May 2009.
In its right of reply The Northern Star pleaded newness to the position of the Sunday Chief of Staff as the main cause of the no~no of publishing - a supplied press release passed off as reporting.
Now this CoS may be 'new' to his current position, but he has been a Northern Star journalist at least since 2006 (before that editor of the Rivertown Times since about 2003) and definitely would have known the paper's basic editorial policy.
I doubt whether Media Watch would have gone as softly on the newspaper if it had known that it was discussing "churnalism" approved by a seasoned journalist and editor and not by an implied young, wet-behind-the-ears CoS.

Anyone who tuned in, turned on and drop'd out in the Sixties would smile at this one

From Wikileaks:

June 1, 2009
Summary

States that are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are required to confidentially provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with a description of the location and purpose of each of their nuclear sites.

The document presents a sensitive 5 May, 2009 draft of all US nuclear sites for Congressional review together with a covering note from President Barack Obama giving more detail on the restrictions.

It seems that by mistake, the entire document, including the sensitive portions--labeled as such on every page--was printed by the US Government Printing Office.

A day after its publication here, and on Secrecy News[1], the GPO removed the document from its website, according a story published in the New York Times[2] two days later.

The document is likely to be of substantial interest to environmental activists.

Graphic from Google Images

3 Rivers Aboriginal Art Space to open in Lismore on 19 June 2009

Mapping Beirrinba by Frances Belle Parker

ANR Indigenous Arts Development Officer

According to Arts Northern Rivers eNews:

The long awaited Indigenous art centre has arrived in the form of the ‘3 Rivers Aboriginal Art Space’. Located at 125 Magellan Street Lismore the centre will be used for workshops, meetings, forums, exhibitions as well as an artist studio space.Bookings are now invited from artists who wish to use the space as a studio. To make a booking contact Frances on (02) 6628 8120 or 0414 847 288 or email mailto:frances@artsnorthernrivers.com.au

Parilamentary English: nasty, nerd and bitch.....

On Tuesday 2nd June 2009 Bernard Keane writing in Crikey said: "The Coalition's discipline, which held more or less solid for the eleven years of the Howard Government, has never really recovered from the election defeat. Malcolm Turnbull was busy running his own under Brendan Nelson. Since Turnbull's ascension, Peter Costello has felt no apparent compunction to do anything to help his leader or his party. Wilson Tuckey and Bronwyn Bishop insist on behaving like senile old relatives. And the Nationals, with Barnaby Joyce elevated from maverick to Senate leader, are not so much off the reservation as permanently on the warpath, and don't much care if its Liberals or the Government they're fighting."
Everyone it seems is noticing.
Yet despite the entire country looking on askance at Coalition disintegration, the Leader of Opposition Business withdrawing comments made in the House of Reps during Question Time on the same day attempted to get on the record the interjections "Nasty, nerd and bitch".
How much longer do we have to endure these childish behaviour and puerile name-calling?

So predictable that only Steve didn't see it coming......

Speaking from Washington, Senator Fielding said that asking the White House to explain why it is convinced global warming is linked to greenhouse emissions was part of "picking up the fight for the underdog".

He earlier attended a climate sceptics' conference run by free-market think tank the Heartland Institute — part of a trip to "hear both sides".

Senator Fielding said he found that Dr Aldy and other Obama Administration officials were not interested in discussing the legitimacy of climate science. [The Age,6 June 2009]

A little light beginning to illuminate the scene yet, Senator Fielding? That's right - thinking people know that the junk science is not coming from IPCC.

Of course Obama's aides might also have seen this:
















Fielding's bottle imitation from ABC News online

UPDATE 8.06.09:
On ABC News Radio this morning an excerpt from AM was played in which Steve Fielding stated he wants the solar flare theory investigated before the Rudd Government's national carbon emissions trading scheme comes up for a Senate vote.
Senator Fielding also calls for an open debate on the science. If he was serious about this call he would have published on his own website those Heartland Institute conference graphs he keeps citing as evidence for legitimate doubt concerning climate change cause and effect.

Why we need a fact checker during President Obama's speeches

Politicians make so many speeches that it is hard not to make a verbal slip or two, like substituting the word privacy for piracy.
However Barack Obama goes beyond the usual tongue-twist and now it's wise to double-check his supposed facts.
It seems that the US President really needs his aides to be a little more vigilant whenever that unknown someone pens the first draft of his speeches.
Sometimes these silly mistakes ruin what could almost be inspirational moments.

FactCheck highlights these bloopers:

1.
* He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
* He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
* He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
* He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
* He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.

2.
* President Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" in terms of population. That strains the facts mightily. The U.S. Muslim population probably doesn't even rank in the top 50.

3.
* President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don't actually support that claim.

4.
* President Barack Obama made one factual error in his first speech in office when he said, immediately after being sworn in: Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. It is true that Obama is counted as the 44th president, but he's only the 43rd person to take the oath. Grover Cleveland is counted

While Voter Fact Check cites:

1.
* Did Obama incorrectly say his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz?

Yes. Obama's great-uncle helped liberate Ohrdruf, which was a subcamp of Buchenwald, not Auschwitz....

Turnbull couldn't take a trick until......

On 1st June the Leader of the Opposition was twittering negatives about the Australian economy under the Rudd Government:
TurnbullMalcolm in case you have not seen it - our new TV ad http://tinyurl.com/nyklya

The very next day his doom and gloom ad campaign hit a hurdle:
"The trend estimate of the balance on current account for the March quarter 2009 was a deficit of $3,676m in current price terms. This was a decrease of $2,691m (42%) on the deficit recorded for the December quarter 2008 where:
* the goods and services surplus rose $2,091m (52%) to $6,112m
* the income deficit fell $634m (6%) to $9,602m
* the current transfers deficit rose $34m (22%) to $186m.
In seasonally adjusted current price terms, the current account deficit fell $1,743m (27%) to $4,614m between the December quarter 2008 and March quarter 2009 where:
* the goods and services surplus rose $900m (22%) to $5,075m
* the income deficit fell $862m (8%) to $9,498m
* the current transfers deficit rose $18m (10%) to $190m."

Then matters darkened even further for Malcolm with the announcement of GDP quarterly growth and publication of "Debt for Development Makes Sense say 21 Prominent Australian Economists", which removed the last of the air from his little campaign.
Every time poor Mal thought he'd found a silver bullet to fire at his political opponents, along came economic reality.

However the gods must have listened to his desperate prayers, for up popped Fitzgibbon and Ute Man.
Ah, saved to fight another day! Even if nobody gives a toss - when you've shot your credibility wad you've shot your wad period.

The rest of Australian Bureau of Statistics 2nd June 2009 analysis and comments here.

Chapman uses Chaser blunder to hit back at Media Watch

Image from The Daily Examiner

In this clumsy attempt to hit back at ABC TV Media Watch (for this item and probably this earlier item) under the guise of commenting on The Chaser's War on Everything's lapse in good taste, I particularly enjoyed Peter Chapman's silly jibes about ABC employees:

where many journalists go to retire

they prance around with an air of superiority and arrogance watching the clock tick from 9am to 5pm

They live in a world of their own where they believe their snobbish upperclass views are indeed the only views that have any merit

While his dig at ABC radio news coverage on the NSW North Coast begs the question as to why The Daily Examiner editor, who is notorious locally for his advertorials and product placement in supposed news articles, dares to point to journalistic failings in others.

One almost feels like echoing the comment of his young daughter; Zip it, Dad. [The Daily Examiner,"Slants on Life",6 June 2009]

Though comments on the ABC Media Watch website go further:

Bred and born in the Clarence :
18 Apr 2009 2:36:13pm
I've lost count of the number of people I have spoken to who no longer buy the Daily Examiner due to its degrading gutter journalism. Reports continually try to divide our wonderful coastal community on a variety of issues.
Perhaps the community should call for a "vote of no confidence".

clarence valley gal :
15 Apr 2009 9:44:15pm
Thank you for drawing attention to the pathetic attitude of the editor of the local paper [ Daily Examiner]. We have to suffer through his boorish comments on a regular basis.

Jen :
14 Apr 2009 6:53:26am
Well done Media Watch. This newspaper editor writes rubbish on a regular basis and it's good to see him called on this. Unfortunately he also writes articles with serious bias and disses local towns such as Yamba and South Grafton. The former apparently on the grounds that all its shops were not open on New Year's Day for the benefit of his relatives. In addition - one of his very early stories on the Clarence Valley almost lost it the services of Rex Airlines.

National interactive map of GM-free farms, businesses and councils - register now

Gene Ethics has developed an Australian interactive map which shows those farms, retailers, restaurants, caterers, seed suppliers and local government councils which are proudly GM-free.

The map also shows GM farms and receival depots.

To get your NSW North Coast GM-free business on this register, Download this form and email it back to Gene Ethics.

Congratulations to Truefood Trading at Diggers Camp for being the first North Coast business to register.

First Dog on the Moon asks the ultimate Internet question

Cartoon from Crikey on 2nd June 2009

It's an exciting time for black politics in Australia. The genie is out of the bottle and her name is Marion Scrymgour**

Picture: National Indigenous Times

Marion rocks!

Scrymgour quits and throws Henderson government into chaos

**Post title is taken from the final paragraph of a 5 June 2009 Crikey article by National Indigenous Times editor Chris Graham.

Noel Hart and the radiance of birds

Blue Eared Lorikeet 2009

Byron Bay artist Noel Hart with the assistance of glass blowers, Johnathon Westacott & Greg Royer, along with cold worker Earl Sullivan, has created blown glass art inspired by the vibrancy and colour of parrots.

This artist's work is featured on his own website and at Retrospective Galleries Jonson Street, Byron Bay NSW.

Media has fun with the Federal Opposition

Tongue-in-cheek media headlines the Federal Opposition has generated recently:

PARLIAMENT FARCE: Joe runs with scissors - LiveNews

Snippy Hockey props up Question Time - ABC Online

Turnbull 'disappointed' over press gallery stoush - The Age

Why didn't we hear about 'grateful dead' under the coalition? - Crikey

Turnbull gets big bickies with his morning tea - Brisbane Times

Turnbull coyness is a bit rich - The Daily Telegraph

Want to be a millionaire? - Townsville Bulletin

Plaque blowback - Crikey

One very solemn one:

Widow slams Opposition over cash comments - The Age

And a piece of pure mischief:

Turnbull denies plan to quit politics - WA Today

What gripe does the Daily Examiner have with PNG?

After Wednesday night's State of Origin the Examiner's editor, Peter Chapman, called for all NRL video referees "to be taken to the docks for a one way trip to Papua New Guinea".

Many people will agree with Chapman that the video referee in Wednesday night's NRL State of Origin went way too far when deciding 'No Try' after Blue's Jarryd Haynes had flirted with the touch line.

However, sending all the video refs to PNG is stretching things a bit too far. What on earth have PNGers done that caused Chapman to decide they should have to host the refs?

Chapman admitted that he "bunkered down at home for the match complete with freshly-ordered pizza and a cold drink by (his) side".

Perhaps, Chapman had one cold drink too many. Then again, perhaps the pizza was off.

Political incompetence in the Senate: surely it is no coincidence............

Heartland Institute scale of fees

The Senate seats of Bill Heffernan, Barnaby Joyce, Stephen Conroy and Steve Fielding all expire on 30 June 2011.

Surely this is heaven's way of giving Australia the chance of a brief respite from over-the-top political incompetence.

Senator Fielding in particular is excelling himself on the subject of global warming as first this statement showed:

We've all bought this idea that man is the problem with carbon emission and therefore man has to change what they do with carbon emissions. That's where we're at the moment. But there are some questions now being asked: is man the problem? And if not, then what are we doing?

And then this exchange revealed on ABC TV Lateline on 4 June 2009 after the senator had attended a Heartland Institute conference:

STEVE FIELDING: ......And I'll be coming back to Australia to sit down with the - Senator Wong and the Rudd Government to share with them and to just to see what their thoughts are and what I've heard from here. Now, what they did say yesterday, the scientists - and, look, I'm not saying that they're right, but they've actually put a very big question about the link between carbon emissions and global warming. Now, what they put forward yesterday was that in fact over the last 10 years, carbon emissions have gone up, but and global - or the temperatures, global temperatures have not gone up. Now, that obviously ...

TONY JONES: Well, I mean, yes, that is their claim, that since 1998, when there was a peak in temperatures, it hasn't gone up. But you'd be aware of the other evidence on that, wouldn't you, I dare say? That Britain's Hadley Centre, ...

STEVE FIELDING: Yes.

TONY JONES: ... which is one of the most respected organisations involved in measuring global temperature has data for global mean temperatures that says 1998 was the hottest year on record; 2005 the second hottest year on record; the third hottest, 2003; the fourth, 2002; the fifth hottest, 2004 and the sixth hottest, 2006. They're saying they're the hottest temperatures ever measured since temperatures were first taken in 1880.

STEVE FIELDING: And so that puts a question on it. But, Tony, you know, you've got to actually look at the facts and figures, which you've put forward a case. I'll need to (inaudible) just to make sure that what I heard yesterday, what are the arguments against it. You've put them forward, but I need to check today with the Obama administration, and I may even check with the Bradley area as well and just to make sure because this is too big an issue to get wrong. And what's worst, if we make the wrong decision, what's worse than that is if we make the right decision too late. And so the issue is that if you look at the graphs, if you look at the temperatures over the last 10 years, yes, they've gone up and down, but they've actually, if you look at the average, it stayed reasonably level, and CO2 emission over that time have gone up drastically. So, the whole idea about that there's a direct link between CO2 ...

If we make the wrong decision, what's worse than that is if we make the right decision too late - no Senator, the wrong decision or the right decision too late are equally disastrous for Australia and I rather suspect from the aforementioned exchange that you have entered the essentially 'anti-science' la-la land inhabited by Heartland members and backers.

What is worse, Senator Fielding, is that the right-wing free market advocate Heartland Institute (partly funded by coal, oil, nuclear energy companies and a water privatisation and big tobacco apologist) obviously targeted you as a gullible fool long before it extended its invitation.

This is what the Heartland Institute says about its relationship with donors and the targets it picks:

The Heartland Institute has discovered a way to get the attention of busy elected officials. We package research and commentary on public policy issues as news, in the form of monthly public policy newspapers.

As a courtesy to donors, we share with them advance copies of the studies they helped fund, and we often solicit their advice on what audiences to target during promotional campaigns.

Steve Fielding could have saved himself those overseas travel costs by either: a) allowing his mouse to do the walking on the Internet and so easily acquire the type of information he is allegedly seeking; b) requesting the Parliamentary Library provide him with research; c) arranging to meet with the CSIRO which might objectively give him an insight into global warming science; or d) visiting communities on the NSW North Coast where coastal erosion and seawater inundation is not a maybe but a very real occurrence for some families.