When did Wikipedia become a legit source? A paragraph from today’s SMH online article about Blues master Eddie Adcock:
Adcock has been playing the banjo since he was a child and is renowned as an exponent of bluegrass. He formed a “dynamic duo” with his wife, Martha Adcock, the pair becoming known as the “biggest little band in Bluegrass”, according to Wikipedia.
Community radio listeners on the up. The number of Australians listening to community radio has exploded, with 57 per cent of Australians tuning in compared to 47 per cent only two years ago. Over nine and a half million people are now tuning in. This 10 per cent rise in listenership, was revealed today in the 2008 Community Radio National Listener Survey, conducted by McNair Ingenuity Research. President of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, Deborah Welch said the results were particularly strong because overall monthly radio listenership had levelled off in recent years.
The number of people listening to community radio has increased by 10 per cent in the last two years, despite the number of people listening to all radio staying much the same. The survey showed that many people are choosing to tune into their local community radio station for the localised content, specialist programs and Australian music that is on offer.
We have a very high standard of community radio in Australia, and more people are tuning in to hear local content from real people from their community. The number of community broadcasting services has doubled in the last 15 years, reaching over 350 stations by the early 2000’s, but government funding has not kept pace. — Cameron Woods, Communications Manager, Commmunity Broadcasting Association of Australia
Canberra Times not for sale. The Canberra Times editor Peter Fray has defended a decision to run election advertising across the paper’s masthead. This morning’s edition bears a Labor-funded sticker across the Canberra Times banner with the slogan “Liberals – divided and desperate, Don’t Risk It.” The advertisement generated irate responses from some readers. But Mr Fray says it was a commercial not an editorial decision. “This ad was open to any party,” he said. “If Zed [Seselja] and the gang had wanted it they could have had it, Greens whoever. — ABC
Journalists should follow President Bush’s example: I listened carefully to a full nine-minute address to the nation by President George W. Bush on 10 October. In spite of the president’s reputation as a clumsy speaker, I found the remarks a model of civic clarity. Whoever wrote them could teach political and business writers a thing or two because what the country needs now, more than ever, are forms of journalism that can explain, explain, explain. — Poynter Online
Victim blaming or same old scare tactics? A recent Australian public service announcement begins with a nightmare scene that shows a teenage girl about to be raped in a desolate alley; it’s an ugly moment, straight out of a snuff film. Then the tape rewinds, taking us backward through her night of reckless, drunken partying and ends with the beginning of the evening, when her father hands her a case of beer. It’s not particularly surprising that the Australian ad uses such an extreme situation to warn parents against buying alcohol for their children. But is the video really, as some feminist blogs claim, an instance of victim blaming? — Salon
Citizen media leaders: the journalist with a business edge: In a four-part series, Digital Journal is profiling innovative journalists, editors and institutions that are redrawing the map of citizen media. Find out how these bold men and women are impacting their corner of the media landscape. — Digital Journal
World’s largest spam bust linked to Australia: A New Zealand man living in Australia has been fingered by US authorities as a ringleader of the largest spam operation in the world, responsible for sending out billions of unsolicited emails in recent years. — Sydney Morning Herald
Elizabeth Farrelly via SMH today also makes a flippant reference to “Wiki” today in her invariably amusing discussion of land politics in the modern Rum Corp.