Tag: media

Investigative Journalism must Survive.

I have been guilty of pulling the trigger maybe too quickly on the media on what I see as slanted reporting or cartooning but with the Al Jazeera story I can only commend the media on its speed on self analysis if ethical standards were breached.

Within hours of release, self questioning commenced weather it reported the story or created the story.

That debate will be ongoing but it’s my simpleton belief is overall if it’s in the public interest, the public should know.

The method of acquiring the evidence is played out regularly in capturing terrorist, online predators, drug dealers, gun runners all regarded as fair game if any investigative journalist outlet exposes the culprits.

The fact that they did not secure the funding does not change the intent or the toxic advice on how to nullify murder.

I believe this is a clear example on the value of investigative journalism, and regardless of what side of politics you support it is imperative to democracy these outlets across the world continue their work, and must be protected.

Atheist Point.

As a onlooker without a alliance to any religion I am troubled at the way the Kiwi Tragedy is being handled by social media and the media in general.

If we are to be consistent with reporting and coverage news their is no need to give the perpetrators religion a mention or ensure that when a unfortunate event happens call it equally.

However we  consistently read and view the Islamic faith linked to events by fanatics but rarely do we see the word Christian leading a headline when they impede. 

Hard Right Wing has blazed the headlines not Hard Right Wing Christians Fundamentalists for example which truly identifies those who hold that view but rarely identified in the media or any platform. 

I concede Christianity hold approximately 60% of Australian faith but that should not stand in the way of balanced reporting as that imbalance leads to false impressions and feeds divide.

Calling it as it is sometimes upsets and could threaten income streams of some news outlets but I suppose it comes down to journalistic ethics and brave editors to keep us well and truthfully informed.

Spot the Differences

Sporting Costs disqualify Struggle Street.

At a kid in the 60’s in a war service /housing camp area kids had to make their own entertainment but when the word got around the local Football Club ( Wog Ball as it was known then ) were looking for players a few of us fronted up with absolutely nothing and the rest is history.

After reading the costs involved in the QT report I wonder who will look after those kids from real struggle street who’s parents are the living poor. The odds are those kids will be the problems of the future and never given a chance.

We all know sport is better than any lecture to teach the real lessons of life. Respect, humility, integrity and it goes on and it’s not always parents that can be trusted to impart those standards, so are we as a society prepared to accept those who are priced out in childhood will become tomorrow’s problem generations?

Sport and it’s infrastructure particularly in the lower demographic should be critical, and maybe across the board should be regarded as essential service or we can to play the risk management game and hope the pluses outweigh the minuses?

I appreciate all the government grants to existing and emerging organisations but looking at the data in the qt report sport should never be for the have and the have nots, it is the best classroom in the world regardless of how rich or poor your country is and that applies to parents as well.

Self Regulation in the Churches cannot be Trusted.

In the past week or so I have watched the wave of emotions surrounding the Pell decision and I am one who’s vote falls with the victims.

Sadly it’s not only one church or godly organisation that stands condemned it many. It’s not only one man it’s 100’s of years of perpetrators hidden, relocated or just plain tolerated to keep the cloth appearing sacred.

As a atheist I feel for those who’s faith in their gods and churches has been tarnished if not destroyed but I’m sure they will recover over time. They too are victims of this world wide culture of denial however I refuse to concede the churches do not have enough money to compensate the physical abuse.

I see church hierarchy’s bathed in gold, while their followers starve, struggle for food or justice and I appreciate the excellent work by the believers who work tirelessly across our nation as do the non clerical organisations helping our fellow travellers, but these “keepers of the cash” run the religion business’s ruthlessly as exposed by the commission.

My faith in our legal system is solid and justice will be done in the end, but after the dust settles who will watch the watchers as self regulation has proved totally inadequate for far too long.

Our Women Set the Standard

Tis the time of the year to review 2018 and in sport no one could deny womens sport and sportswomen have carried the banner for our youth to follow.

The male contribution across most codes has been less than admirable and although the press may choose to overlook the facts but our papers and reports are littered with cheating, domestic violence, drug abuse, corporate deception,  and general grubby behaviour from our so called professional athletes and clubs  and yet not one life ban imposed. 

The fact is, compared with professional players worldwide our lot has far too much time on their hands. Overpaid and overrated compared with players who compete overseas where 3 games in 11 days and sometimes less times is common. Imagine the cry’s of our prima donnas if their schedules similar, and just maybe they would not have the time to misbehave as they would be under constant scrutiny publicly and privately. 

Secondly of greater concern is the influence of betting organisations are having on our sporting culture. Codes are selling their souls to these parasites with scant regard to what message they are sending to our future  sportsmen and women inviting corruption into the sanctity of developing minds.

We have a lot of work to do to tidy up the shop in 2019 if we want to meet standards our women have set on the world stage don’t we? 

 

Upholding Journalistic Standards

Maybe I’m one who should be honoured to get a run occasionally in this forum but I actually think public debate is good for democracy. To be honest I was one of the first to burr up about taking Courier Mail copy and pasting Bolt and Murray in my QT.

Over time I have realised it’s important to have them there as it allows the masses to judge where the benchmarks of journalism are set in Australia and it’s becoming quite clear those columns make people aware of the lower end of the debate.

When people aspire to take this country back to the Menzies era of white Australia, coal burning, climate ignorant, society and try and spin that as the good times do not have Australia and our grandkids future at heart.

The light has finally fallen on the conservative ranks that climate change is not a political football and the right wing nutters like Bolt And Murray are so far out of step with real Australians views their opinions will only add the present to governments struggle for credibility, so keep it up.

In regards to our ABC every government regardless of ideology has bellowed bias from its inception and that’s great for our democracy and the cries from the crackpots from the right who want to silence it highlights its importance of a broader perspective, on political and social issues which is not on the media barons agenda who desire to claim the entire debate on their networks and engineer it accordingly.

Merry Christmas and let’s get to the polls.

Less Overheads better for Ipswich Ratepayers.

As our Council administrators get on with their jobs and we see basically nothing has changed in regards to day to day life of ipswich ratepayers.

Council staff are getting on with what they do best, so the question at the end of the day is “are we over governed” when it comes down to this extra layer of divisional councillors and the costs involved.

Remember please Local Government is facility of State Governments, not a seperate level of government.

In a world where we everybody has to qualify with qualifications to make a living under and directly overseen by superiors daily, I think the days of people being given massive wages on a popularity vote is well out of step with current society standards.

We cannot revert to any part of previous administration practices or culture or nothing has been achieved out of this dissolution process as it will re infest.

Ipswich is blessed with people of exceptional talent as we have seen by the top 100 run by QT, all of which I’m sure many have the skill sets required from hands on experience to sit on a board or take responsibility for facets of our great city.

No they may not be good at giving ratepayers money away to boost their own popularity come election time, or grabbing microphones or headlines at look at me rags, as true managers of our great city need to be business and socially focused on the city as a whole, not just 10 little patches each with if we are to believe the spin each like Shiltz and no nothing about the rest.

Less overheads would be better for ratepayers and qualified not popularly Appointees would serve our new beginning better come 2020.

Time for our Youth To Shine.

Oh dear, the older we get the more wiser we are supposed to become.

We will always get those who think the old days were the best, the lifestyles were simple, so that’s good enough for us today, why change, and Now that group has become a political movement.

I’m a 50’s kid and we lived a dream compared to our parents, but ask our parents now if they lived a dream you will get a completely opposite response.

I’m yet to see those pushing the Trumpian ideology of protectionism, anti climate, anti migration, anti equal women’s opportunities, racial and religious divide, provide one forward thinking policy. They see our countries future is to go backwards to the way it was.

The hate youth involvement because it shakes the foundations of what is your place in society , your too young to understand, the cry, forgetting that youth today has 1000 times the access to information that was only available when a newspaper was finished being read or when the radio TV was turned on.

At 21 I could not have a beer in a pub but I could go to war at 19. Only the well off could go to university regardless if you had the talent, as long as you had the money, while the state school kids had to fight for a single grant, and the trades were regarded as the lower end of the class divide., and the shop assistants and labourers were servants.

They will have you believe they were the good times, and they were for the privalaged.

I see a case in today’s world for the voting age to be dropped to 16 as those young people today know and are aware and mature as much as some of the so called adult punters that go to the polls and vote informal deliberately, or turn up just to avoid fines.

We’ve run our race, started wars, split nations, invented weapons, diseases to destroy the the planet, yet say to our youth your too young.

What utter rot.

The LNP’s Trump Faction hard at work.

I would be the last person to tell the LNP how to do their business, however putting that aside I do take issue with the media description of them having a “female” problem within their ranks.

The truth is they have a “male” problem and if you look at their team sheet the line up speaks fo itself. People like Abbott, Abetts, Dutton, O’Sullivan, supported by the Kroger’s support fed by Jones and Hadley and Sky after Dark no wonder the boys club mentality sets a very slanted platform for any person who wishes to contribute let alone a female.

Personally,politically, I hope they don’t change, dig coal, close the borders, deny climate change. Reject renewables, and bully women out of the way, but that’s not good for our nation, any nation, and Victorians agreed, Saturday.

We need to install a government/governments that will look to our future, provide adequate and timely infrastructure and jobs with plans for our kids and elderly that will accommodate our growing population, and stop the scaremongering and fabricating excuses for ideology incompetence, and the real question is the LNP prepared to pay price of keeping the Trump faction worth loosing women’s participation at the ballot box..

The baseball caps have it Scomo.

Leave TELSTRA Employees Out of it.

I feel the pain of TELSTRA complaints every time I see and hear how customers are responding to the lack of service, performance and lack of basic good corporate citizenship.

I don’t expect customers of the this day and age to appreciate the corporate ethics the company had before it was decided the shareholders held more priorities than customers. I agonise when I see guards left on footpaths for years, pits crumbling, non identifiable people accessing the network at pillars knowing how confidentiality and privacy protocols no longer apply or monitored.

Every day in Australia we see good people in uniforms go to work and represent a company, cop the abuse, and do their best for a employer knowing full well they are working with people and systems that are not performing to our standards but may meet some benchmarks set by a bean counter that only understands profit and outsourcing Australians.

Shannon’s experience is common, and will continue until we take back what Australians owned and paid for before privatisation.

I had a American telecommunications expert tell me the network I was accountable for was “too good” and costing too much to maintain and customers had to expect delays in installation and repairs, FACT and that was just before the days of Blunt as MD. That signalled lip service to customer service.

Outsourcing responsibility, accountability, service and especially company brand is a decision only someone who has no respect or appreciation for the vastness and history of the Australian telecommunications network and the attitude accepted by overseas call centres of its “just another call” is not acceptable here and never will be, but please remember those Australian employees you vent your spleen on today are not the people who sold the farm and it’s machinery.

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