Crikey

Whistleblower’s blog banned. Rob McKibbin has been a “workplace bully and corruption whistleblower” in South Australia for ten years. His 5000-hits-a-day blog has kept the South Australian government honest over the last year, but it seems the powers that be might have had enough.

On Monday McKibbin got word that his many followers within South Australia’s parliament house couldn’t get access to the blog, instead getting the error message “Unable to connect to destination. Reason: This Category: Blogs and Personal Sites”. A spokesperson for the SA Parliamentary Network Support Group (PNSG) told Crikey that McKibbin’s site was not the only site blocked, with parliament house workers restricted from accessing all Blogspot blogs. McKibbin remains convinced the ban was enacted as a result of his most recent post, a rather scathing attack on new SA attorney-general, John Rau.

Access to McKibbin’s blog has been restored after an independent member of SA’s upper house, Ann Bressington, campaigned for access. An internal email sent to Ann Bressington from the PNSG explained that access to other Blogspot blogs would still be blocked.  — Crikey intern Matt de Neef

Nine News — live from the car park. On Monday we pointed out how Channel Nine was reporting on the Bangkok riots from Brisbane — outside its own barbed wire-fenced studios, in fact. Well it didn’t take long for Channel Seven to make hay, contrasting its own on-the-ground reporting with its bitter rival — “IN CHANNEL 9 CARPARK”.

The Age’s confusion at phone-cancer link. The Age recently reported that “A major international study has been unable to rule out links between mobile phone use and brain tumours.” And yet the following day, The Age declared “The largest study into the risks of mobile phone use has shown no significant evidence of a link to brain cancer”.

If you search for “mobile phones” on the site, the difference in headlines becomes even more apparent. They are linked with the bylines “Mobile phones linked to brain cancer risk” and “Cancer study finds no clear link to mobile phone use” respectively. Both stories include the same video. The question is: which should we believe? — serial commenter Halo Jones

The 200 moments that changed journalism

“Looking back on what he describes as the most significant decade in the history of the news media, Poynter Library director David Shedden has selected 200 developments from 2000 to 2009 as ‘moments that transformed journalism.’” — Poynter

Syria and Israel turn to bloggers to advance peace talks

“Syrians and Israelis are crossing one of the Middle East’s great divides to co-operate — in cyberspace — to explore ways to advance peace between their countries. The groundbreaking OneMideast.org website aims to bring together prominent Israelis and Syrian bloggers, academics and experts seeking ways to break the stubborn impasse in negotiations.” — Guardian

Mediagazer’s top 100 media news sites

“Today we’re launching the Mediagazer Leaderboard — a list of our top 100 source websites, ranked in order. The ranking is based on a variable we call presence  — the percentage of headline space a source occupied on Mediagazer over the past 30 days. The greater a site’s presence, the higher they appear on the list.” — Mediagazer

A peek behind the UK Times paywall

“Times Online is about to be split in to two websites. From June, new-look TheTimes.co.uk and SundayTimes.co.uk will go behind the first of Rupert Murdoch’s big consumer news paywalls… Following our March pics, these new sneak peaks show a clean, breathy new site that oozes the same aesthetic as its printed forebear.” — paidContent

Google ordered to destroy Wi-Fi data

“The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered Google to destroy personal data that was collected from British home wireless networks in 2008.” — Guardian

Yahoo! acquires Associated Content

“Yahoo! has acquired crowd sourcing high output media company Associated Content for $90 million, according to multiple reports. The deal greatly expands Yahoo!’s content output, and provides a different source of content than that being created by Yahoo! editors.” — Webnewser

Is CNN’s Bangkok coverage biased?

“Recently, CNN Thailand Correspondents Dan Rivers and Sarah Snider have made me seriously reconsider your agency as a source for reliable and accurate unbiased news. As of this writing, over thousands of CNN’s viewers have already begun to question the accuracy and dependability of its reporting as regards events in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Iran, etc., in addition to Bangkok.” — Asian Correspondent

Twitter not for sale

“Twitter is not for sale and never will be, according to its super-bright chief executive and co-founder, Evan Williams. ‘I don’t anticipate it being for sale — ever. We are just getting started and have a lot more to achieve,’ he says.” — The Telegraph