The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Rupert was right to worry > Comments

Rupert was right to worry : Comments

By Margaret Simons, published 24/8/2007

Murdoch's Australian broadsheet is still struggling to understand the blogosphere.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
Possums may be interested in these latest offerings from the Murdoch stable (video):

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18244.htm

I hope Rupert IS worried. Does anyone here know of Julius Streicher?

- we hung him at Nuremberg!
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Friday, 24 August 2007 10:07:34 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
we?

you weren't there, much less laid the knot. the allies (chiefly usa) hung the losers, which made a nice change from letting wilhelm 'retire' to an estate in holland.

since then they've been less inclined to promote international law, lest their criminals be charged.

no one thought to let oz decide, and if they had, that wouldn't have involved consulting the plebs.
Posted by DEMOS, Friday, 24 August 2007 12:57:50 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It's amusing to think that the opinionistas at the Government Gazette are surprised that anyone disagrees with them, or may know more than them. Perish the thought.

They've been free to attack all and sundry from the safety of their cubby holes behind the Editor's wall, say whatever they want without behind held to account.

Apparently they can dish it out, but they can't take it. Poor dears.
Posted by chainsmoker, Friday, 24 August 2007 1:41:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A very timely article, Margaret, what with Federal elections coming, presumably later this year.

Just imagine, a blogger like Tim Dunlop actually being censored by News Limited, in relation to electorally related comment, and in an election year! Surely not.

"THE measure of good journalism is objectivity and a fearless regard for truth."

So began the editorial in The Australian of 12 July 2007, headed "Editorial: History a better guide than bias". This link, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5018#58271 , provides some history as a guide to this newspaper's, The Australian's, performance standard over thirty years ago. It also gives an assessment by a once prominent personage as to its likely value as a source of news and comment.

There must have been some other explanation for Tim's blog having been pulled. I've had it happen to me here on OLO, not because I attempted to expose serious mis-statement by the Australian Electoral Commission on its website in relation to eligibility for enrolment, and then subsequently crowed about the belated retraction of that mis-statement, but because I effected a brief thread hijack to do it. I deserved to be punished, and the OLO surfdom deserved to be protected from my triumphalism. I'm sure Tim Dunlop must have deserved to be censored, too.

Here's how I dealt with my censorship: click here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=884#15541 , then here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=884#15577 , then here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=884#15578 . Claims for damaged keyboards if surfers are drinking coffee while viewing will not be entertained.

They say that once an icon has become the butt of ridicule, either it changes its ways, or its days are numbered. Mene, mene, tekel upharsin.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Friday, 24 August 2007 3:38:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Good article Margaret about an important issue that, not surprisingly, the main stream media has ignored.

One of the things you didn't mention was the humiliation Dennis had experienced as a consequence of his previous article. Dennis used some silly barbecue metaphor where he said Rudd was all sizzle no sausage. As you know doubt recall, the comments section on Dennis' blog exploded with derisive laughter. I particularly enjoyed the one about how Dennis should get his hand off his own sausage and do some decent journalism.

When the next article from Dennis (which is the one you referred to) was such an obvious piece of Howard boosterism, you could cut the contempt with a knife. There followed the events you referred to - Dennis cutting off comments after only a few hours and the extraordinary dummy spit in the editorials.

I think commentators like Dennis must feel very threatened by the blogs. It's interesting to contrast Matt Price's approach to the blogs with Dennis'. Matt seems to have taken to the medium like a duck to water. Matt will give as good as he gets. If someone makes a challenging comment, Matt will often come back just as hard. An article by Matt Price often attracts 300 or more comments. I will skim all of them and I will read any that Matt has commented on. I think it's obvious that this is where Op-Ed journalism is going.

We will still have journos engaged in writing stories, but more and more they will be descriptions of what has happened, rather than interpretation. The days when some senior journalist explains the meaning of events and we have to accept it as holy writ are well and truly over.
Posted by pineapple, Saturday, 25 August 2007 9:36:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Citizenship and learning how to debate on the politics of everyday life is shared in our Australian experience - when the bloggers feedback is genuine about participation and content, and takes the opportunity to share in the actual online debates.

Thanks for the article Margaret Simons. Given the elections many of us are watching and listening and Rupert is a clever businessman and we as citizens, are not at all silly.

http://www.miacat.com/
.
Posted by miacat, Sunday, 26 August 2007 10:41:43 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It was an entertaining dummyspit by The Australian, but i wonder if we can just chalk it up to teething pains. RightThink has invested lotsa money over decades to dominate the pulpits, i see protracted virtual warfare as inevitable. News Corp & co will attack blogs/public interest media to try & mint credibility, unfortunately they burn more daily pushing their selfinterested delusional versions of news (Growth is Good, War is Peace..).
Posted by Liam, Sunday, 26 August 2007 11:13:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Interesting the subtle forms censorship can take.

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but a funny thing just happened on my way to this forum.

On Thursday, 30 August 2007 at 7:58:17 AM I posted this post to the topic "The Last Refuge of the Intellectual Weakling": http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=950#16889 . The red 'last post' lettering duly lit up. Now I have observed that this red lettering usually stays up for a full two hours before any reversion to black in the event there is no continuing posting activity on the thread. I can recall frequently seeing such indicators as "101 minutes ago", "115 minutes ago", all in red, of course.

Well, blow me down if I didn't click past at 0909, just 1 hour and 11 minutes later, to find that the 'last post' indicator was black and said 'two hours ago'.

I suppose its one way of not letting other OLO surfers know that something might be happening on a particular thread. Or perhaps the red ink has run out in the server and the pages have defaulted to black? Either way, its hardly a red-letter day for OLO. Just sayin' .... cause I can't imagine what I could have said to provoke such a reaction if it was deliberately done.

Oh, and I took some screenshots. You know how it is with the Oldtimer's Disease, you just can't be too careful.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Thursday, 30 August 2007 10:29:01 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy