...Kevin Rudd, the guest of honour at the launch of ABC 3 was the victim of a security scare from an unnamed contracted cleaner.

The story gets stranger as the AFP, the cleaning company and the ABC itself all refused to comment on what had happened.

It might not be a fair comparison but this 'incident' did make me think of the media world's reaction to Tareq and Michaele Sahali's White House invasion last week.

The couple got scorned and ridiculed from all corners and the Secret Service was forced to make an embarrasing apology for this uncharacteristic slip up.

Here though, Rudd's 'dance with death' has only been run on the 7pm ABC news (it didn't even make it to ABC online) and it looks like that will be it from here on in.

There hasn't been any mention of what risk Rudd had been placed in or what will be done differently to avoid similar breaches.

Why the difference if both breaches were equally harmless?

In my mind it shows that the media knows that Rudd's security isn't exactly going set the water-cooler ablaze, and that Rudd himself probably realises that to talk about it or investigate it further would look weak to a country that still prides itself on its stiff upper lip.

Kind of comforting that in Australia, the politicians ain't too precious.

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A couple of weeks ago, guest Hoyden Orlando asked why Triple J’s first draft of a “potted history of music” failed to showcase significant numbers of women. (The history has since been edited.)

The “Hottest 100 Of All Time” has since aired, and audiences have been shocked to find that only two songs in the top 100 – two! – were sung by women. Only six female-fronted songs made it into the second batch of 100, so it wasn’t as though the men just edged women out in the final vote – women are just overwhelmingly absent. This sort of discrepancy doesn’t happen by accident; we can quibble about the locus of the problem till we’re blue in the face, but it’s a clear sign of entrenched, largely-invisible sexism in action. Quibbling about the locus is pointless because the locus is everywhere. This is the Matrix.

TripleJ afternoon talkback show Hack today called for a bit of feedback on the testostofest finale. It was great to hear people phoning in making intelligent and feminist observations – women and men both.

A couple of folks stood out as particularly unhelpful, of course, too. One bloke phoned in talking about how women just can’t sing with the same emotion as men can, which was an eyeroll moment. And JJJ presenter Zan Rowe was flailingly defensive, taking the “It’s not us, it’s you!” approach and saying over and over and over again that it was “democratic” and not Triple J’s fault, instead of engaging with the issue in a substantive way or taking responsibility for a plan of action.

The show can be downloaded (it will be up for a week) at the Hack site.

Originally posted at Hoyden About Town.

The article read ‘Al-Qaeda to attempt US attack soon’.

You know, like any other thing that we’re all anxious to see – ‘Roger Federer back in action in 2 months’ and ‘Lleyton Hewitt has vowed to shut his mouth in 3 weeks’.

Are you serious?

This isn’t news!

At best it is spreading fear of something that has absolutely no foundation whatsoever; at worst it’s a waste of space.

What’s this meant to warn us about?

Everybody knows about terrorists attack, and there’s nothing provided that we don’t already know.

Does it help us cope with anything?

Nope.

Does it prepare us?

No, all they say is Al-Qaeda’s “going to try”.

So what’s the purpose?

Start reporting some real news and stop spreading the fear. Because not all of us are so anxious to keep track of our favourite terrorist band.  . . read more

The cost of fighting some of the battles is now so crippling that it does, occasionally, silence us when we should be heard. We are now seeing restaurant critics sued for venturing their opinion. Who's next? Will Roy Masters cop it for saying someone was off their game? Or David and Margaret for panning a movie? When legendary New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal was battling with the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers he said: "When something important is going on, silence is a lie." Rosenthal's legacy is important today. His advice was never to compromise on press freedom. He told his journalists: "Fight like hell every inch of the way."

I still fight like hell every day. Because I believe Australian journalism is still a place for people who care about unearthing the truth, is still for people who care about what sort of place we live in. I believe Australians still care about their freedom and the value of great journalism. And if you do too, fight like hell every inch of the way.  . . read more

The fact is that nobody has the foggiest.

But, whatever we read/watch/or listen to, we must pray that the journalistic essentials of constant inquiry, analysis, and fact-checking remain.

So as the Murdochs and Mark Scotts of this world battle for our attention, look back to Edmund Burke, an 18th Century Irish parliamentarian in Westminster who said: 

'There were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important by far than them all'

An ideal and an institution that will disappear when the news is provided by everyone, for everyone. 

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