A Moral Obligation To Inquire

NEWSPAPERS are supposed to deliver news and today, just for once, the Silly manages to do just that. Stretching belief even further, the man breaking the scoop is none other that Butch Carlton, whose dirt on Defence Minister Stephen Smith's alleged machinations in the most recent chapters of the Skype Affair represents, if true, an iron-tight case for resignation or sacking. There is some background in an earlier post here and a bit more here, both of which Andrew Bolt comprehensively updates and interprets.

Well here is a minor but very interesting sidelight to the bigger story of Smith's apparent deceits: How will the Melbourne Press Club react to the latest news, which casts further doubt on the story that last year won a Walkley award for Channel Ten's Hugh Riminton and Matt Moran? Despite growing suspicions that the scandal-hungry Riminton cast himself as the willing and useful idiot in Smith's campaign to villify ADFA Commandant Kafer,  the Press Club yesterday included him in its list of finalists for its Graham Perkin Award. And, yes, it was for the same story about which so many doubts now hover.

Finko & Rickety have just devoted several hundred pages and an unknown sum of public money to an examination of the Australian press and its shortcomings, at least as they are perceived from quarters where hoax-enabler Margaret Simons and the like are regarded as pillars of truth. Shouldn't the MEAA, which administers the Walkleys, and now the Melbourne Press Club, be conducting inquiries to establish if Riminton and Moran's award and nomination are deserved?

A profession that cared about its reputation would not need persuading.