Grind

At UTS yesternight: the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism panel "How safe are your sources?". It featured two of the five Oz journos facing jail time for not giving up informants in legal challenges related to their yarns, along with a media lawyer and a QC. The gist was that the new "shield laws" are way too open - the text is only two pages long! - but still better than nothing. A radical suggestion from David Bennett QC was that journos and their sources attend closed court sessions to get an advance ruling on the level of protection they can expect. Walkley-winning journalist Nick McKenzie (I think it was) deemed such a proposal unworkable, pointing out that a whistleblower who won't even speak over the phone isn't going to do so in a courthouse, closed or otherwise. The alternative appears to be expanding the shield laws with endless qualifications.


Fat gut: Maria Sharapova's Sugarpova range of lollies from David Jones. "Quirky" for me and "Splashy" for the nieces :-)