How do you know the people billed as science experts that you see, hear and read about in the media are really all that credible? Or have they been included just to create a perception of balance in the…
In a hunting society, children learn by playing with bows and arrows. In an information society, they learn to play with information. Despite this excellent advice from media scholar Henry Jenkins, it…
An interesting media flip-flop took place this week. Cameroon went from being forced to investigate match-fixing claims made in German news magazine Der Spiegel to FIFA saying there was no evidence of…
At first blush, the increased visibility of sexual minorities in popular culture would appear to reflect a growing openness and acceptance of non-heterosexual forms of sexuality. Since the late 1990s…
The journey of whistleblower website WikiLeaks was traced by, among others, Professor Gerard Goggin, chair of the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. In an analytical narrative…
The headlines said it all. Back to work: Disability support pension on the scrapheap, screamed Melbourne’s Herald Sun. Beating the bludgers will help the disabled was the lead on The Sunday Telegraph…
I got the phone call about 6pm on Tuesday night. “Mum,” said the voice. “Mum, are you OK?” Turns out that one of my children had stumbled across a few sentences written by the Daily Telegraph blogger Tim…
Treasurer Joe Hockey’s decision to sue Fairfax Media for defamation over the now-notorious front-page story “Treasurer for sale” raises interesting questions about politicians suing to protect their reputation…
A campaign is at large to secure statutory anonymity for all young people under 18 who are accused of crime. Lawyers, criminologists, judges, sociologists, academics, and politicians are in on it. It is…
By Stephen Khan, Editor, The Conversation UK On April 8 2013 Margaret Thatcher died. I had recently finished working on the news desk of The Guardian, and it was strange to be simply observing a news event…
Many of the men I knew who ran newsrooms in the 80s and 90s were womanisers, drunks, bullies, and gropers. Some were just sleazy. And any woman, of almost any ambition, was cold or bossy or had too many…
The termination in the 2014 budget of the ABC’s international television broadcasting contract to run the federal government’s Australia Network service, barely a year into its ten-year term, was hardly…
In the lead-up to the Abbott government’s first federal budget, there was one standout headline that stole attention from “exclusive” pre-budget leaks: WHY I’VE GOT A PACKER UP MY CLACKER In terms of tabloid…
I remember the day I started work at what was then The Imlay Magnet in Eden. It was 1991 and I had taken the job straight out of my journalism degree at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now…
It’s scarcely a surprise that, a decade on, we’re still interested in hearing from a president’s mistress. It’s even less surprising that, a decade on, that mistress still wants to talk. The whys of our…
Whoever takes over from Lord Patten as the new head of the BBC Trust has a tough job ahead – there’s the Scottish referendum and the general election, both potential minefields for a public broadcaster…
Representatives of the BBC have appeared before select committees of the House of Commons dozens of times in the last two years. Gruelling gladiatorial battles, these sessions take months of preparation…
Today, while the world marks Press Freedom Day, draconian cyber defamation laws, journalist killings and legal gags are growing threats to the media across the Asia-Pacific. Media intersects with the raw…
The digital era has led to increasing challenges for western and traditional news media business models. Media outlets are facing steady declines in revenue, while the migration of advertising online has…
After nearly nine years down under doing his own thing with Illyria, Network Ten and Nova, Lachlan Murdoch’s return to the family business as non-executive co-chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox…