A small confession: journalists spend much
of their time writing for other journalists – but you probably already knew
that. The more specialised the area, the more likely the scribblers will write
more consciously of what their select peers might think. Kindred spirits in a
specialised area of the craft are in danger of writing exclusively for each
other to the exclusion of their audience.

Well that’s my theory and I’m running with
it. How else could you explain Miranda Devine devoting nearly a quarter of her column
in Fairfax’s mass market Sun-Herald to a little something just for Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt? Oh, maybe for Piers
Akerman and Janet Albrechtsen too, but that could be a bit harsh on Piers as
there’s a fair chance he would have realised Morry Schwartz’ little visual joke
in The Monthly magazine was meant to be a joke – and a very little one at that.

Not Miranda. Schwartz sticking his own head
on Graydon Carter’s Vanity Fair editor’s letter pose might be of passing
interest to the tiny subset of Vanity
Fair readers who also subscribe to The Monthly, but it somehow provides Ms Devine
with the chance to have a lash at Melbourne’s Schwartz and New York’s Carter in
her Sydney tabloid. For example. The Monthly
is “Australia’s
latest leaden left-wing magazine of ‘ideas’…” and “Carter used to be
funny, before he got captured by Hollywood and fixated on George
Bush…”

Ah
yes, Carter doesn’t think much of W and his Iraq
adventure, unlike Miranda who reports everything is going simply swimmingly in Baghdad. Frankly, Miranda, who gives a damn?