In a Catallazy far, far away. Catallaxy Files — known as the “canned heat” of Australian blogs because no original members remain (there’s no suggestion they’re fat hillbilly smackheads) — turned its attention to social protest today, lighting on a story about Altona residents protesting the withdrawal of train services that now requires them to change trains twice to get to the city, half a dozen stops away. But the protest was thwarted, deliberately or otherwise, by the cancellation of services. Catallactic Professor Sinclair Davidson’s headline for reporting this jape? “Got To Love The Irony”.

It gets a guernsey here because it’s “Morisette irony”, the type that ironically exposes the user as too dumb to know what irony is, but mainly because it shows what gives neoliberals a kick — the poor having no power over their own lives because they’re poor. Hahaha ah, me gout. Pass the port. — Guy Rundle

Front page of the day. While the Australian beef industry struggles with a brave new world as the live export trade comes under threat, the beef sectors in the US and UK have a different fight on their hands.

Australian media content up for debate

“The production of local content is proving to be one of the key issues to be debated as part of the federal government’s “convergence” review of broadcast media. Many of the 46 public submissions to the review’s framing paper discuss the impact new distributions platforms such as internet television will have on local programming.” — The Australian

News Corp executive vicitim of phone hacking

“Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International and former editor of The Sun, has been shown evidence suggesting her phone was hacked more than 20 times by a private investigator employed by another Rupert Murdoch title, it emerged last night.” — The Independent

Reddit traffic booms

“The last five months have been very good for community news sharing site Reddit, which reported huge traffic growth on its official blog today. Condé Nast, which owns the site, also made good on its earlier pledge to give Reddit the resources it needed to manage the insane growth.” — Social Beat

Pakistan ‘deadliest country for reporters’

“On May 31st, 2001, Saleem Shahzad, a reporter for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and for the Italian news agency Adnkronos International, was found dead in his car with a bullet in the stomach. Shahzad is the 16th reporter found dead in the country in the past 15 months, making Pakistan the deadliest country for reporters worldwide.” — Huffington Post

Doco examines newspaper’s great challenge

“It’s not quite the same thrill as glimpsing the man behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz, but for journalism junkies, the fascination of Page One: Inside The New York Times is something like that. Granted unprecedented permission to hang out for a year at the Manhattan headquarters of one of the world’s most important and influential newspapers, documentary filmmaker Andrew Rossi found what journalism folks call a good lede: He positions his story at the intersection of how the Times, as an institution, is adapting to the rapidly changing world of Internet-era journalism and how the paper, as a beehive of reporters and editors, is covering that same rapidly changing world during an era of revenue loss and budget tightening.” — Entertainment Weekly