AUTHORING AND WRITING
WHEN TRUE TO PROFESSION A LAUDABLE CRAFT
AUTHORING AND WRITING WHEN TRUE TO PROFESSION A LAUDABLE CRAFT |
| Click the Index | Authoring | Ethics | Literary | Practitioners | Writing |
|
Editorial comment by the owner of this web site, Kevin R Beck, on journalism and media in Australia
The quality, and investigative capacity, of journalism is suffering. Australia's governments, and the paid media advisers, are corrupting not only our democracy and parliamentary processes but they are corrupting our journalism also. This can only occur if the professional journalists let them. But like all employed persons, journalists, particularly younger ones need their pay packet. Technology is perceived by the evsted interests to be the best hammer of compliance, a threat to the journalism trade. Journalists should not only work together to defend themselves they should enlist the support of those, outside of the profession, who care abiout the quality of Australia's journalism. 
Contact In Australia we are beset with a media suffering a decline in ethical standards and the ability to distill complex issues. Investigativge journalism is not merely shackled it is avidly opposed by vested interests - politicians, parasitic (on the public purse) political media advisers, business and their PR specialists, and individuals with power and influence. "Investigative journalist Chris Masters has been exposing corruption for two decades. This year he produced Not For Publication; a catalogue of disguised stories that were never broadcast, even though Masters was employed at the time by Australia’s best funded and perhaps most courageous investigative journalism program, Four Corners. The book seeks to show how truths can be suppressed and considers the limits of investigative reporting. In doing so, it reveals some of the personal cost paid by a journalist who, believing he was acting in the public interest, set himself against the powerful. Authorities can manipulate difficult reporters by isolating them from the action, and then ration the supply of carefully selected photos, film or text. Press accommodation at Canberra’s new parliament was designed around such an idea." (Australian review of Public Affairs, 2 May 2002, Truth, politics, and the limits of investigative journalism, Alan Knight, Central Queensland University) Journalists, in the mainstream Australian media, appear to concentrate on the sensational and the shallow. Some have lost the art of language and grammar. Speaking to a society that is itself dumb downed by the political spin messages, - "be happy, easy and comfortable, be good economic citizens and work, get a single qualification but want for no more in terms of life long learning, least you must pay for it". The media serves vested commercial interests reinforcing the "power collective" goals, maintenance of the status quo, in this age of wealth and excess, self indulgence and personal delusion as to the future. They did not anticipate the global financial crisis, do not challenge the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, they do not demand the truth from politicians and public servants. They accept dissembling and being on the inside. Some are afraid that if they challenge the politicians they will be locked out from stories and the inner circles of power in the Press Galleries. Investigative journalism, in Australia, is almost no more. The main stream media are absorbed with yellow journalism, the sensational headline, the orchestrated public relations, spin versus foundation, the quick 30 second grab, the precis and the easy, gratuitous, plageurism (using the internet) that is the hallmark of an age of decline in skill and values. The deep analysis of issues, the taxing, and often thankless, labour of investigation, is beyond the commercial imperative, sensibilities and objectives. The short time frame vision of their employers limits their development. Exploitative broadcasting, and journalism, is the norm. There is a culture of idolism of celebrity, the celebration of the gladiatorial nature of Australian politics and government over substance. Much is taken for granted, and reported, without question and anlysis. The general population seem to gullibly swallow the spin, and the mirage of public relations smoke and mirrors as if it is accurate reporting, or do they? Young Australian journalists, of the future, risk aping celebrity as a valuable currency for content and something of immense interest to readers. In doing this they may presume that this what people want. Perhaps in doing so they are risking a focus on the elements of a feckless self abosrbed society. They may rely on the easy concept, and vapid notion of the time poor reader who should be fed short simple stories, and commentary, in lieu of substance and depth. Is print really going to fall to the tablet? Are the greater number of journalists, in Australia today, writing for the main stream, the detached and cognitively challenged? (Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia) "Nobody thinks news reporters are objective..... News reporters don't think they can ever attain objectivity. But the struggle to defend professional reporting cannot be won without a battle to re-take objectivity and reinstate it as the defining characteristic of the professional news reporter. The corrosion of news values is not peculiar to Western countries. (Source: Proof 2010 Journalists Defending Journalism Set 1, January 2010, Scale and Origins of the Threat to Journalism, Defending Journalism = Reclaiming Objectivity, Tessa Mayes. 
Click: The World of Global Media |
|
|
Democratic Media Watching The World |
African Women Writing Resistance |
|
|
|
|
Politician's Media Staff How the Government controls the news, July 1, 2005, The Age Newspaper, Melbourne Australia "Media advisers are being paid from our taxes to spin us a line, writes Sushi Das. Spin doctors, or propagandists, to use their old name, are a strange breed with disagreeable mannerisms that set them apart from the rest of the population. They have the extraordinary ability to be insincere, obscure the truth with irrelevant claptrap, hang up the phone mid-sentence and still be able to sleep straight in their beds at night. Without them, the federal and state governments would barely be able to control the point of view presented in the media, or "spin" stories, as it is called. Premier Steve Bracks' media unit employs 20 advisers. Several of the state departments also have media officers. Here are a few examples of how they go about doing their jobs. Last week I called the media unit and spoke to Kate Leonard, a media adviser to Transport Minister Peter Batchelor, in the hope of arranging an interview to discuss the Spencer Street Station redevelopment. I was subjected to a barrage of questions about my "agenda". I soon realised it would have been easier to ring Buckingham Palace and get an interview with the Queen. Leonard asked me to submit a list of questions I wanted to put to the minister, presumably so he could script his answers. I refused. Then I was asked what the "angle" of my story would be. When I said I didn't yet know, I was asked whether it would be a "soft or hard" story. The conversation went round and round before she said: "I don't want you to ambush the minister." (Source of extract, http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/how-the-government-controls-the-news/2005/06/30/1119724751008.html) |
|
|
|
|
| BELOW ARE AUTHORS, LITERATURE, PUBLICATIONS, COPYRIGHT AND CENSORSHIP |
| Creative Commons Copyright |
| Sage Publications |
| Poetry by Genre and Style |
| Literary Resources |
| Celebrating Women Writers |
| Femail Magazine Australia |
| British Writers |
| Jewish Women Writers |
| Prothought British e-zine |
| List of Authors by Country and Category of Writing |
| Literature Sources Subject Bibliography |
| Classical and modern literature |
| Questia.com, world's largest on line library |
| Medieval Literature |
| Literature research and study guides |
| Children's Literature |
| Classics Archives |
| English and American literature |
| Bible - various versions |
| Jewish literature |
| Australian Film and Literature Commission |
| Hacktivists |
| Booksellers (Australia) |
| Free Music |
| Frontiers |
| Regulatory Regime (Australia) |
| Banned(USA) |
| Burning (USA) |
| Banned (US) Online |
| Bookweb |
| Cbldf |
|
|
|
WHAT IS THIS MOSAIC PORTAL AND WHY USE IT?
|
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 The communication distribution utilities below provide access to world media of all types and locations, 9,000 journalists and more, corporations on the web, governments, politicians in their electorate, officials in public services, institutions, academics and professionals, community and activist groups and tens of thousands of individuals and special interest groups on the web. Tell your story using the portal web pages and the linked sites. |
Tell Me takes you to the Mosaic Forum, a member discussion and communications utility, which has over 2,000 articles, research papers, contributions and links to the Delphi Forums network of 5,000,000 users. If an advertisement page appears after you click "Tell Me", scroll down the page until you see "No Thanks", then click to enter the forum. Enter as a guest to read or become a member with full access and no annoying advertisements. 
  Keep your eye on:  Corporation's Attitudes, Behaviour, Impacts and Contributions to Community The law says that a corporation is a person. Litigation is on the rise and it is expensive. But what if people in corporations had to take personal responsibility and accountability for their actions, and decisions, rather than use the non living corporation? What if in litigating or defending, in cases where they are facing an individual of limited means and resources, they had to justify the legitimacy of their actions and possibly risk their own funds, like an ordinary individual, rather than use the resources of the corporation? Have you considered asking your politicians to change the law, and the costs of access to justice, to make it fairer and more balanced.  |
Need help? Send KEVINRBECK your ideas, articles, web site suggestions
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Energy - Sources, Types, Non Renewable and Renewable, Environment and News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Includes Resources for Teachers Worldwide |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Galleries and Museums |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Mosaic Portal On Line Worldwide Hotel Booking Guide |
 |
 
|
|
|
 |
|
 
Privacy Statement, Uses and Motivation |
|
MOSAIC PORTAL SITE MAP
Eliminate the tiresome irrelevancies of a general web search by using the specific categories of the Mosaic Portal bring it to you... click image
|
|
A deep extended index of subjects and subtopics, research and search utilities and relevant
sites with news, articles and resources about your work, study, family, lifestyle, interests, hobbies, entertainment, beliefs, and more
|
| Australian Server |
|
|
|||
|
|
 |
|
|
Registry Clean Pro Safely remove invalid entries from the Windows registry, optimizing performance. |
|
This site is a member of the All Australian WebRing.
To browse visit Here. |
International Federation of Journalists
