Also appearing will be Bill Morrison, Defence Minister in Whitlam’s Labor Government and John Menadue, Department Head.

Whitlam had previously tendered a statement that said, in effect that he was not shown intelligence about the journalists until 5 days after their deaths.
(so he obviously knew the score in October 1975)

Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch somewhat pre-empted any evidence from Whitlam by stating “On the face of it I doubt there is further he can add to that”.

MODERATOR – this could be the subject for a new discussion thread, but there is no facility to initiate a thread, only reply.
Really enjoy the site.

f’rinstance I’ve never seen a shot of Iraq that hasn’t had a burqa, wrecked building or desert dust in it.

Yet we know there are rich farmlands and familiar looking people wearing jeans and going to university, blogging, getting their hair done, giving birth, looking afte rkids, listening to music and trying to survive and create small a oasis at home and in neighbourhoods amid clusters of chaos and mayhem.

In fact, the MSM journalist operates in just that way these days. I spent 25 years as a journalist. In the earlier days, chief reporters would tell the staff to get out of the office. “You’ll never break news, sitting their waiting for the phone to ring.”

These days, they don’t even bother with the phone. It has become just too easy to cut and past from transcripts of media interviews, PR releases, official source websites and their competitors’ work.

It is not just the technology of the media that is pushing journalism in that direction. The economics of the media is doing it as well. With little growth in revenue and private equity vultures circling, the only option for publishers to maintain margins and keep shareholders happy is to drive down costs. You achieve that by having fewer journalists and keeping them chained to their desks. At the same time you sell more ads, which requires ever greater amounts of editorial content.

The upshot is that you cover the world from your desk, watching CNN, BBC World and surfing the web. It is patently obvious that this is a surefire to magnify inaccuracies and half-truths and over-simplify everything. The truth often moves on, but the desk-bound journos are still reporting a filtered, pre-digested version of the truth that is a week or a month out of date.

You are seeing this not only in foreign affairs news, but here in Australia with political reportage. This, more than anything, explains why the MSM journos are missing the story on Rudd – that a good proportion of the electorate has given up believing Howard (or indeed even listening to him). Instead, the inward-looking press corps spend all their time reading each other’s copy and reporting politics as a game where everyone knows the rules.

The best news and analysis these days is on blogs such as this one.

The international press have been widely reporting on the election outcomes and to be honest, I think they got bored and left.

Nabakov, don’t forget Le Carre’s Honourable Schoolboy.

Check out “Any Number Can Play’ by the late 60s Far Eastern Correspondent of The Observer, Dennis Bloodworthy. It’s a wonderful Tom Sharpe meets Ian Fleming (another foreign correspondent natch) satirical spy novel about Indochina then. Think The Quiet American (written by another occasionally foreign correspondent) meets Monty Python. You’ll look certainly look more closely at a glamorous Eurasian vamps named after the RN’s “Flower” class frigates and Cambodian Bonzes with sarf London accents after reading Dennis’ pisstake on the whole thing.

The ABC still at least one in the shapely shape of Jane Hutchinson, a half gwalio – often expelled from China and on first name terms with both Honkers billionaires and Burmese dissidents. Where are the rest of such a legendary breed? Paul McGeough? Gabby and Vesnor? You certainly won’t find their like on most commercial channels now. Richard Carleton for all his many faults understood this unique trade well too.

Dunno about the rest of you, but I grew up in a world where being a foreign correspondent seriously embedded in a strange country was a very useful and glamorous thing to be,

These days it’s just freelance stringers having their shit filtered through online collation centres, bean counter EPs, presenters who are all head and no talking and dinner party fed pundits.

I note that it was originally published (in abbreviated form) in Crikey. I’ve got to say that Crikey has been the best source of news and analysis of Timorese politics in the Australian media in the last few weeks, thanks to two academics from Deakin — Leach and Damien Kingsbury. Kingsbury’s post-election pieces are here and here.

There are some very good Oz journos on the job there, but part of the problem is that most dont get the whole picture working in English – and frankly, some elements of the Timorese party system do the English language press conference / media release / spin better than others.

Ramos-Horta has just called the ADF off the hunt for Major Reinado today. If you want my (slightly cynical) view on why, it may be because JRH polled rather more poorly than he’d hoped in the Western districts.

Lets just hope Reinado doesnt pop up and create voting problems somewhere in the 2nd pres round, or parliamentaries in June. He’s on the record as opposing elections until the “military crisis” is resolved.