Monday, February 6, 2012

The Global Mail And Sheltered Workshop

OPEN Organic Sesame!

The incantation worked, Monica Attard's portal finally opened and allowed The Professor to slip in and find .... why leftists love Malcolm Turnbull, the scourge of air conditioning, why Occupisants need to make more noise, and how Bob's little boy, Eric Ellis, is eating Europe. (Ellis deserves a nice jaunt, by the way. He must be exhausted after churning out the sophistries needed to elevate Wayne Swan's reputation with a 32-quid tin plate and the title of the World's Hottest Treasurer.)

This is revolutionary stuff. Brave, courageous, daring to go where only the Phage, Silly, The Conversation, SBS, The Drum, Q&A, Lateline, New Matilda, Lavatorius Pronto, Crikey and poor Margo have gone before.

But all those promises of investigative journalism? Well they may still need a bit of work if this article about a naughty nurse (sadly, not the sort the Professor prefers for a good blanket bath) is any indication -- especially the bit about how no records are available to warn potential employers of deficiencies in the carer's bedside manner. The story required the efforts of five writers, who very early on in their expose have this to say:
Today, though, a check of Australia's national register of health practitioners makes no mention of [naughty nurse] Jones's disciplinary record. Indeed, it says he has no reprimands or other limitations on his registration. Set up by Australian state and territory governments at a cost of $20 million to taxpayers, the online register is billed as a one-stop-shop for employers, professionals and the public to look up reliable and complete information about the registrations of their doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and a range of other health workers.
Now the Professor is no investigative journalist, just a Bunyip who has learned to call up Google's home page. As it seemed remarkable that a nurse who kicks geriatrics would not be listed on the register of shame, it seemed worth having a little look to determine if the Global Mail was on its game.

The first stop was here, where another link conducts the curious to here. Clicking on the "databases" tab brings up this page, where entering "jones" in the search field obtains lists of rulings and judgments by medical regulators in various states. A further click on Item #10 secures this page of results, the first three of which are quite detailed accounts of Nurse Jones' misbehaviour.

Total time to find and open those three .pdfs: 4 minutes and 47 seconds by the Billabong's stopwatch. This included several brief interruptions when the cat attempted to occupy the keyboard.

Now it is true that the business of finding those records could be a bit more streamlined, but one imagines any hospital administrator examining Jones' CV and performing a pre-employment background check would be familiar with where to go and which tabs to click. Yet five investigative journalists -- quality, advertising-averse investigative journalists, no less -- leave Global Mail readers with the impression that Nurse Jones' record of shame cannot be found.

When Monica Attard can snatch a spare moment, she needs to ring up Graeme Wood, her site's patron, and beg for more funds to hire additional legions of investigative journalists. If she can recruit enough, like those massed monkeys with typewriters who are said to be capable of reproducing the works of Shakespeare, one of them might stumble upon the secret world of Google.

25 comments:

  1. Why does it not surprise me that TGM's first sports article is about how the Superbowl is boring?

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    1. Green women and their girlyboys hate anything that involves testosterone. Or noise. Or money. The Balmain-Fitzroy drag queen nation would rather have their fey-Islamic worldview pumped into their pink bedsits via Radio National.

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  2. Love your work Professor. Yes amazing how stubbornly some continue to eschew Google.

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  3. I referred to sheltered workshops the other day, but added an apology to the real sheltered workshops, which actually work and produce, and make a profit.
    It's important to make the distinction.
    This "workshop" will never make a profit, and the distinction is necessary.

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    1. I class it as the retirement home for tired Leftist Journalists. If Woods wants to go broke supporting these deadbeats all the better. Less money for The Greens you see.

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  4. Monica Attard's portal....that's not a euphemism I hope, professor!!

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    1. I rather hope it is a euphemism - as opposed to a literal statement of fact.
      Brrrrrrrr...

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  5. I tried the link to 'our' Malcolm's love letter, but all I got was a photo of 'our' Mal. Well that's enough of the love media for me. My stomach isn't as robust as the great Bunyip's.

    Will they ditch Gill-KRudd and install their very own Mal? It's another seat as the Slipper slips.

    In anticipation
    -Carl

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  6. As one of the doctors paying (through the nose) for this stupid online register, I have to agree that paying billions of dollars to (not) provide information easily available on Google is indeed incredibly stupid.

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    1. However it does allow me to easily work out a doctor's approximate age after making an educated guess, which whiles away the long hours on call.

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  7. A bit like Fuel Watch, which Kevvie promised to set up at some considerable drain on the public purse. When it was announced, I looked and Google was already yielding the same information - gratis! Who knew? Useful information just being provided without an act of government beneficence being necessary, and well in advance of The Idiot Conroy's NBN, offering fibre to the neurone!

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  8. People may want to be careful getting involved with Graeme Wood. They might get run out!

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  9. Occupisants

    Love it

    I'll add it to my name for the young unwashed layabouts--Occuparasites

    Cheers, Prof!

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  10. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.February 6, 2012 at 7:51 PM

    Thats 4 minutes and 47 seconds of your life you'll never get back, Bunyip, you generous son of the soil. You should sue.

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  11. As we say in the Airline......

    "F**k a dead emu."

    (Indicates derision.)

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  12. I love how the "Legals" on the mobile site are just:

    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco blah blah blah".

    I hope they have a good warranty from their web/devs!

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  13. Obviously the new orgressive Global Mail does not employ any fact checkers for the fact f-ckers!

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  14. The story about the nurse has some bare bones of a legitimate, real story. It doesn't, however, explain why there were no criminal procedings for assault pr answer other obvious questions a first-year cadet journalist would be expected to ask. The rest - boring beyond belief!

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  15. Excellent jurisprudential skills, professor. However, in appraising The Global Mail, you must understand it is not the ambition of its "journalists" to discover information, but simply to provide written verbal ballast for their pre-planned theses. I'm afraid it is possible these guileless journalists would should know better actually believe their output is "independent journalism" in the same way that climate zombies believe CAGW is "science". As a journalist, I can assure you it is the most insidious type of propaganda.

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  16. Come on Bunyip, the AHPRA database is a turkey and clearly a waste of taxpayers' money. I don't imagine you'd defend this project under any other circumstances.

    While you can find the details of Jones' behaviour on Austlii (not a government website, by the way), the Global Mail also states: "It is impossible to say how many other cases might exist from boards that kept their decisions private."

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  17. Golly,Bunyip,it's bleeding obvious the Mail crew found Jones' nasty details the same way you did. The article lists the offenses in the same order as detailed in your linked document.

    The real point of the article eludes you: that the new AHPRA interface omits data despite its promise to be the comprehensive consolidated database that would obviate circuitous searches. It gives a false impression of comprehensiveness. It excludes data prior to 1/7/10,and the Mail folk found examples of it failing to include data after that date as well.

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  18. Anonymous: You're having a busy day. There may be distracting background noises in the ActUp hovel, so let me explain it slowly:

    If it is "obvious" the Global Mail's quality journalists found Jones' records online, why didn't they declare as much? Because they wanted to give the impression that Jones' details are not to be found. Such an admission would have greatly diminished their "scoop".

    Had they admitted finding the three documents online -- information that should have been provided -- yawn. So they left it out in that quality journalism way.

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    1. You ignore the fact that the article states that they have examined a hundred cases where the new register fails to carry significant work history-clearly implying that the matters are ultimately accessible by some means. Just not the means promised by the new database. Which is the subject of the story. Just to explain it to you slowly.

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  19. I defer to your expertise. Clearly, you are the authority on slow.

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