Speak Up While You Still Can

WHAT TO do about the Finko and Rickety Review, its endorsement of censorship, and the authors' unconcealed contempt for freedom of speech?

Why not start by contacting Professor Stephen Parker, Vice-Chancellor of Canberra University, the institution where Matthew Ricketson heads the journalism program.

Tell Professor Parker that any journalist who advances the cause of censorship, especially political censorship, is unfit to teach. Further, advise him that Ricketson's presence on campus brings the entire institution into disrepute, which it does.

Here are Prof Parker's contact details:

Phone: 02 6201 5000
Fax: 02 6201 5036
Email: Stephen.Parker@canberra.edu.au 
Postal Address: University of Canberra ACT 2601
Executive Assistant: Ms Alexis Johnson
Phone : 02 6201 5000
Fax: 02 6201 5036
Email: Alexis.Johnson@canberra.edu.au

Make that your first shot, but not your only one. These gag artists and apparatchiks want to crimp and shrink the very thing that defines full and unfettered citizenship. They must be stopped -- and only a display of public outrage can achieve that end.

This is serious. If they want a fight, give 'em one.

An Inquisitor's Income Source

AND while we are on the topic of partisan hacks and those who love them, what about Matthew Ricketson? Most often described as “a former journalist and academic”, he is also one of the two inquisitors appointed by our PM to make sure the media writes and thinks in the correct and appropriate fashion. Well Anne Summers’ question about Rebecca Weisser’s “undisclosed” ties to Qantas prompt another matter worth considering.

Why is Ricketson investigating the media when he is (a) a recent Fairfax employee and (b) an ongoing freelance contributor to that organisation -- and also at News Limited, where he made his feelings about Rupert Murdoch crystal clear in an approving review of Bundoora Bob’s laughable Quarterly Essay on the evil that is The Australian (which is so evil it published Ricketson’s thoughts). “I found the essay persuasive overall but don't take my word for it. Read it and make up your own mind,” he wrote in late September.

This is one of the two men who are going to decide what is appropriate to report and how to write it. For the sake of appearance alone, Ricketson must step down.

UPDATE: The Opposition is asking who proposed Ricketson and might that person have been Bob Brown?  The Silly's headline, "Opposition probes prof's links to Greens" 

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