Boring.

I get really irritated with Binoy’s obtuse, condescending and smear-laden writing style. But on this issue, I (mostly) agree with his actual points (when you finally get to them).

Extending legal protections to journalism, which Greste’s proposed Media Freedom Act would do, is a good thing. Limiting those protections primarily to members of a self-appointed “professional” body is emphatically not. That is not freedom of the press; it privileging a self-selected subset of the media that considers itself morally superior to the rest of the profession/trade.

The Journalists’ union – the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance - already plays many of the roles of a voluntary professional association that Greste proposes, including operating a Code of Ethics. The Australian Press Council has guidelines for print and digital media, and there bodies that police broadcast media. All are routinely ignored by the worst reported and publishers in the profession.

On the matter of Julian Assange, I mostly agree with Greste. Releasing large amounts of data without checking its content, analysing and interpreting it or considering the consequences of its publication is not journalism, it is at best publishing. It should still be subject to legal protections for whistleblowers and publishers holding government to account; but the drawn-out persecution of Assange and attempts to imprison him were wrong. Assange should not have been treated as he was. But nor should he be feted as a hero. It is obscene that one of the first phone calls he received on his return to Australia was fawning congratulations from Albo.

It’s interesting consideration to note, if JFK were alive today he would be howled down as an extreme right winger.

Moving on to Peter Greste. Here we have an avowed supporter of Islamic terrorism on a destructive mission in Australia establishing, #Journalism Australia, a body he hopes can define professional journalism, journalistic standards and press freedom in Australia#,
That is beyond laughable, and an obvious threat to free speech by anyone right of centre.

The unfortunate truth is, he made it out alive from an Egyptian jail cell. His little holiday coincided neatly with Egypts expulsion of the Muslim Brotherhood, which immediately migrated into Gaza and further into Turkey, now worryingly a member of NATO.

If Australia had a Donald Trump, Greste would be living an uncomfortable life here.

And I wonder what GY thinks…I already know.