I'm the fresh face on the block. I guess you should start anything with a bang, and a blog is no exception. Pity I don't have any kind of big story to break. I want to use this blog to help me focus on what it is that I really want to be writing about. Just to give you a taste of what you might find here, first of all I love writing. Why else would I be here. Political news can be pretty fun (don't worry I'm not crazy, it can also be boring as hell), but my favourite would have to be reading about international news. The only thing is that that's always left to the old people to write about. I guess because they know a lot more, but also at uni there's not too much point starting us out there when we're not going to be given the opportunity to write about those kind of stories until we're at least 30+. Some posts will be written just like this, just streams of thought, others I'll sit down and properly think things through. But to start off, I'm going to post a few short blog piece's I've written for uni. I think the most daunting thing about anything new, an essay, a new sport, or a drawing, is getting that first word or line on the paper, or just getting out onto the court. Maybe I'm being lazy, but I just needed to get a post up here, then the rest will hopefully come a bit more freely! Our task was to give a bit of commentary on the way events were covered in the media. So here are a few of mine.

Catherine Deveny traffic welcome at The Age

By Alexandra Cottee

18 May, 2010

When dad went through the usual dinner-time motions of "sit up straight, get your elbows off the table and finish your mouthful before you speak," I did what normal teenagers do, and that was the opposite.

It's human nature to rebel against authority, but this lesson was lost on 2010 Logies organisers who 'banned' guests from tweeting during the Sunday night ceremony. On a night when controversy was so keenly avoided, a media storm erupted with Twitter at its epicenter.

Former columnist for The Age, Catherine Deveny, was not the only one who defied orders from above, but it was her brazen comments on Bindi Irwin and Rove McManus that really stirred the media pot.

For obvious reasons Fairfax were quick to justify their sacking of Deveny on the following Tuesday. But it was not until The Australian gave their commentary on the Thursday that readers were told the polemic journalist had already been given three warnings. It almost seemed as if Fairfax were happy to simply ride the wave of online traffic, (readers posted almost 800 comments on The Age's initial story that broke the news of Deveny's sacking) rather than provide any further debate or substantiation of their actions.

Interested readers were given no option but to turn to News Limited publications for any in-depth commentary on the implications of Deveny's salacious tweets.

Michael Bodey's feature article in The Australian gave voice to the real issue to come out the scandal. What media institutions need to do is formulate a clear policy that outlines how journalists are to use social media.

There is a definite blurring of the distinction between professional and private domains on social media platforms. Over the past couple of weeks this has been played out in the public domain not just in Australia with the Deveny verse The Age saga, but across the globe in Ireland. Once again it was Twitter who took center stage, and brought down the country's national media organisation RTEwith it.

Unsurprisingly it was the Murdoch empire's Time Online who broke the story to British readers, the long and short of it being a respected journalist confirmed the death of prominent broadcaster Gerry Ryan via a tweet. But rather than standing back and riding the storm like The Age did, RTE promptly announced that new guidelines on social media were to be put in place by the end of the month.

Maybe The Age should take a page out of Ireland's books.

Media frenzy when sex and politics collide

By Lexi Cottee

25 May, 2010

Image by ran ma tim. Courtesy of Flickr

Sex scandals, double lives, cash. Its the stuff of dreams for some journalists. Think Herman Rockefeller back in January. Details of his salubrious double life received as much coverage as the RSPT is being given at the moment.

To some this might be like comparing apples to oranges, but this practice of giving as much attention to stories that delve into the private lives of others - albeit ones far more interesting than our own mundane existence - to issues of national relevance, and with a very real effect on our lives such as government policy, is increasingly becoming common practice.

Tweak the Rockefeller story a bit, and substitute 'murder' for 'MP' and you have the media's latest victim in former NSW Minister for Transport David Campbell.

Last Tuesday, Channel 7's state political reporter, Adam Walter, followed his baser impulses by tailing Campbell to the gay sauna Kens of Kensington, or affectionately, KKK, to expose the married minister's double life in a scoop that night.

Walter framed the story by focusing on Campbell's use of his ministerial car, his message being that tax-payers' money - our money - was being used to fulfill his primal urges. Implicit also was that this double life was sure to impinge upon his duties as transport minister. For these reasons, it was 'in the public interest' that we knew of David Cambell's bisexuality. But was it?

Just to clear the air, NSW Premier Kristina Keneally assured the public that Ministers routinely use their ministerial vehicles for private tasks, including picking up the kids from school. Our 'private lives' are called 'private' for an obvious reason. Whether we choose to visit the florist on our way home from work, or stop by for a quickie at a brothel, we should feel confident we can undertake either of these activities in private.

With the issue of his state owned car out of the way, another motive to Walter's story takes shape. According to Crikey's Andrew Crook, Campbell's private life had been an open secret in government and media circles for years. Why reveal it now?

The NSW Government has received its fair share of media attack over the past year, from convicted child sex charges against Milton Orkopoulos, to the affair of John Della Bisca, and even the drunken underwear dance of Matt Brown. Following the F3 traffic jam, it was Minister Campbell's turn on the media radar.

On top of this, Walter had his own gripe with the NSW government. Back in 2008 he had endured a short stint as the top PR consultant in Morris Iemma's 'strategy unit'. But when Nathan Rees replaced Iemma, the strategy unit was disbanded, and Walter was left jobless. On top of this, his relationship with the mother of his third child, former Health Minister Reba Meagher, had been a topic of public scrutiny.

David Campbell had not done anything unlawful by visiting Ken's, so why were we learning how a man likes to spend his downtime?

Clearly Walter was fulfilling a personal vendetta against the NSW government, and he simply found his target in Campbell. There's no surprise The Punch's David Penberthy wrote that Campell has a lesser right to privacy. News Limited stood to make a lot of money out of the story.

Humiliating our MPs is simply a distraction from the real issues of government. Thank god today's headlines focused on Ken Henry for all the right reasons.