tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28074581044652854962009-06-26T13:11:27.011+10:00What’s this blog all about? This blog is about news, journalism, journalism education, politics and culture in an Australian setting but in a global context. It may also involve occasional outbursts of whimsy. I want it to be a forum for debate as well as a repository for my journalism, research, musings and occasional rants. So, engage with me and my ideas and let me know what you’re thinking. This is a two-way street!J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-21236416153432108012009-06-21T11:23:00.006+10:002009-06-21T12:03:46.339+10:00

Top 20 Take Away Tips for Tweeting Journos*1) Think before you tweet - you can't delete an indiscrete tweet!2) Think carefully about what your RTing & acknowledge if it's unsubstantiated3) Be an active twit: tweet daily if you want your followers to stick.4) Determine your Twitter identity5) Be human; be honest; be open; be active6) Don't lock your account if you want to use Twitter for reporting

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-89949084288386616102009-06-09T12:33:00.013+10:002009-06-09T14:18:18.104+10:00

An earlier version of this post first appeared @ the PBS website Mediashift, titled How Journalists Balance Work, Personal Lives on TwitterTwitter is continuing to make headlines around the world as it amasses followers. But it's also making an impact on the newsmakers themselves. Journalists are invading the space at a rapid pace and learning to report live, crowdsource stories and engage with

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-26324336273391048402009-06-05T16:45:00.010+10:002009-06-06T09:34:25.424+10:00

Pic: ReutersI’ve been stunned at how easily the national media has adopted the KRUDD line on the controversial ‘gift’ he received from his car-dealer neighbour – a fully registered and insured vehicle used for electioneering purposes. The ABC’s National Political Editor, Chris Uhlmann, declared in his 7pm political wrap last night that there was "nothing improper" about the PM’s decision to keep

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-27221350867250887652009-05-28T22:23:00.019+10:002009-05-29T18:29:32.766+10:00

Twitter became big news once journalists realised its power as a tool for breaking stories during the Mumbai Massacre in 2008. In the aftermath of the micro-blogging platform hitting the headlines, there was an explosion of professional journalists in the Twittersphere. This growth has been fuelled by increasing mainstream awareness of the importance of social media to the future of a

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-54455754999859625472009-05-22T17:40:00.013+10:002009-05-24T08:38:21.036+10:00

This is the third part of a continuing J-Scribe series on my problematic pregnancy. See Reborn Part 1 & Reborn Part 2It was an agonisingly long week between the onset of the threatened miscarriage and the appointment with the obstetrician which would deliver the news about our baby’s ability to endure. But it was news worth waiting for.-----Original Message-----From: Julie.PosettiSent: Monday, 23

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-91192886474076865572009-05-18T20:39:00.011+10:002009-05-18T23:16:28.276+10:00

This is a continuation of a series of posts on my problematic pregnancy against a backdrop of recurrent miscarriage. Please share the journey with me. (Read Reborn Part 1 first)When the Fetal Medicine Unit doctor called us in to his rooms, looking apprehensive and clutching test results in his hand, we knew something wasn’t right. The results were from sophisticated blood tests which form the

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-89189079121697709632009-05-18T15:11:00.007+10:002009-05-18T22:10:21.796+10:00

The Bambina @ 12 weeksShe kicks me in the guts and I feel only love. It’s been a long, painful journey to motherhood for me. At 38 and with a history of recurrent miscarriage I’d almost resigned myself to childlessness. But now I’m eagerly awaiting the delivery of my baby girl.The Bambina, as I’ve called her since she was just the size of a peanut and her gender was

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-63127912260955771972009-04-15T21:44:00.017+10:002009-04-16T02:00:38.867+10:00

Foreign correspondents are being deported, police and military operatives have been stationed in newsrooms to enforce government censorship and the ABC’s Radio Australia transmitters were forcibly shutdown today as coup leaders sought to silence their opponents via ‘emergency regulations’ enforced under the cloak of Easter.Coup leader: Frank Bainimarama (Image:AFP)The International Federation of

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-67187166641929784642009-02-07T11:37:00.021+11:002009-02-07T13:39:28.914+11:00

The micro-blogging platform Twitter was the breakthrough social media tool for journalists in 2008. It became a pipeline for breaking news for both professional reporters and citizen journalists, with the massacre in Mumbai, the Hudson River plane crash and Obama's inauguration highlighting its effectiveness as a source of live, user-generated online content.Journalists increasingly used it to

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-63311423084465768162009-01-17T21:26:00.010+11:002009-01-17T22:40:03.896+11:00

Some journalism academics are possibly more scared of new technology and more resistant to change than the worst industry "dinosaurs”. But Web 2.0 has made getting online so simple that there are no more excuses for being disconnected. While some reporters see journalism education as a potential refuge from the rapid pace of change in the 21st century digital newsroom, j-schools should in fact be

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-15698310817572095262008-09-28T15:04:00.010+10:002008-09-29T22:05:29.341+10:00

I put my recipe for culturally competent reporting to the test last night, at a Ramadan feast staged at the Canberra Islamic Centre.There was competition for seats in the jam-packed community hall where hundreds of people gathered to break their fast at sunset. Traditionally, Muslims fast during daylight hours in the Islamic calendar month of Ramadan as an act of submission, solidarity, and to

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-21066344223404699262008-09-13T20:29:00.010+10:002008-09-14T13:57:51.776+10:00

I’m celebrating my first bloggerversary – it’s exactly one year today since I uploaded my first post to J-scribe. So, it’s time to take stock and look to the future of this little Web 2.0 journalistic enterprise. It began with a bang – well, more of an explosion of anger in text, really, in response to 11 years of Howard Government socio-cultural ‘retroform’ - and politics has proved an enduring

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-20972300770996211722008-08-29T21:47:00.005+10:002008-09-02T16:59:34.731+10:00

Your clock's still ticking but time stands still here.The dressing table tells your story - favourite cards; faded photographs; symbols of your faith; dried flowers from wedding bouquets; sentimental gifts and memories of yesterdays.Outside, the birds still flock to the garden you loved. They wake me early. On a lemon tree branch, a dove sits singing your song. A bittersweet goodbye.The phone

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-82032582055337971792008-07-06T01:21:00.006+10:002008-07-06T01:39:08.609+10:00

I'm at the South African National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. But I nearly didn’t make it. A fortnight before I left, in the wake of the outbreak of Xenophobic violence that claimed more than 60 lives, the Australian government issued a “do not travel alert” for all South African townships which my employer threatened to read as a total ban on travel to South Africa. They were, of

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-25987241284839292612008-06-28T00:25:00.001+10:002008-06-28T00:29:18.226+10:00

I felt myself leaning forward in my seat as the cast of Rome and Juliet backed-up on stage in step with grief. The Dance Factory’s astounding performance of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy on show at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, is literally enthralling.Passionate performances with sweat-inducing energy are underscored by raw recordings of Vivaldi and Bach interspersed

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-11842213302001400932008-06-24T00:29:00.001+10:002008-06-24T00:31:18.196+10:00

Poverty is in your face in South Africa.When you step off the plane you are immediately confronted by people begging – open hands; scams at the ready; people offering to carry your bags, watch your car, watch your back. My experience of this poverty is grounded in Grahamstown – a city of 70,000 with 70% unemployment and a community divided between the affluent mostly white residents of a pretty,

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-41008235694497184932008-06-23T23:33:00.009+10:002009-02-07T15:13:29.012+11:00

I’ve never been so stimulated in a public toilet. Get your mind out of the gutter! I mean intellectually. There I sat…on the loo, reading quotes about journalism from Nelson Mandela and Oscar Wilde inscribed on bathroom tiles that covered the walls of the cubicle. The toilets in question are housed in an extraordinary building in a provincial city in the poorest region of South Africa. The Africa

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-45408973313227702972008-06-17T19:55:00.008+10:002008-06-17T22:27:38.902+10:00

While thousands of immigrants sheltered in pseudo refugee camps in Johannesburg, I ran the gauntlet between the international and domestic terminals in a city riven by violence. I arrived in South Africa four days ago - trying to pretend I wasn’t afraid. Fear is the stuff of life here. I’d been warned – about rape; AIDS; Joburg airport gangs; car-jacking; being murdered for my mobile phone; home

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-25837025990342761942008-04-28T19:05:00.010+10:002008-04-29T15:29:49.448+10:00

I have a confession to make…I wear Britney Spears’ “designer” scent. There, I said it. Embarrassed for me? So am I! But before you judge me too harshly, consider the power of this little pink bottle (diamante encrusted, of course) of “Fantasy”.I have been chased out of lifts, poked insistently in the chest, and watched women, noses imitating Bewitched, cross the room to demand I identify my

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-1554840737732489142008-04-20T21:14:00.009+10:002008-04-20T22:16:22.640+10:00

It was billed as a gab-fest and a platform for Prime Ministerial egotism by a nay-saying Opposition, but the main achievement of this weekend’s 2020 summit in Canberra was listening.In the face of growing political apathy and community expressions of disenfranchisement, Kevin Rudd decided it was time to acknowledge Australians’ right to be heard. And, in a move even the cynics have acknowledged

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-32824293151866529712008-04-14T23:30:00.008+10:002008-04-15T00:07:08.949+10:00

If you were in Melbourne in the middle of last month and watching National Nine News, you could have been forgiven for thinking you’d been transported to Middle Earth.Increasingly shallow, banal and celebrity driven, the commercial network which, for decades, prided itself on its news service, plumbed new depths of irrelevance, when a story about missing bridesmaids gowns ran third in their

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-36912579277821800912008-03-23T22:54:00.014+11:002008-03-24T13:36:35.744+11:00

Being a woman is gloriously complex. Being a woman requires embracing the contradictory. Being a woman can also be dangerous.Remember the putrid and widely condemned assertion expressed by Sydney’s Sheik Hilali, in the wake of a gang rape trial, that women who do not dress according to conservative Islamic standards are like uncovered meat which invites wild cats to devour it? Across the Indian

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-37644131258088021812008-03-09T21:39:00.011+11:002008-03-10T08:00:24.390+11:00

Friday was the projected birth date of the baby boy I lost last year. It was a difficult day at the end of a difficult week.My life’s been characterised by a period of emotional intensity, change and revival since I miscarried my baby last August - it was my third consecutive miscarriage. The love and care of family, friends and virtual strangers helped me survive the aftermath and the callous

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-52713987277192895042008-03-08T22:34:00.015+11:002008-03-09T13:23:53.112+11:00

As the US Democratic nomination goes down to the wire, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continuing to fight it out in the primaries, I thought I'd share with you the insights of a young American journalist.Ryan Mock is a former student of mine - he studied Journalism and Sports Media at the University of Canberra. He now works as a baseball broadcaster in Maryland but he retains a keen

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807458104465285496.post-32923130075084989752008-03-03T22:07:00.015+11:002008-03-08T22:56:03.943+11:00

I recently flew to Paris for a wedding. Envious? So you should be! It was a grand and moving affair.The couple in question, my friend Micaela and her Flavio (yes, that is his real name!), are very much in love and clearly “meant to be”, so a wedding in the City of Love seemed apt. He’s a former Swiss diplomat turned politician and cultural advisor to UNESCO and she’s an Italian academic,writer

J-scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419546067538750noreply@blogger.com0