My nightly rant

I work late as a subeditor and here is my rant. Tonight my boss said thanks for my tip to pull a story by one of our most senior journalists because his story did not add up. As a subeditor at the Newcastle Herald I do about 10-12 stories a night, checking them for news lead, accuracy, grammar, and writing a heading and caption for accompanying photographs. This one was just another sausage in the factory. But because I have a critical eye for the property industry I noticed that the ‘study’ it was using was saying the construction industry was headed for a slump while its authors said a turnaround was in the cards. A supporting story was about a local tennis star who had bought well before the hyped out market and was just now getting around to renovating. But she was using her mum and dad for labour, avoiding labourers (read: the industry) for all but $60K. Well, that is no small figure but the logic was not there. The news of late is that petrol is pinching everyday people and i reckon that means everything from dinners out to renovations in the wings would get the nix – against the property industry’s self-propagating prediction. It was pulled and it motivates me to follow my instinct to do a story on just who is behind pumping the media on this kinda stuff.

“Renovations give industry a lifeline” headline should be “Builders waiting for the storm”

Just a small success in stopping the media rot in PR-instigated stories. Subs: 1, Industry: 4546. Go figure.

News Ltd’s exclusive: Happy to leave it behind

Paul Kelly and Michael Harvey interviewed Mark Latham and it was published on September 16, 2005…

IN an exclusive interview, Mark Latham speaks of his joy at being a home dad and his relief at leaving behind the “sick” political culture of the Labor Party. Question: Mark, are you pleased to be out of it all? Answer: I thank my lucky stars I got out of politics, and life is relatively good. I love being a home dad. Everyone in politics talks about work and family balance, so that was a big issue. I left behind the bad work culture, as I found it, and spending time with my wife and children is an absolute delight.

full interview: go

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Enough Rope Latham interview transcript

Enough Rope went to air last night with the interview and here is the transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1461537.htm. The show will be replayed on Monday, and the Lateline interview with Tony Jones that has divided the ABC will show tonight, Friday, Sept 16.

After chatting with some colleagues, me thinks he does really have something to say in and the vitriol on a human level may mean he just wasn’t cut out for the duplicity of politics. In the interview he says he is a full-time at-home dad, and being a dad of two young boys myself, I can say it is probably harder and more rewarding than working life.

My other thought was that perhaps his self-imploding was a resulty of the party coming unglued after the election loss. Seems pretty weak to have done so as give the strangth of the economy and general prosperity, as the SMH wrote today, it did not do too badly.

The standfirst to the interview reads:

Mark Latham

In December 2003, Mark Latham became the youngest leader of the federal Labor party in over a century. Thirteen months later after a leadership marked by flashes of brilliance, personal controversy and illness, he quit politics altogether, having led Labor to one of the worst defeats in the party’s history. Since his resignation in January he has said not one word in public, until now.

Tonight on the eve of the publication of his diaries, diaries which are truly explosive Mark Latham has decided to break his silence.