Gaza, July 2014.
Media
It has become a disturbing hallmark of the current government that the degree to which Prime Minister Tony Abbott adopts the style of a Nazi leader addressing the Nuremburg Rally is a reflection of the policies being foreshadowed.
Who the hell cares how old Rebel Wilson is?
In recent days, online media began running strange stories 鈥 the exact relevance of which was unclear to anything but these site's Google analytics 鈥 claiming that Australian comic and actor Rebel Wilson was really in her mid-30s, not 29 as officially claimed.
3CR Community Radio Melbourne is almost 40 years old. On July 3, 1976, broadcasting from its base in Armadale, 3CR began sending its message out to a radius of just 16km. The station now broadcasts on digital radio and online platforms but the core value remains the same: providing a voice for those denied access to the mass media, particularly the working class, women, Indigenous people and the many community groups and issues discriminated against, in, and by, the mass media.
"After international pressure, today the Indonesian President has claimed that all foreign journalists are now free to report in West Papua without travel restrictions,鈥 the BBC reported on May 11.
鈥淭his is historic news as for 50 years the Indonesian government has banned foreign journalists from entering West Papua."
A global day of action on April 29 featured protests in several cities that called on the Indonesian government to allow free and open access into occupied West Papua for international journalists, humanitarian agencies and human rights groups.
Four Corners鈥 鈥 the backpackers鈥 visa 鈥 by farms and factories has triggered inquiries and legal minefields for supermarkets giants such as Coles, Woolworths and Aldi.
I fanatically loved the critically acclaimed Baltimore-based television drama The Wire, which ran for five seasons from 2002-08. It is difficult to even imagine my pop-cultural brain without the presence of Omar Little, Stringer Bell, Bunk and 鈥淢cNutty鈥.
When I started doing my sports radio show eight years ago, I scheduled interviews with as many of the actors as I could for no other reason than I wanted to breathe their air. Talking to Michael K Williams about the method of Omar's 鈥渓ong game鈥 while he aggressively chewed on a sandwich will forever remain a career highlight.
When thousands of people hit Melbourne's streets on May 1 to protest planned closures of Aboriginal communities, the Herald Sun followed up its front page denunciation of with under the headline: 鈥淪till Selfish. Still A Rabble.鈥
I鈥檝e never been much of a morning person but some mornings it can be a struggle to get out of bed. Crippling depression aside, peeking at what passes for news in the mainstream media to find out what is going on in the world can be enough to send me running for the covers.
Just last week there was the announcement that after his latest pay rise, the Macquarie Bank CEO Nicholas Moore 鈥渆arned鈥 $1586 every 12 minutes. That鈥檚 roughly the same amount the average Australian worker takes home in a week.
An irony of the sacking of SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre for a series of tweets he made on Anzac Day is that the hysterical reaction from politicians and the media, and the consequences he has faced, has only served to prove his initial point.
Anzac Day is not about remembering history. To remember what actually happened at Gallipoli 100 years ago, and in Australia鈥檚 involvement in wars more generally, is not permissible. Whatever the Anzacs fought and died for, it was not free speech.
A Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance last week revealed that BHP Billiton was funnelling profits from Australian minerals through a marketing arm based in Singapore as a way of dodging tax in Australia.
From 2006 to 2014, BHP was 鈥渟elling鈥 minerals mined in Australia to its Singaporean arm at well below market rates. The prices were then marked-up and sold on to third-party companies in Singapore, thereby attracting the infinitesimal Singaporean tax rate.
At a G20 meeting last October, Rupert Murdoch surprised some with a speech that criticised world leaders for, as it was described in his Australian newspaper, 鈥渢heir policies [that] have caused a 鈥榤assive shift鈥 in societies to benefit the super-rich with a legacy of social polarisation鈥.
In particular, Murdoch criticised youth unemployment: 鈥淭he unemployment rate for Americans under the age of 25 is 13%, which sounds awful until I remember that in the eurozone that number is 23%, and it is twice as high in places like Spain and Greece, and parts of France and Italy.
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