The Age website has this UP TO THE MOMENT story:

French presidency battled out online

June 9, 2007 - 11:35PM

Cyberspace is turning into a hotly contested arena in this year’s French presidential elections, as candidates seek to harness the internet’s vast but volatile resources to give them a decisive edge.

Frontrunners Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy issued their New Year’s greetings on the internet in sharply contrasting formats, underscoring their different approaches but confirming the web - “la toile” in French - as a political battleground.

I think the French presidential election is over.

I suggested on the message board that what Monica was suggesting was against the principle of freedom of speech. The moderator replied:

There seems to be a common misunderstanding here that Media Watch was suggesting such broadcasts should be regulated. We weren’t, but neither were we saying they should remain unrestricted. The real thrust of the segment was that this sort of material was being broad/narrowcast right now without regulation and may represent the kind of new frontier that regulators, used to dealing with the neatly defined spectrum based broadcasters, now have to contend with. EP Media Watch

Likely, the nasty stuff will always be available, from somewhere (rogue ISP’s, ISP’s of Evil.. ), folks will decide whether or not they wish to access it and run the risk of punishment.

We’ve already had a few cases where existing laws have crept in to the online world.

The beauty of computers for the totalitarian types is that you can track down those who are accessing the information.

Media Watch is yet another example, if any more were needed, of the new, emasculated ABC.
Unable to attack anyone or anything of substance, that may cause shock!! horror!! controversy, they are left with the small fry, the inconsequential.
Worst of all though, it is mind numbingly boring.

Come on now, if Media Watch doesn’t monitor the Tootgarook Courier and the Illawarra Trading Post, who will?

How long do you think it will be before electronics manufacturers are going offer “mantel web radios” that will look every bit as retro as a bakelite Astor/AWA/Kriesler, with your fav radio presets fron anywhere, not just within the range of a 1934 model transmitter in Homebush or Richmond so that instead of Alan Jones you will be able to listen to the real thing, Rush Limbaugh?

Anyone with a wireless network modem and router can do this already. Now, Hardly Normal is offering wireless connection as do a number of mobile phone telcos. Like it’s happenin? Now? Okay?

I think Monica has inadvertantly touched on something that will increasingly irritate John Singleton and co: real c-o-m-p-e-t-i-t-i-o-n. No licence rrequired, it is a walk up start, fellow media moguls. I for one am rarin’ to go and champin at the bit!!!!

I mean, the barriers to entry are pretty minimal. Anyone who has a web presence can have one. And if you have the talent, like the wonderful Mr Angry, you will be a star, big time.

BTW. It is not Media Watch’s brief, really, to monitor the outrages perpetrated on journalists. I mean there’s Putinstan writ large.

Having said that, MW is a tired old thing now and it should be taken behind the barn and…etc etc.

Plagiarism, very hilarious misspellings, and so on. I mean, purleeeze. Yawn.

Andrew, interesting point, but not one that Attard has actually made.

On one hand, there was this effort, about unfortunate juxtapositions of advertising and articles on the Fairfax website.

Start using Firefox and the adblocker plugin. Problem solved!

Also begs the question as to where is Attard’s & associates’ concern for jailed Chinese journalists, unable to access print, TV or radio media, utilising blogs who have then been turned over to authorities by Yahoo & now languish in Chinese jails.

And Iranian bloggers:

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120614.html

The current mediawatch has turned into little more than a high school English essay. It is so boring.

You make a very valid point about spaces that do not profess to being “in the same ‘journalism’ business” as MSM. But then again, neither does talkback radio, and nobody seems upset at Media Watch “watching” talkback radio. Of course, excpetions to this include things like ‘cash for comments’ (arguably Media’s Watch finest moment.).

While it might be necessary to do so, I am bored to tears with Monica’s TT and ACA obsession. Who watches those programs expecting Pulitzer Prize winners?

Thank god for Desperate Housewives!

At some point law makers and regulators are going to have to have a long hard think about what, if any, significant difference there is between News Corporation publishing a newspaper and selling it on the streets, and some person publishing stuff to a blog.

Leftie moral panic revolves around folks saying naughty things about each other.

Rightie moral panic revolves around the disturbing proposition that other folk are having more fun than you are.

The one constant is the existence of moral panic.

And doesn’t the internet provide enough scary stuff to fuel the most gargantuan moral panics?

Up until now in Australia the right has done most of the running vis-a-vis nailing down the Dreaded Toobs of Filth. I guess the right can feel slightly gratified that filth can find no home on Aussie ISPs. Has anyone noticed the difference?

I’m more concerned about the dirigiste left in relation to this issue. The dead hand of statist regulation of actual content could end up being a really annoying inconvenience.

But surely the Media Watch production team includes people who’ve worked extensively in print.

Robert. This may well arouse more snarky feedback than Keating did last night

No, no. Ailurophiles are above this kind of pettiness.

As for Attard, that’s an astonishing blind spot (or, worse, bit of bad faith) about unfortunate juxtapositions. Newspapers and magazines have been doing that for evah; you can pick up any day’s tabloid in any city and find at least one example to make you wince. Anyone who’s ever done layout, before or after computers, will know that you bung the ads in wherever there’s a correctly shaped space for them on whatever page was paid for.