Blaming the victims

Malcolm says it’s time for the speculation about Peter Costello’s future to stop because the public want to hear about something else. Shouldn’t he be saying that to someone other than the public? I don’t believe we’re responsible for the stupidity of the political/media discourse.

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This is not politics

Sticking a photographer outside the home of a former PM’s daughter, all so you can document her “marriage misery” with pictures of her living alone and leaving her child with the nanny? That’s really sad tabloid journalism. At least save it for those who choose to be celebrities.
Just sayin’.

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Gaza news sources

Although global media attention is focused on the rising death toll in Gaza, it is difficult to know about the accuracy and quality of the reporting. The closure of access to the area means that journalists are often relying on reports from others. Reporters Without Borders is a good place to get information about the [...]

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Ridiculous made-up word of the day

“Warmaholic” – that is the new term coined by a virologist who was attempting to argue against the evidence for global warming in today’s Australian.
When I read the column this morning, I found myself asking what evidence Jon Jenkins had to support any of his assertions. He didn’t cite it, and I didn’t have the [...]

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And so it begins …

As we saw the Liberal Party do last year, the Republicans begin the process of apportioning blame. And suddenly, Andrew is willing to listen to bad words spoken about Sarah Palin – even from anonymous sources.

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That Guy

When I grow up, I want to be a senior political analysis campaign advisory consultant:

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Things I learned this weekend from Andrew Bolt

It is better to have one million page impressions than the respect of your peers.
Barack Obama is to blame for the media’s fixation on Joe the Plumber – apparently, he should have known how attracted they are to trivialities over substance and should have stopped John McCain from making Joe the focus of the final [...]

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Teh Surge != Victory!

Over at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Dan Froomkin has written a good analysis of what is missing from the “the surge has worked” perspective on Iraq. Froomkin discusses the argument about the surge made by Peter Galbraith. Some of the key points in Froomkin’s piece:
Certainly the surge has been accompanied by a dramatic and [...]

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More on lies and how to fight them

Shankar Vedantam has written for the Washington Post about psychological research on the effects of misinformation and how it applies to politics. Media Matters has a nice summary of some of the implications:
If Candidate A lies about Candidate B, for example, the fact that Candidate A is lying should be the lede – otherwise the [...]

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Lies become the narrative

Tell enough lies and it appears that the media will manage to find a narrative about it – which is exactly the magical ingredient that is needed to kickstart the journalistic process. At the same time, Paul Abrams notes that the Obama campaign can’t just leave the lies sitting there. But as Digby notes, the [...]

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