Is nothing sacred? Keep Dora as she is!

There are reports this morning that the media giant Viacom, in its never ending search for profits, is considering making changes to Dora the Explorer. The company’s Nickelodeon division wants to find a way of retaining Dora’s pre-school fans as they mature. Surely all those self respecting three-year-olds who have made Dora the top-rated TV programme for pre-school children in the US and seen her translated into 24 languages and syndicated to 125 markets around the world should begin a protest boycott immediately.

The Tele’s disappointed whale lovers. Those of us with an interest in preserving krill might not be shedding tears this morning at the death of the baby whale in Sydney Harbour but readers of the Sydney Daily Telegraph have reason to be disappointed in their paper. Last year the Tele anointed itself as the leader of the Greenpeace protest pod and has what it calls an “in-depth” website feature page devoted to all things whale. But this morning the editors chose to feature on its front page the water babes of the Australian water polo team rather than Colin the orphan whale and even the details of Colin’s harrowing final tragic moments before being euthanased with up to seven jabs of anaesthetic (a death that appalled locals who said it lacked dignity) had to play third fiddle on the web to the Kamakazi run and another defeat for Hackett.

If you are on a good thing then stick with it. Having succeeded earlier in the week in getting journalists to write stories about the election getting close, the Western Australian Labor spinners have tried again to present their team as underdogs by releasing what purports to be internal party polling. “The West Australian Labor Party has leaked its own internal polling of five key marginal seats and claims it shows a 7 per cent swing against the government,” the ABC is reporting. “A 4 per cent swing would see the Liberals win Government.” If I was running the Liberal campaign I would quickly be coming out with my well researched finding that Labor is so far in front that it can not lose.