First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Gary Sauer-Thompson knows well why we need more journalists and less reporters... 'What they [the senior Canberra Press Gallery] can perhaps be accused of is lack of leadership; along with other gallery veterans such as Michelle Grattan, they have let the Government get away with far too much over the years. It is true that Howard exercises a more totalitarian control over government information than any of his predecessors and that he has instituted something of a reign of terror in the public service, but that is no excuse for meekly accepting ridiculous strictures in the name of commercial-in-confidence, or privacy considerations, or the all-purpose national security. Kelly, Oakes and Grattan never would have copped it in the old days.'
The corruption of the Canberra media
CODA: Is the ultimate goal of media in a democracy to promote truth and accuracy or a diversity of views? The media are actors, active elements, which transform the confusions of reality into a narrative. They are like the play within a play in Hamlet, put on to show the usurping King of Denmark the sin he had committed in killing Hamlet’s father The responsibility of the harlot
Rebels at Large: Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents ; Helping hand for bloggers who want to blab but stay out of jail
