Brisbane’s Courier Mail has perfected the art of rumour-based reporting, a formula that consists of stringing together anonymous claims by sources whose own motives are never explored and whose identity is never revealed, writes Terry Towelling.
Journalistic ethics
Journalists adrift: the reporting of Black Saturday
Journalists covering the Black Saturday bushfires lacked ethical guidelines, and were left to find their own way through the dilemmas and traumas of reporting Australia’s worst peace-time disaster, according to a new study.
Newsweek go rogue with Palin cover
Newsweek has caused a big stir this week by running a cover photo of Sarah Palin — clad in rather tight running gear — taken from a Runner’s World photoshoot. Palin herself has labelled the move “sexist”. Is it fair to use editorial photos out of context?
Hannity: Jon Stewart was right, we faked footage
Fox News anchor Sean Hannity has admitted to using misleading footage of an anti-health care reform rally which made the event look far more popular than it actually was, but claims it was an honest mistake.
Illegal: SMH breaks school league table ban
The Sydney Morning Herald says it’s breaching NSW state law today and risking a $55,000 fine by publishing this article comparing the test results of three Sydney high schools, challenging what it says is an “absurd” ban on giving parents information about the schools childrens’ schools. Subversive or sensationalism?
The Newspoll numbers The Australian won’t print
The Australian appears to have decided to not publish the results of an opinion poll on voting intention in the wake of last week’s outlier that had Malcolm Turnbull gaining ground on Kevin Rudd.
News Ltd blurs the line between ads and editorial
Several News Ltd publications are treading a very thin line between advertising and editorial by offering special product spruiks for high-paying advertisers — including an endorsement from the editor themselves.
Wankley Awards: Photo galleries of drunk people at the Melbourne Cup
Apparently people get drunk on the public lawns at the Melbourne Cup. Who knew? There is no news in this, just a ritualised annual tabloid photo-gallery parade of shame, vulnerability and intrusion. But try telling that to the Hun.
Keating on the stairs: beating or beat up?
Insiders say a Sunday Telegraph alleging Paul Keating’s daughter kicked and threatened to kill one of its photographers was at best a beat-up, and at-worst a total fabrication.
Keane: Glenn Milne is a grub
In the weekend’s Sunday Telegraph, Glenn Milne reported a relationship between two MPs. This isn’t even news to Canberra insiders, says Bernard Keane, and it shouldn’t be news for anyone: there is no public interest.
Why is the media siding with Fox against Obama?
Fox News isn’t generally on great terms with the rest of the mainstream media, but since coming under attack from the White House, journalists are suddenly siding with their own — even if that means sticking up for the very people who routinely attack them.
When online journalists moonlight as copy-writersrumour 
Which high-profile war correspondent is also a spy?
Three anonymous military sources have separately claimed that a high-profile journalist currently working in a war zone is also a secret agent, according to Gawker.
Ethics on holiday for NYT and Newsweek writers’ Jamaica junket
Writers from the NY Times and Newsweek have been caught out skirting their companies’ ethics policies on an all-expenses-paid “swag orgy” junket to Jamaica , courtesy of Thrillist.
Reading between the lines on the NRL-Howard coverage
Once again, Piers Akerman has written a story about a News Ltd investment without once mentioning that his employer has a deep involvement in the issue.
Political snippets: Bloggers beware — here comes the FTC
America’s Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on bloggers taking cash for comment, and how the global recession may have reduced carbon emissions.
In tourism, even libel can be a world away
Libel tourism has been catapulted into the headlines after aviation writer Joe Sharkey was served a writ for defamatory statements he says he didn’t make in Brazil after surviving a mid-air collision in 2006.
Who mops up when news sources leak?busted 
Fox producer caught prodding protesters
A Fox News producer has been caught out coaching a crowd of Tea Party protesters, encouraging them to scream and shout for the camera while an anchor reported from the scene.
The cut-and-paste ethics of photojournalism
Photographer David Hume Kennerly recently had a photo he took of Dick Cheney published in Newsweek, but the image was heavily cropped and totally out of context — a move, he says, discredited both him and his profession.
LEAKED: How the US press became Blago’s best friend
After he was arrested for corruption last year, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich took a hammering in the US press as a dodgy slimeball. But behind the scenes, emails leaked to Gawker reveal the press-pack engaged in some serious brown-nosing to score an interview.
Censorship and cowardice at Conde Nast
Publisher Conde Nast has buried a story from GQ on possible connections between Vladimir Putin, the KGB and a series of 1999 bombings officially blamed on Chechen terrorists, keeping the piece off the web and out of Russia, for fear of reprisals.
Was the AP right to publish a soldier’s dying hours?
The AP has come under some heavy fire for publishing a photo of a deceased US soldier shortly after he was fatally wounded by a grenade in Afghanistan. The NYT’s Lens blog looks at the ethics and precedent of going public with such a private moment.
Media says “Nyet!” to self-censorship
While magazine publisher Conde Nast’s attempts — and initial success — in censoring a story in GQ magazine are troubling, but it’s at least reassuring that GQ’s editors didn’t take it lying down, says Julian Sanchez.
Media Matters / Thursday, 12 November 2009
Fox News presenter Sean Hannity has been caught out airing misleading footage during a story about an anti-health care reform rally to make the event look far more successful than it actually was. The investigative reporter with the scoop? The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart.