Schadenfreude is the tough-sounding word that wins my vote for describing accurately how millions of people around the world are feeling about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. For those who were long resigned…
Britain’s tabloid culture is yellow journalism for the 21st century.
AAP
When American newspapermen mused on their profession a century ago, they would confess, usually with pride, that it was both cruel and mendacious – and had to be. H L Mencken, among the most influential…
Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch in London last weekend.
AAP
The ongoing phone hacking scandal in Britain raises a number of questions for Australia’s media and political future. Could the practices engaged in by Rupert Murdoch owned newspapers like the News of…
The final edition of the News of the World carried a full page apology to its readers.
AFP/Ian Nicholson
The dramatic events around the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s London News of the World are unprecedented in a major news media organisation in an advanced industrial country. A newspaper closed…
Metropolitan Police officers are interviewing senior News International executives as part of their investigation into phone hacking by journalists. AAP photo.
AAP
Where to begin? The closure of a 160-year-old newspaper, the arrest of the man who until recently was the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, the revelations that the Metropolitan Police, or at…
The announcement that the 168-year old British newspaper title News of the World will cease to exist after this Sunday represents a landmark moment in journalism. The British public reacted with revulsion…
Australians don’t know enough about Indonesia to judge its farming practices.
AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka
We need to learn more about the countries we are exporting livestock to, or swapping refugees with. Two recent publicly-funded television documentaries have revealed just how little most Australians know…
The phones of victims of the London bombings were allegedly hacked by staff at the News of the World.
AFP/Dylan Martine/WPA pool
The British newspaper The News of the World is being investigated over allegations of hacking into the phones of relatives of the victims of the bombings in London in July 2005. It’s also thought those…
Women should be allowed to have fun, without the media judging them.
AAP/Jack Tran
Wilding, a word seldom used outside of sociology, describes compounded acts of immorality. Of teenagers, apparently, running amok. In packs usually, with rage and ribaldry in their eyes. I was thinking…
Politicians would do well to ask the people for their views on climate change.
AAP/Greg Wood
The conduct of the Australian climate change debate was probably not what John Maynard Keynes had in mind when he proclaimed “words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the…
Are talkback radio hosts or Julia Gillard leading debate in areas like immigration and the mining tax?
AAP
The release of figures today showing a dramatic fall in immigration numbers prompts the question of whether certain sections of the media are influencing government policy. Are Australian politicians allowing…
The Conversation wraps up Clearing up the Climate Debate with a statement from our authors: the debate is over. Let’s get on with it. Over the past two weeks The Conversation has highlighted the consensus…
Julia Gillard became Prime Minister on June 24th 2010.
AAP/Alan Porritt
In the dying days of his own government, Gough Whitlam observed that Labor’s role in opposition was to win public support for the need for change, thereby raising expectations that would inevitably fail…
Tonight, during World Refugee Week, SBS One premieres Go Back to Where You Came From. Over three nights the series plunges six Australian participants into the intense fear and desperation of the refugee/asylum…
Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited will charge readers for access to certain online content on the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun after October.
AAP
Media giant News Limited will charge for online access to its broadsheet paper The Australian after October and for certain parts of the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun after that, the company has announced…
Brown: “I’m not here to fear being bitten”
AAP and John Keane
Welcome to “In Conversation”, the first in a series of discussions between leading academics and major public figures in Australian life. Today Politics Professor John Keane is in conversation with Senator…
Chris Lilley’s Gran character is written too large to be ignored.
ABC Television publicity
Last night’s premiere of Chris Lilley’s third mockumentary series, Angry Boys, was a reminder that television comedy in Australia as we once knew it has changed forever. In the wake of the popular successes…
Last week’s Google Books ruling was a win for copyright protection.
AAP
The decision by a US Federal Court judge last week to reject a $US125 million settlement between Google Books and the publishing industry allows authors to protect their copyright and prevents Google from…
Barren: the public is being let down on climate change reporting.
Foundation Essay – In his recent statements on the poor state of the Australian debate on global warming (meaning discussion of its causes, and how to deal with it in policy terms) Professor Ross Garnaut…