Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

A basic problem with on-line news, just like radio and TV news, is that it can't be referred to in other writings, because there is no firm point of reference.

One can write an article referring to something controversial that someone has said if it has been pubished on paper, it's present on paper in any library or anyone's possession.  Then, those who wish to deny that the thing was written need to produce their own copy of the same issue of the same newspaper and demonstrate the absence of the article on the page cited, and they can't.

But if it is on-line and it is exposed as scandalous or fraudulent it simply disappears from the site.  Therefore it's unsafe to refer to it.

I can refer to two sites that prove there have been committed what in the view of ordinary citizens would be frauds of such a serious nature that in natural justice they would deserve prison terms.  Just to do so would expose me to imprisonment for what they call contempt of court, although I believe I have never had contempt for what is not contemptible.  I wonder what the food is like at Yatala.

But in any case, if I did so, the sites might shut down or the content simply disappear. That has happened numerous times when attention was drawn to the moral quality of what had been published on the Web.

Fraudulent or decent, in the course of time a site is going to go offline, disappear. 

A Web page is in that sense not a document, cannot be referable, a thing cited as authority for what has been written.

Here is another perspective.

I wonder if newpapers were ever about disseminating news?  It's easy to answer, no, they were all about clutching at astronomical amounts of advertisers' money, but that isn't what I mean.

Why would one set up an on-line news site?  For money?

John Milton and other pamphleteers published a huge number of pamphlets.  They were sold for money, but were they written for money?

Is it, after all, all about reform?  The sensationalist exposure of abuses is entertaining, sells copy, is a great money earner.  But is that why abuses need to be exposed?

I believe it was someone named Margo? Collect the information, write it up and publish?  It might be the only way to gather any real news.  Given the genepool that Webdiary's enjoyed over the years, surely a resurgence of Margo's notions is a possibility.

Personally I'm about to try and clear a backlog.. up to my neck in local shite, and about to start some updating here.   Basically, though,  everyone's run out of money and local investment in international get-rich-quick schemes is tying up a lot of money in projects that aren't going to commence for much longer now, if at all.  But that's another story... what's yours?

Where are we, non-journalists, going to get it from?

One trouble about forming a conglomerate from all the little players on the Net is... they were there first, before Murdoch and Fairfax, yet they are little players.  Form a conglomerate with a single Web site and more little players will appear and it will be one.

I.e. the Net is not the way to go, to publish, it is a partial source of information.  It's goodbye, Murdoch and Fairfax, publish on paper or forget it.

A problem is that newspapers never made sense, were always financed by intruding advertising rather than by delivering news.  There was never a business model of people paying for news, creating careers for journalists.

At least, it appears that daily is finished.

 Sorry, folks.  Wish I could see a way.

News about the news media. Does it get anymore dismal than that?  The  media  as Marshall McCluhan observd back in the sixties has long ago become the message and I don't give a give a shit. The more I think about it the more I realise my initial fervour of  Margo's vision had more to do with my regard for  her and memories of the glory days of Webdiary than practicality. No business model, no cohesion, no will.

Turmoil in the media, the old order is rapidly changing and the only future I can see for Fairfax is that of boutique journalism. As it stands it's not quite tits and arse on page three but perilously close. Celebrity shit, the block,. the voice, you name it and I am interested in murder and traffic deaths? If that's "news" I'll stand fucking, it goes on all the time. For us it's not about the "news' We're surrounded by it, it's what's behind the news. Opinion.

Eleanor Roosevely observed that simple minds were concerned with other people, ordinary minds with events, (hey footy, it's not about life and death it's far more important than that,)  and superior minds concerned themselves with ideas. If that comes across as elitist let me make myself unequviilantley clear; I despise every form of snobbery be it intelectuall or any other kind.

Differernt strokes for different folks and this time round Paul , I'm with you.

Ha! I came so close to mentioning CP Scott and his legendary Grauniad.

We DID have some sort of equivalent back in the eighties with Ranald Macdonald and the Age group, but I vaguely remember from the National Times, that he had to sell out. 

Having the flu, I avoided an opportunity to watch at first hand, a naked lib-lab grab for a beautiful old park we've been trying to save from the developers. A despicable saga, but in the end I parked in front of the heater and saw the following:

QA tonight had Louise Adler making much the same comment concerning the trashing of Fairfax's best assets - its journalists and editors, as Margo Kingston and a number of other experts have also observed over the last few days. It was fortunate Louise Adler was on the panel, to counteract the half hearted nonsenses of Brandis, who I think knew how pitiful his defence was.

A couple of other things. MW , in examining the Fairfax problem, also observed a bit of slippery opportunism from Murdochs, doing their own throat slitting staff sackings under cover of the Fairfax smokescreen.

Digressing, 730 Report surprised. Chris Uhlmann actually balanced a bagging of Gillard on asylum seekers with one of Abbott, who apparently physically monstered another ego, Clive Palmer, after he claimed that Downer and Santo Santoro (wtf is he still doing in politics?) shouldn't be Liberal party vice-presidents when also registered as lobbyists.

Even more interesting was the curious coincidence of Australian Story's episode to do with a looming threat to democracy, via the authoritarian and ruthless Gina Rinehart. By the end she had occurred to me as being about as fit to run a media company as Murdoch.

Did someone mention a pisshead and formidable thinker?

Got no idea what the latter means but as far as the former goes I'm all in.

Talk about nothing so lonely shocking or queer, Weird Dairy has been chaotic not, without any beer.

Grumpy old man hey Scott - don't worry mate we'll all be dead soon, but glad to hear you are still respiring.

Yep, looks like fascism, so we can expect the trains to run on time one day - I hope.

And what's this about belief systems?

If yours truly had no gods he'd be totally fucked. Mate, I discovered a new one just the other day: the washing machine god - yeah, I had no idea either, but one exists - Pumpkin is my witness. The fucking washer shit itself, I prayed (specifically) to the washing machine god and BINGO. Now, how else could one explain such a miracle?

And numbers?

That's easy: think digits mate, after that one can grasp anything numbers - it's all a bit of tautology really. One finger plus one finger is exactly the same as saying two fingers, is it not? The same goes for toes - if you have enough of them.

Anyway gotta run - think I might have spied iHarry wandering about - he reckons I owe him an iApple, but I reckon we was always talking iBananas. Never could understand the finer details of a contract. Fucking lawyers - fruit cakes the lot of them - I'd rather be a nurse (at least you can bury your mistakes).

Breaking news! Mass walk out by Fairfax senior journos. Yeah, love to you too  Margo and ditto from Carol who's pissed off with me for not including her first time round, and bugger you at the same time for filling my head with so much stuff that I don't know what to include or dismiss. That will sort itself out but events overtake us and timing is all. I will limit myself at this point to ask very directly Margo how involved you are prepared to be because you're the insider and the first thing is to contact the journos involved and get a consortium going. Not financial, that has to come much later after a business model has been constructed but that of like minded people.

As for Jabette the Hutt, she's just bought herself 20% of a dead thoroughbred. She can afford it and if she is dumb enough to believe that she can influence people like us, it fits well with her choice of Bogan friends. (The OED got a bit of wrong, boganism is not restricted to the lower socio-economic order.

Take care dear girl, more tomorrow when I should have  battle plan formulated.

Yep, that's the problem. The Guardian is financed by the Scott Trust - see http://www.gmgplc.co.uk/the-scott-trust/