Articles

Wilkie backs Gillard government

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ABC online political correspondent Emma Rodgers
02.09.10 6:16 pm

Mr Wilkie also revealed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott offered him almost three times as much for the Hobart hospital, but he turned it down. “The ALP best meets my criteria that the government must be stable, competent and ethical,” he said

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Tasmanian Times: A Rage Against the Dying of the Light ...

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Lindsay Tuffin*
02.09.10 11:00 am

... or a Wayward Angst-ridden Nihilistic Kneejerk? Well, they’ve got to earn a crust somewhere and the media experience in Tasmania isn’t helped by management that has lost its way… through timidity and a desire to keep the Masters and Overseers and Advertisers happy (particularly true of The Examiner whose home town is also base to perhaps the nation’s most reviled company of the past decade, Gunns Ltd). Other reasons are the daily-changing media landscape as the Net revolution lays waste, and the intolerable pressures of declining circulations, revenue and staffing levels; a pervasive emphasis on superficiality and celebrity and uniformity - a media monoculture if you like (only browsing animals and snails live in monocultures) -  graduate journalists who have not learnt the way of terror and failure; and the development of Journalist As The Story,  or part of the story, rather than telling the story. Tasmanian Meedja also has a very fragile glass jaw. Criticise them and they lash back, or decide to put you on virtual ignore ...

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FOXing the facts at the ABC

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Dr Clive A Marks
02.09.10 4:09 am

The news media template for science reporting is well known.  It seems to demand one of either broad category.  There are scientific stories that offer opportunities to announce that a breakthrough or a world first is at hand - however spurious the claim.  Then there are scientists who come out to slam something.  The news media loves a good slamming. … The first handful of inaccuracies had been fed into the media sausage mix and the media fed upon it, building upon them.  The absolute bitter irony of it all was that my original on-line story dealt precisely with the consequences of misinterpretation, inaccuracy, poor deductions, flawed data and an inability to discern between belief and knowledge. Like a Greek tragedy, the media martyred itself to these very failings.

Overall in Tasmania, the relentless inaccuracies, poor analysis and the Jackson Pollock approach to news reporting has made the Tasmanian fox saga the intractable, fact aversive and odious saga that it is today.  And people are being asked not to criticise?  Really? ABC news cannot be held responsible for all, or even a good swag of the current confusion.  Not by any means.  At least they were prepared to have a crack at the issue and try.  Yet tabloid reporting has left everyone badly confused, and the issue has become “a sun drenched bucket of prawns” as one person so vividly described.

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Greens sign deal to back Labor

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Editor, ABC Online
01.09.10 10:03 am

Now it is understood they have struck a deal with Labor that says they would support a Gillard government. The deal will draw the Labor bloc level with the Coalition in the House of Representatives, with 73 seats each.

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EMRS State Poll: Drop in undecided response worry for the Libs

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Peter Tucker, Tasmanian Politics. Picture: of Will Hodgman
01.09.10 7:38 am

It could be that a majority outcome is not the issue it was. It could be that voters are reasonably happy with the way the Labor/Green coalition is going in government. If this is the case, then the Liberals have a lot to be worried about. Their main (really, only) chance of winning government at the next election is for voters to reject minority government. The Libs want to see, if not voters coming over to their side, at least a high undecided rate because those would be the voters still keeping their powder dry, and therefore more susceptible to being swayed.

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Congratulations, Lindsay!
I worry about the financial sustainability of the Tasmanian Times also.  From personal…

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