On why the media should embrace more regulation. Part 2

 In our first part, we heavily criticised News Corp for just being a bad news organisation.  By that, I mean that as a news organisation, they are bad.  Incredibly bad.  (I didn’t mean that they just produce bad news, oh heavens to Betsy, no)

It should be pointed out, though, once again, that I was only singling out News as the worst of what appears to be a very bad bunch.  I listed a whole bunch of crimes committed by the media in part 1, some of which were also committed by other media sources as well.

A really good example of disgraceful media practice that is committed across the board, is the tendency of the financial media to regurgitate media releases from companies, without any sort of objective research.  Media Watch appears to have strangely left financial journalists alone to date, but will pursue other journalists who regurgitate press releases.

On why the media should embrace more regulation. Part 1

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen some rather interesting stuff in the media involving the media. We’ve seen all hell break loose in the UK with what appears to be becoming known as ‘Hackgate’. We’ve seen the Herald-Sun publish a call to assassinate the Prime Minister. We’ve also seen the media circuses around the cases of Dominique Strauss-Khan and Casey Anthony where the media essentially judged these folks guilty before their cases had even been heard. In Anthony’s case, they then screamed hysterically about the jury being wrong, even publishing questionable articles where jurors allegedly disclosed a preference for going home rather than finding someone guilty.

I think I'll avoid the issue about concentrated media ownership – it’s probably outside the realm of what I want to blog about here, but what I will add is the sheer, unmitigated bias that passes for journalism in anything that comes out of News Corporation.  Although, it's fair to say that 2UE are probably much worse.

Here we go again...

Hope that you’re all having a great new year, folks.

Like a festering wound, this one has been annoying me for a bit, but I thought I’d put this out there and see who bites. With Wikileaks now relegated to the pages in the middle of the newspaper (at least where it doesn't relate to Julian Assange's extradition problems), I thought I’d come back to a subject that I really don’t understand at all: Freedom of Speech.

Yes folks, Freedom of Speech.

One of the things that I find interesting about this topic is the sheer unmitigated drivel that people utter whenever this topic comes up. Me included. But I live in the forlorn hope that someone will find something to correct me on this. So far, it has been a stretch.

My Christmas mix tape

Hi folks. I hope that you're all enjoying the time of year that's upon us.

You know, originally, Christmas time was a bunch of different pagan festivals, most notably Yuletide, that got co-opted by Christians keen to embrace stuff that future audiences would love.

These days I acknowledge that Christmas has morphed into a secular display of undignified commercialism and gluttony. Naturally, of course, I love this.

But there is a more serious side to the season. I talk about the unmitigated drivel that pours from speakers all over shopping centres at this time of year. There's only so much "Jingle Bells" or We Wish You a Merry Christmas" that I can take. And if it's not those pepped up and insanely cheerful American odes to capitalism, it's those thoroughly unfathomable one hit wonders Slade and Wizzard. Or those horrid efforts from Cliff Richard or George Michael.

Yes folks, Christmas songs blow dog.

Post election post

You have to love parliamentary democracy. Even better, you have to love the comments on this article in the Herald-Sun that proves my point that I made several weeks ago about Australians: We all know bugger all about our own system.

The article itself begs some pretty powerful questions.

Firstly, how illiterate actually is the Herald-Sun's readership?

Secondly, is our system actually broken?

Obligatory election summary post

As I'm prone to do, here is my Jagajaga-centric summary of election posts. It may provide you with a guide to assisting you with voting in this election. Or it might not. Learn some stuff, like:

• Why don't Julia or Tony's name appear on my ballot paper?
• What actually is a "donkey vote"?
• Why should voters bother researching their candidates?
• Is there anything interesting I should know about preferential voting?
• Why should I completely disregard how-to-vote cards?
• How can I vote below the line for the Senate easily?

Or alternatively, you could just go to my Election 2010 tag page.

Happy voting!

How to vote below the line easily (Election post number 9)

And now it is time to look at The Senate.

I've found this great webpage, [link removed, see below] by the way, which helps you put together your own how-to-vote card for the Senate. But more on this in a moment.

Edit 18/08/2013: Vote below the line has moved here.  Also, I think it's worth noting that this stuff relates to the 2010 election.  I'll try to do an updated one for the 2013 election, if I get time.

Edit 18/08/2013: Well, it appears that someone else has moved onto the belowtheline.org.au website and are offering the same thing as last election.  Boy, does my face look red.

The Senate is the house of review in Australia. Each state elects 12 senators, and the NT and ACT get two each. Of these, 6 from each state and 1 from each territory come up for election each election.

As a result, voting for the Senate can confuse your average punter senseless.

How-to-vote cards (Keeping your member "local" part the last)

I have been amazed by some things this election. I was rendered speechless when I heard that Family First, the not-yet-militant Christian extremists, had been attempting to do a preference deal in the Senate with the Australian Sex Party. Laugh? I nearly spontaneously combusted!

I still hear staunch Liberal voters who claim that economic management will be better off with them than the ALP. That would be worth voting for, if it wasn't for the fact that the current bunch of Libs have promised spending out of control and the leadership sees economics as a tedious footnote to political administration.

More hilarious still, is the fact that the ALP really don't get how they got it right on economic management during the global financial crisis, whether by fluke or design. Why not make this an election issue? It's a guaranteed vote winner, although it might be evidence that the ALP isn't really interested in economics either. I would think it amazing if the ALP felt that voters were turned off by stuff as mundane as economics.

Interesting things about preferential voting (Keeping your member "local" part seven)

This is where I almost finish up with my investigation of preferential voting using my case study of the seat of Jagajaga. I will look at the Senate soon, I promise.

I learned a lot after my last post. For starters, I learned that votes in a safe seat aren't quite so much wasted as what I thought. As it happens, party coffers are guaranteed funding from the AEC on the basis of primary votes, so, although this is going to go mainly the way of incumbent parties, there is a chance for you, the voter, to ensure that even if your first preference is going to be discarded, you may get to have the taxpayer contribute part of the gravy train that is electoral funding towards a smaller party. This is a valuable piece of information.

Why am I even bothering? (Keeping your member "local" part six)

People probably wonder why I bother with this. Right about now I'm having thoughts of that nature myself.

"I know who I'm voting for," they might say.

"Why don't you just follow a how-to-vote card?" some might ask.

"Get a life!" order those without a shred of originality, finesse, style, sense of irony or, strangely, a life of their own.

The fact is that, even though I live in an safe Labor seat where any vote is essentially a wasted vote, I strangely want to do things properly. At the end of the day, I will know something about my candidates. How many of you can say the same thing?