They think and work differently, cartoonists. Anyone who has spent any time in an editorial office will know that cartoonists dream and draw on their own, working to the rhythm of their thoughts – if they…
Devastation in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami.
EPA/Barbara Walton
The camera jerks as the wave crashes through the wall of the restaurant. The tables set out for a wedding breakfast are swept aside. The man behind the camera doesn’t realise the awful reality of what…
Sarah Koenig, newly minted radio celebrity.
Serial, Meredith Heuer
The final episode of Serial, the most successful podcast in history, went live at 10.30am GMT on December 18. Twitter reported that offices, train platforms and sidewalks around the world fell silent…
There are ways for the media to cover stories such as the Sydney siege without committing gross ethical violations.
AAP/Joel Carrett
AUST gets wake-call with Sydney terror. Only Daily Telegraph caught the bloody outcome at 2.00 am. Congrats.— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) December 15, 2014 In one brutally insensitive tweet, Rupert…
Sports journalist Daniel Taylor wrote an article highlighting questions that still needed answering about the Valley Parade stadium fire of 1985 in which 56 people died. But publishing it was just the…
By cutting back in regional and remote areas, the ABC risks sending a message that some parts of Australia are more important to our national conversations than others.
AAP/Joel Carrett
ABC managing director Mark Scott undertook the unenviable task on Monday of wielding the axe to meet the Abbott government’s cut to the broadcaster’s funding. Government cutbacks to Australia’s publicly…
Take that! Are trolls ruining journalism?
Shutterstock
Interviewed recently in The Observer, comedian David Mitchell revealed that he never reads the below the line comments on his online articles any more. He said: The presence of that community of commenters…
Public service: BBC benefits from funding from its commercial arm.
Steve Parsons/PA Wire
The BBC has put the cat among the pigeons with the news that its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, will beef up its presence in Australia by hiring local journalists and launching a dedicated news service…
You checked my Hirsch index rating lately?
Matt Crossick/PA
As we hurtle towards peak Russell Brand, I have a question. Treat it as rhetorical if you like but if anyone has an actual answer, they would be warmly welcomed. My question is: what has Brand actually…
Most media outlets lined up behind the ‘coalition of the willing’ last time around. This time seems no different.
The US Army
A year after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a postmortem of the media coverage of the so-called “Iraq war”. The conference included academics, journalists…
Confused by the news?
befuddled woman image via www.shutterstock.com
Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
Hong Kong’s digitally connected protesters are mounting a thoroughly modern campaign for democracy, but the state too has updated its mechanisms of control and surveillance.
EPA/Alex Hofford
In the closing decades of the last century, many political and business elites were swept up in a global wave of policies favouring free markets, deregulation of business and finance and privatisation…
Speaking truth to power over a dry martini.
Wikimedia Commons
Ben Bradlee, long-time editor of the Washington Post has been celebrated around the world since news of his death broke. And his reputation does indeed remain stellar. But in the rush to praise him, some…
Scourge of the elite.
Miguel Ariel Contreras Drake-McLaughlin
Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post, who has died at the age of 93 was a crusading and courageous editor. He played a central role in exposing duplicity and deception at the highest levels…
Are the jihadists really plotting a Western Ebola attack?
EPA
All too predictably, the Ebola crisis has been accompanied by any number of breathless headlines – not all of them sensible. “Experts fear ISIS jihadists may infect themselves to spread virus in West…
Academics have a duty to research and teach the best and the worst of journalism.
Het Nieuwe Instituut
Having worked as a journalism and media studies academic in the United Kingdom for the best part of 25 years, one of the things that surprised me on coming to Australia was the state of near-open warfare…
Having used security as a pretext to impose an information blackout on operations involving asylum seekers, the government is broadening its denial of the public’s right to know.
AAP/Quinten Jones
The Abbott government’s latest tranches of national security and counter-terrorism laws represent the greatest attack on the Fourth Estate function of journalism in the modern era. They are worse than…
Social media should not be used by journalists to verify online identity.
Daniel Avauz/Flickr
Australians’ love of social media, which includes 11.3 million Facebook users, has been a haven for social networking companies, advertisers, and increasingly journalists. But Fairfax’s recent publication…
Attorney-General George Brandis has introduced laws that cast a blanket of secrecy over the use and potential abuse of sweeping national security powers.
AAP/Lukas Coch
It has been said that the line between good investigative reporting and inappropriate journalistic prying is never clearly drawn. Journalists usually complain long and hard when governments intervene to…