The Trees Around

Goat in the Snow

The French Exit

Either Way I’m Celebrating

Kings of the F**king Sea

Five titles from Birds LLC, who published Partyknife by Dan Magers, one of my favorite books published 2012 (the other is Alien vs. Predator by Michael Robbins):

1. The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli
2. Goat in the Snow by Emily Pettit
3. The French Exit by Eliza Gabbert
4. Either Way I’m Celebrating, poems and comics by Sommer Browning
5. Kings of the F**king Sea, poems by Dan Boehl, images by Jonathan Marshall

So far, the only Birds LLC title I don’t have is the just-released Rise in the Fall, with poems by Ana Božičević and art by Bianca Stone. I’ll most likely order that when they also release The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather.

(This article originally appeared in upstart magazine, as part of a series of top ten lists from 2012. Follow the upstart link to access all the media).

10. David Speers asking Bill Shorten about Peter Slipper

When Sky News journalist David Speers interviewed Bill Shorten in April, it appeared the Workplace Relations Minister had received a gagging order from the party and/or the PM. Mr. Shorten did a remarkably poor job of weaselling his way out of Speers’s very straightforward question: ‘do you think Mr. Slipper should return to the chair while these civil claims (of sexual harassment against James Ashby) are being played out?’ As mUmbrella’s Tim Burrowes so neatly put it (borrowing a line from the BBC comedy series The Thick of It),it was ‘like watching a lion rape a sheep. But in a bad way.’

9. Jonathan Holmes saying he’s sorry (or did he really?)

‘The biter bit. The critic castigated. The pontificator pwned.’ 

There is something enticing about seeing the moral high ground humbled. Therefore, it was with a degree of anticipation and schadenfreude as we awaited this year’s 35^th episode of Media Watch. The watchdog who watches the watchdog had been corrected by the ACMA for breaching standard 5.3 of the ABC’s code of practice. More specifically, the broadcast regulator found Media Watch had not offered the Daily Telegraph’s Anthony Clennell appropriate opportunity to respond to criticism against his piece on pokie reforms in 2011. On the program, Jonathan Holmes responded to the ACMA’s ruling by offering his apology. However, as noted by Crikey’s David Salter, there was a ‘rather bizarre and Alice in Wonderland flavour to this whole episode.’

8. Four Corners: The Comeback Kid?

The ABC‘s investigation into Julia Gillard’s leadership coup in 2010 presented a detailed timeline of events that led to the fall of Kevin Rudd. The topic never left the news agenda, even after Gillard’s re-election. It was becoming all too obvious that Kevin Rudd was not the ‘happy little Vegemite’ he claimed to be as the Foreign Minister of Australia. After months of widespread media speculation about another pending leadership battle, was perhaps this the report that finally set it in motion? The program can be viewed in its entirety on Four Corners’ web site. Below is a small excerpt for the purpose of this review, featuring Labor campaigner Bruce Hawker, Four Corners reporter Andrew Fowler, and KRudd starring in the role as the not-so-happy Vegemite).

7. Maxine McKew’s Tales from the political trenches

Defying the expected outcome of the 2007 election, Maxine McKew ousted John Howard in the seat of Bennelong. The long-time journalist, who for three decades had worked with the ABC as a presenter on the 7.30 report and Lateline, became part of the Labor caucus, only to lose her seat three years later. Amongst other things, Maxine McKew’s controversial insider-exposé blames Gillard for the poor election in 2010, labelling her an ‘ambitious and impatient deputy.’ As she tells Radio National’s Fran Kelly in the clip below, dirty tricks and ‘selective research’ were put to use ‘to soften up a move away from Rudd.’

6. Jonathan Marshall’s outing of Alan Jones’ ‘died of shame’ comment

Did Sunday Telegraph journalist Jonathan Marshall deceive the organisers by not identifying himself as journalist when he bought a student-price ticket for the dinner? Should the Sydney University Liberal Club dinner be regarded a private or public event? Was the party under the Chatham House Rule? Did the organisers specifically ask journalists to identify themselves at the event or not? Was it appropriate to report on Alan Jones speech in the first place? And, in the end, if the circumstances were such that Marshall should not have reported from the event – were Jones’s comments about the PM of such a nature that the public interest in having them published would override any other obligations on the journalist’s behalf?

5. Newspaper shakeups

Job cuts, broadsheets becoming tabloids, erecting digital paywalls, shutting down printing presses, outsourcing subbing duties, and more editorial changes. While, perhaps, not ‘a moment’ as such, newspapers have been in a constant state of turmoil throughout 2012. While the job losses alone are gravely concerning, the impact that the cuts could have on quality journalism is equally worrying. Despite the restructures in organisation and business models, circulation is declining for both Fairfax and News Ltd. In the case of the latter, online audiences have also waned since the introduction of the paywall in April. So far we have barely seen the start, and little of the effect, of the changes. So what will 2013 bring?

4. The Oz‘s apology to Julia Gillard, and the story that won’t go away

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/apology-to-the-prime-minister/story-e6frg6n6-1226456413608

Whether a real scandal or a media beat-up, chances are we are far from a conclusion of the inquiry into the PM’s past with law firm Slater and Gordon. There has been an abundance of reporting and speculation, and as with most such large scale investigations come unfortunate errors. Writing that the PM had set up a ‘trust fund’ rather than a ‘slush fund,’ did The Australian produce this year’s most unfortunate typo, or was it a potentially defamatory factual error? And, how significant is the distinction there, anyway? (It should be noted that also Barrie Cassidy got this confused on Insiders, without it causing much fuss at all).

Perhaps we should rather stop and think about the point at which the number of reports drowns out the important details in a story, and at what point a story should be put on the back burner unless there really are significant details to report on. Pondering the public interest of all the details that had been published in The Oz’s extensive investigation, Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes asserted the following in August:

‘You can question the motive of The Australian, as it filled page after page with detail that few will read. But Hedley Thomas’s articles were for the most part sober and meticulous – and for the first time, perhaps, showed how much of the ranting in the blogosphere had substance, and how much did not.’

Recently new information has emerged, including a claim that Julia Gillard at one point received $5,000 from her then-boyfriend and fraudster Bruce Wilson. Whether or not that (or anything else that’s come up) constitutes a wrongdoing or a deficiency in the PM’s character, it has certainly provided enough fuel to keep fire burning…

3. The Hamster Wheel: media coverage of the muslim riots

Satire can be a powerful and important tool in unraveling stereotypes in reportage and pre-scripted coverage of violence involving minority groups. That’s all that’s necessary to say about this – now watch the clip below.

2.  RAP NEWS XIII: A NEWS HOPE: Julian Assange v Rupert Murdoch (feat. Kristinn Hrafnsson)

While we’re in the satirical corner… Rap news may be well left of centre and far away from the mainstream. But that’s exactly the point, too. We could not resist the temptation to include this commentary on mainstream media’s reporting on (and condemning of) Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Reinventing the news? More, please.

Today’s story: As a shadowy specter hangs
over our ability to access and assess the facts,
is an honest media The Force that can free,
and restore balance and peace in this far reach of the Galaxy? 

The battle has shifted at light speed to cyberspace,
where rebel journalists have made the jump to hyperspace,
challenging the Establishment’s grip on information
and are now being pursued by its sinister agents. 

1. Leigh Sales vs Tony Abbott

Cartoon by Hayden Morris.

Being a politician must be a tough job when you’re facing one of Australian journalism’s finest, unprepared. What was arguably Tony Abbott’s toughest week in the media in 2012 came to a head when he faced Walkley-winner Leigh Sales on 7.30 in late August. Abbott was on the programto discuss BHP’s announcement to put the Olympic Dam project on hold and brought his usual (and only) ammunition: ‘It’s the carbon tax’s fault.’ The 12-minute interview was a rollercoaster of sorts, as an emotional Sales tore strips off the leader of the opposition, who repeatedly failed to provide straight answers to her questions. Below is a small excerpt of the interview for the purpose of this review, but if you haven’t yet seen it in its entirety, make sure you do.

The full list of upstart’s top ten can be found here.

Steinar Ellingsen is a Norwegian journalist and photographer, and a Journalism lecturer at La Trobe University. He’s currently making a documentary webseries chronicling a ten-week odyssey in Australia, as part of a practice-based PhD at La Trobe University. You can follow him on Twitter: @SEllingsen.

Alan Jones’s speech in which he accused the Australian Prime Minister of been a liar and saying her dad “died of shame” was at a private Liberal Party dinner at Sydney University.

The story took more than a week to be broken and the article written by Jonathan Marshall was published in The Sunday Telegraph.

This past week not only have Jones’s own ethics been questioned, but also those of  Marshall.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran an editorial accusing Marshall’s actions of been “borderline ethical, at best” because he attended the Liberal Party dinner as an individual, not a journalist.

Click here for The Sydney Morning Herald’s Editorial

For coverage on this issue, we especially love Crikey.

Click here for Crikey’s article

On the other side of the fences, sits The Australian who reported the dinner was not a private event and was indeed public because of how it was advertised on Facebook.

Click here for The Australian’s article. 

We want your opinion, what do you think of media ethics in cases such as this one?

More here!

My disappointment has brought me here to opinionaid, even though I haven’t posted for nearly two years.

Today Richard Radcliffe is shown making jokes about asking for bequests, including calling people liars.

It has lead me to wonder…

Have I ever seen the heads of advertising agencies appearing on The Gruen Transfer and making jokes about the public they persuade to buy products?

No – they explain their methods and make fun of themselves.

Does Jamie Oliver insult the people he is trying to inspire to cook healthier meals?

No – he finds creative ways to inspire them to change their behaviour.

The problem with the rap that fundraising is getting at the moment is that fools are making it easier to report the story that goes “charities are tricking you.”

The story that should be being told is the hard work that fundraisers put into communicating with good people… people who wish the world was a better place.

Fundraising is not about selling a charity to someone who doesn’t want it. Fundraising is about ensuring the good people of the world can put their wishes into action. And since the world in which those people live is filled with messages about how people can improve their own lives, charities deserve the opportunity to employ fundraisers who can cut through all the noise and inspire more support for those who need help to improve theirs.

I think most fundraisers want the world to accept that what they do is challenging, and that it requires spending money to make money. But that appreciation will not come if there is any chance that people in fundraising are betraying the trust that is placed in them. And putting people down, is betraying that trust.

Most fundraisers agree that providing good customer (supporter) care is important, selecting the right audience reduces waste, and communicating with skill is necessary. Good fundraisers can show how they do that by hiring good staff, adopting good methods, and being creative.

But the reason why that story doesn’t gain prominence in the media is because the fools don’t hold their tongues.

Fundraising is in need of a new story, but surely we can turn our talents to our own plight?

I propose the rest of us adopt and communicate the code of practice by which we want to be judged:

1) I will uncover the stories of those who will suffer without charity.
2) I will present those stories truthfully, to those whom I believe want to be told, and I will convey the urgency with which support is required.
3) I will thank those that support our charity promptly, and share evidence that their support was necessary and effective.
4) To achieve all of this I will never deny that I need to spend money. I will provide an independently audited report that shows the amount I spend, and compares my efforts against a sector wide target to ensure that each dollar spent earns at least two dollars in return.

If we don’t like what is being said, we should change the conversation.

Dan.

PG&E is pledging to buy the power at an agreed-upon rate, comparable to the rate specified in other agreements for renewable-energy purchases, company spokesman Jonathan Marshall said. Neither PG&E nor Solaren would say what that rate was, due to the proprietary nature of the agreement. However, Marshall emphasized that PG&E would make no up-front investment in Solaren’s venture.

“We’ve been very careful not to bear risk in this,” Marshall told msnbc.com.

Solaren’s chief executive officer, Gary Spirnak, said the project would be the first real-world application of space solar power, a technology that has been talked about for decades but never turned into reality.

Solaren feels that they will be ready to actually have energy that is ready to use by 2016.

According to msnbc:

In the Q&A, Spirnak said his company currently consists of about 10 engineers and scientists, and plans to employ more than 100 people a year from now. He said each member of the Solaren team had at least 20 years of experience in the aerospace industry, primarily with Hughes Aircraft Co. and the U.S. Air Force. Spirnak himself is a former Air Force spacecraft project engineer with experience at Boeing Satellite Systems as well.

“The impetus for forming Solaren was the convergence of improved high-energy conversion devices, heavy-launch vehicle developments, and a revolutionary Solaren-patented SSP [space solar power] design that is a significant departure from past efforts and makes SSP not only technically but economically viable,” Spirnak said.

Boerman said Solaren’s plan called for four or five heavy-lift launches that would put the elements of the power-generating facility in orbit. Those elements would dock automatically in space to create the satellite system. Boerman declined to describe the elements in detail but noted that each heavy-lift launch could put 25 tons of payload into orbit.

“We’ve talked with United Launch Alliance, and gotten an idea of what’s involved and what the cost is,” he said.

The plan would have to be cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration as well as the Federal Communications Commission and federal and state safety officials, Boerman said.

In the nearer term, PG&E’s deal would have to be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, Marshall said.

He said the space-power agreement was part of PG&E’s effort to forge long-term deals for renewable energy, including deals for terrestrial-based solar power. Marshall pointed out that space-based and terrestrial-based solar power generation were “really very different animals.”

This appears to be an amazing ambitious plan to be undertaking. Good for PG&E to get in on the ground floor on this kind of project without bearing the risk of developmental costs. I think Solaren has a huge battle ahead of them to get the technology ready for this to work… if it works though think about the amazing power possibilities there are out there!

All told, police misconduct settlements cost the city some $28 million a year. As the city lawyer who oversees the police and prison guard brutality lawsuits that make it into Federal court each year, she or her deputies can settle or try to convince a jury that the police had good reason for doing whatever they did.

And she must do it quickly. In the last year, a courthouse crowd broader than the one gathered each day outside 1 Police Plaza have complained about the slow grind of justice in brutality cases. Judges even have begun to sanction city lawyers for delays.

Ms. Donoghue, a Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, native and Pace University School of Law graduate who has been a city lawyer for 12 years, is the supposed solution. She was appointed six months ago to commandeer a new division in the city Law Department, Special Federal Litigation, that will work exclusively on these lawsuits. Michael Hess, now the city’s Corporation Counsel, arrived in the 680-lawyer department a year ago to tales of how the Police Department endlessly stonewalls on providing arrest reports and other records. “Not only the lawyers, but the judges spoke to me about producing these documents more quickly,” Mr. Hess recalled. So the big test of how Ms. Donoghue does her new job is whether she can speed the city’s defense up.

Most of the cases that come through her office are not Amadou Diallos or Abner Louimas. They are more like the case of Errol Flynn, then a 27-year-old from Middle Village, Queens, who had an encounter with police in August of 1992. Standing on a street corner near his home with some friends, he was approached by police who noticed a beer bottle on the ground. One cop instructed Mr. Flynn to pick it up. It wasn’t his bottle. “No way. Who knows who touched that thing?” Mr. Flynn responded, according to his lawyer, Bruce Cheriff.

Mr. Flynn didn’t have any identification showing his christened name, and the officer took him to be just another smart aleck. He frisked him and took him to the station house, although he had told them he had an ID at his home a few blocks away. At the station house, the officers threw him in a room and locked him to a pole for 45 minutes. He was released with both a bruised wrist and a ticket for having an open beer bottle in public, which was later dismissed. Later, the city settled Mr. Flynn’s suit for $10,000. A third of the payout went to Mr. Cheriff. Mr. Flynn later moved out of the city and back to his Caribbean birthplace, Jamaica.

“The truly, truly valid claims are few and far between,” Ms. Donoghue told N.Y. Law. “That’s my own personal take and my experience in the cases I’ve litigated. Often there’s an encounter with the police and it’s not pleasant, but there’s not been any constitutional violations. Some cases do look good on first blush. But then you check out the details and conduct further investigation and the cases fall apart. Unfortunately, we can’t dedicate those resources to more cases.”

Joel Berger used to work in the corporation counsel’s office. He is now a plaintiffs attorney with three misconduct cases in Ms. Donoghue’s division. “That’s a horrible attitude to have,” he said. “‘Unpleasant’ means only words are exchanged. It’s not an unpleasant experience when people are thrown up against the wall. It’s not an unpleasant encounter when a person spends a few hours in detention for no reason. That’s not unpleasant; that’s a Fourth Amendment violation.”

It was one of Mr. Berger’s cases that prompted U.S. District Court Judge John Martin to deliver the Law Department its most stinging attack. Sitting on the case last September of a 60-year-old retired nurse from Roosevelt Island, Edna Louise James, Judge Martin waited for city lawyers to explain why, over four months, they couldn’t produce documents about the detective who apparently karate-chopped Ms. James to subdue her during a confrontation; nor about those who strip-searched her; nor about those who handcuffed her to a hospital bed.

Judge Martin, a former U.S. attorney, first demanded that the Police Department and Department of Correction officials explain themselves in an affidavit. When they didn’t send a response, the fed-up jurist excoriated the two city departments for showing “utter disregard” and a “cavalier attitude” in responding to discovery requests. “The problem,” he wrote, “has its roots in an attitude prevalent in those departments that obtaining information responsive to civil discovery demands is of the lowest priority.” Without being asked by Mr. Berger, Judge Martin ordered the city to pay the lawyer $9,800 for wasting his time, and $10,000 of taxpayers’ money as sanctions for not even making an effort to explain. “You don’t tell the Federal Court to go to hell,” he growled from the bench.

Part of the problem for years was that police and correctional officer misconduct cases were handled by some of the greenest attorneys, many of whom had little or no experience in the Federal courts.

Now Ms. Donoghue has her division, and what’s happened? Most of the veteran attorneys who had handled police cases, the ones who could sort out the deserving from the nuisances, declined to follow her. So Ms. Donoghue has had to recruit. She’s had some luck wooing a few experienced lawyers out of the offices of district attorneys and the attorney general, but most of her 14 staff assistants are young. “They’re one, less than one, two years out of law school,” said Earl Ward, a plaintiffs’ attorney who is also on the board of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. “When the city has more seasoned practitioners, that says these cases are serious and we’re going to treat them seriously.”

Veteran staffing may be on the way. Ms. Donoghue has permission and a budget to bring in another 14 lawyers, and she is confident that she won’t have problems getting quality public-minded lawyers–she can lure them with the chance to work in the Federal courts, with extra paralegals, and on cases that, unlike zoning or tax certiorari cases, are “alive” and “gritty.”

The big question is whether they can induce the Police Department to cough up records. So far, Ms. Donoghue’s supervision has produced results, said one of her chief opponents, veteran plaintiffs’ attorney James Meyerson. “It’s a much more tenacious, tight litigation unit, like something at a Wall Street firm. The bad part of it,” he said, “is that now they’re more involved and adopt the typical defense approach of delay, of adhering to rules for rules’ sake rather than moving a matter ahead expeditiously.”

Mr. Berger also complained of continued delays. In two of the three cases pending in Ms. Donoghue’s new division, city lawyers have asked for two-month extensions to respond. In one case, they have not yet produced the names of the accused officers. “There isn’t a case I’m aware of where that isn’t happening constantly,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff. “Their m.o. is to not do anything until they’re in a box and the judge is about to go off on them.”

Ms. Donoghue said the delays are not phony. “It’s being worked on, but sometimes we may just need the time to do things right,” she said. “Always when we ask for extensions, judges always give them. Many plaintiffs’ attorneys are reasonable about giving them, too, because they know we need the time to do our work.”

As Judge Martin pointed out, the delay problem is really inside the Police Department. “We are always looking at it, and we are looking at it now,” said Deborah Zoland, the Police Department’s assistant deputy commissioner for legal matters. “It’s the kind of thing that needs attention.”

Ms. Donoghue apparently is convinced they’re trying. At a meeting with the leading Police Department lawyers earlier this month, she came away with a better understanding of just how overloaded the police lawyers are. “We’ll be a lot more temperate in our demands in the future, I think,” Ms. Donoghue said. “We need them to cooperate with us.”

That does not bode well for plaintiffs and their attorneys looking for a faster resolution of their cases. On the other hand, if you were defending the city against brutality cases, this might not be the time you want to rush cases before a jury. Ms. Donoghue disagrees. On March 18, in the heat of Mr. Sharpton’s staged protests outside Police Headquarters, the city managed to win a false arrest case, she said. “It’s leading me to think that people are a lot more open-minded than we figure,” she said.

Friend of Monica, Esq.

Jonathan Marshall is general counsel for the Shooting Gallery, a film production company–one entertainment lawyer in a city of entertainment lawyers. But then he accompanied Monica Lewinsky to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Suddenly the man who had arrived in Manhattan two years ago, after practicing for five years at the Los Angeles entertainment powerhouse Loeb & Loeb, was a genuine boldface New Yorker.

This is causing problems for Jonathan Marshall, a longtime partner at Pennie & Edmonds, where he practices patent law. He and his secretary have been deluged by calls from the media, including Inside Edition , the Daily News and, repeatedly, The Washington Post .

Some of the inquiries have come via internal e-mail from wise guys at the firm with perhaps a bit too much time on their hands. And some have come from clients. The Hewlett-Packard Company executives he was entertaining on the night Ms. Lewinsky wowed Hollywood tried a little extortion involving Mr. Marshall’s wife of 35 years and a phone call about where he really was on March 21. Being a smart lawyer, Mr. Marshall surely counseled them that Ms. Lewinsky had declared herself no longer interested in married men.

Mr. Marshall the patent litigator has yet to speak to Mr. Marshall the entertainment lawyer. “I’m sure he’s a nice young fellow,” said the patent guy. As for the media: “I think all of this interest is unnatural, and people ought to get a life. She’s one of the great victims of our time. My heart goes out to her father.”

You can reach N.Y. Law by e-mail at mfleischer@observer.com.