FAIRFAX MANAGEMENT AND JOURNALISTS HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME!

Mark Scott moved from Fairfax to the ABC, and the ABC has followed a downward path on a similar trajectory to that of Fairfax in the ensuing years.

Fairfax management agenda has been on a particularly right-wing reactionary path since the Howard years, following a political direction set since at least 1996 onwards.

Instead of responding to what many of the Fairfax readers have hoped for over the years, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age journalists have allowed themselves to forget about in-depth investigative journalism, and being seduced into the reactionary maelstrom of gutter journalism at its worst.

Where stories cried out for "deep and meaningful" investigation into allegations and counter-allegations of various breaking-news issues, most journalists have gone for the superficial, meaningless slurs and innuendos, the latest of which is the story about Peter Slipper, Craig Thomson, James Ashby and Kathy Jackson.

Why is it that independent journalist investigators, people who are not working for Fairfax, News Limited, the ABC and other like-minded media outlets, managed to get the factual information so lacking in those organisations' reporting of the important parts of the story?

Is it because they illustrated graphically their determination to bring down the Federal government and cast aspersions on all those who support it in the current parliament to the extent that most Fairfax journalists have worn their politics on their sleeves, and in the process shown what their mettles are like as journalists and reporters.

Some of the most senior reporters at the Fairfax newspapers have become so reactionary in their reporting of stories from the current federal parliament that they could easily be mistaken for members of the opposition parties without too many doubts about their interests and aspirations.

The only difference Rinehart would make to the editorial direction of Fairfax is to put the stories in her own image.

As things stand at the moment, they are not far off!

TEACHER PLAN TO GET RID OF BAD BAILLIEU MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

The main headline in today's Age newspaper reads:

"Baillieu plan to get rid of bad teachers."

It is difficult to work out which century the Baillieu government functions in, because the ideas it is propagating belong in the 19th and 20th centuries. Going backwards has been the hallmark of the Baillieu government since it was elected about 18 months ago.

Core and non-core promises seem to have been made during the election campaign during which a main core promise seems to have been to make Victoria's teachers the best-paid teachers in the country. Now they are in danger of being the worst-paid and on top of it all to be oppressed by some of the most punitive legislation in the state.

How do you get rid of bad teachers? What are bad teachers? Is the government also going to legislate to get rid of bad teachers from the private school sector as well? - not forgetting the religious exemptions from tax enjoyed by so many religious organisations!

Teachers perform much as workers throughout the employment sectors perform - some are good, some are fairly good, some are middle-ground, some are fairly ordinary and some are not really happy in their jobs. Think of any organisation which employs a fair number of people - including state parliaments and the people they employ to do all their hard work for them, and let's see some performance indicators of the Baillieu government's parliamentarians.

Where to start?

Well, there is the transport debacle with Myki - Myki is a disaster and continues to be so, and we fear for the future without the Metcard system which wasn't broke but the previous government decided to fix!!

Then we have the desalination plant and all the industrial and other issues involved such as the espionage allowed by the government for the builders of the plant to spy, not only on their employees, but also on the protesters who have railed against the project from the beginning.

Also we have the nurses' pay dispute which only got resolved because one of Baillieu's relatives made an obscene gesture to the nurses and it was caught by the media.

Then there is the special arrangement with the police but no mention of good police and bad police in a pay arrangement!!

And much, much, more!!

To be added to as these issues come to light - but let us not forget the teachers are amongst the worst-served by this government to date, and the government ought to be brought to book over the whole nasty business!

HAWAII VIDEO - TRYING TO STOP MONSANTO POISONING THE ISLAND

BRADLEY MANNING - A FEW UPDATES

The above interview is of Kevin Gosztola who was reporting for Nation of Change.




This interview was on the US show called:Democracy Now and Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez interview Denver Nicks on his biography of Bradley Manning, "Private".

MIRIAM MARGOLYES TELLS WHY BDS IS NECESSARY

This item comes from Antony Loewenstein's blog on 28 May 2012:

ACTRESS MIRIAM MARGOLYES SAYS WHY BOYCOTTING ISRAELI THEATRE GROUP ESSENTIAL

More on this story here

The following response by "Boycott Israel" was below the article in the Guardian newspaper in the above link in response to a previous response and dated 4 April 2012:

In 2010, in front of the Israeli parliament/Knesset, Habima co-manager Odelia Friedman said: “As a national theater company, Habima will perform for all residents of Israel. Residents of [illegal West Bank settlement] Ariel are residents of Israel and Habima will stage shows for them" In response to the Guardian letter by Rylance, etc, Habima's artistic director Ilan Ronen has reiterated in Haaretz this week that illegal settlements are part of Israel.