There are two words which immediately spring to mind over the media’s coverage of the Victorian bushfires – mawkish and disproportionate, writes Greg Barns.
February, 2009
Consumer Confidence indexes and other exercises in branding
Regardless of their accuracy, Consumer Confidence indexes are marketing exercises designed to promote companies, peak organisations or research bodies, writes Bernard Keane.
Sharp rise in unemployment rate: labour market’s turning sour
You have to look through today’s confusing Labour Force figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to get a true sense of the worsening state of the labour market, writes Glenn Dyer.
Rundle: Free speech and Islam
As with the Mohammed cartoons controversy, there’s a fundamental and wilful misunderstanding of the role of offensive speech in an open society, writes Guy Rundle.
Apocalypse Now lesson for bushfire survival
Lives could have been saved in last Saturday’s fire storms if simple guidance had been broadcast over areas where people had no information, writes Ben Sandlilands.
Video of the Day: The Daily Show: Obama and The Death of Hope (and the stimulus package)
Housing finance hits six-year high
Kevin Rudd’s boosting of first home buyers grants sparked a jump in housing finance in December, writes Glenn Dyer.
Some advice for media covering the bushfire story
The other side to this story is the physical and emotional wellbeing of not just of the victims and survivors but of those gathering, editing and leading the charge to get the news out to the consumer, writes Cait McMahon.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Comments, corrections, clarifications and c*ckups
Victoria’s bushfires … Marion Scyrmgour … the American economy … corporate collapse … Wilson Tuckey … Marion Scyrmgour:
Twitter: enabling the new global rubberneckers
We can watch as much bushfire disaster p-rn as we want without stirring from home, writes Stilgherrian.
Media briefs: Send pink knickers to India… Canadian interns to produce news…
Today’s headlines about the headline makers.
Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners … The Losers … News & CA … The Stats … Glenn Dyer’s comments.
Ask the economists: Stimulation needed now
With the government’s $42 billion stimulus package now the subject of squabbling in the Senate, Andrew Crook asked a group of leading economists to give their views on the most optimal outcome.
Rundle: What has Black Saturday taught us?
However inured one is to the havoc wreaked by bushfires, to the horror and waste of life, to how things could have been otherwise, the “Black Saturday” fires can cut through any amount of world-weariness, writes Guy Rundle.
Stay or go policy under scrutiny
The Royal Commission into Victoria’s ongoing bushfires will intensify scrutiny of the controversial “prepare, stay and defend” policy, writes Chris Paver.
Now showing on the Crikey website
The daily clickthroughs: STATE OF THE PLANET: Climate change ads banned in Ireland STUFF WE LIKE: The day the muzak died What’s new on the Crikey blogs: THE BURCHETT CHRONICLES: A blog devoted to Wilfred Burchett CONTENT MAKERS: Bushfires on the internet and social media POLLYTICS: Chartmare JONATHAN GREEN: Tough questions in the fire […]
Fielding’s $4b stimulus hurdle
Steve Fielding is looming as the biggest threat to passage of the Government’s stimulus package through the Senate. And that’s exactly how the Government wants it, writes Bernard Keane.
Morning market report
Marcus Padley reports on the highs and lows of today’s markets.
Tips and rumours
For God’s sake. Could someone please tone down Neil Mitchell? Mitchell spent yesterday trying to flood the crime scene at Kinglake with traumatised, sleep-deprived and emotionally-charged bushfire fire victims. He broadcast that people were able to breach police lines by driving cross country and then allowed a local to specify a route via a strawberry […]
The Media Monitors’ Top 20
It was a week where the big guys took centre stage, writes Thomas Raymond.
Crikey Says: Crikey says
The bushfire toll rises in Victoria, political deadlock settles over the federal parliament, the crisis besetting the global economy stretches for new depths. Here though, in the midst of all this darkness, is a good news story…
Pepsi’s ‘breathtaking’ marketing w-nk
The company behind Pepsi’s widely-panned new logo scale new heights of marketing w-nk, writes Ruth Brown.
Too soon to jump one way or another on fuel reduction
The extensive records of what burned and what did not, what burned quickly and what did not will provide invaluable information for future vegetation management of communities living in the bush, writes Lionel Elmore.
Tips from a bushfire survivor
Canberra firestorm survivor Liz Tilley writes, I just can’t bear to see those victims in Victoria not benefit from what we learned in Canberra. So, for what it’s worth, here are my tips for a “great” relief.
Rundle: Israel, strap yourself in. And the rest of us.
A historical change in the Israel may happen today — and one would presume, the beginning of the end of it, in its current form, writes, Guy Rundle.
