No right to report civil disobedience? Why @margokingson1 pleads guilty at #leardblockade

When I was charged with trespass at the #leardblockade on March 31 (see Getting #leardblockade arrested, WTF is journalism and who’s the extremist: @margokingston1 interview with @dailytelegraph), I sought legal advice on whether I could plead not guilty because of the implied right to freedom of political communication under the Constitution. There is no legal basis for press […]

Getting #leardblockade arrested, WTF is journalism and who’s the extremist: @margokingston1 interview with @dailytelegraph

[clear]   My third trip to #leardblockade last week helped me clarify my vision for No Fibs (see Mass arrests at #leardblockade: @margokingston1 Twitter report and Picnic at boundary of Whitehaven State Forest: @margokingston1 April Fools Day Twitter report). I’m happy to answer your question in comments. I’ve never been an ‘embedded journalist’ before, and it’s testing. I was allowed […]

Twitterchat today on next moves for CARE (Citizens Against Rorting of Entitlements)

By Rosie Williams Source: infoaus.net 11 November 2013 It is going to be a big week leading into the return to parliament. On Tuesday night 12th from 8pm DST (7pm QLD) I will be running the second #BudgetAus Twitter chat focusing again on the rorts. This is the day our new parliament sits for the first time so […]

The fruitless push for a Parliamentarians’ code of conduct

By Rose Iser 16 October 2013 The latest spate of entitlements scandals is unlikely to bring about a code of conduct for federal parliamentarians given that, for the past 40 years, multiple attempts to enact a code have failed. Since 1975, federal leaders and parliamentarians have investigated the possibility of a code of conduct, but reports […]

New No Fibs citizen journalism project: The CSG social movement

By Margo Kingston 7 October 2013 I knew I wanted to do journalism differently after experiencing the disconnect between the reality on the ground and the closed world of insider political reporting while covering Pauline Hanson’s 1998 election campaign. My idea was to live in the north western NSW town of Bourke to report rural and […]

No Fibs Bennelong reporter @preciouspress counters Paul Sheehan race attack on @jasonyatsenli

By Jack Sumner 29 August 2013 In the Sydney Morning Herald today Paul Sheehan wrote “Labor pulls out race card in bid to win over Chinese“. His flimsy justification for this serious allegation is: “During the 2007 campaign, Labor shamelessly played the race card in Bennelong against Howard, emphasising Rudd’s fluency in Mandarin, his links to […]

Mindful ethics for election bloggers and citizen journalists

By Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith University, Australia 10 August 2013 Bloggers and citizen journalists come from an array of backgrounds and thus bring varied cultural and ethical values to their blogging. No Fibs asks its citizen journalists to follow the MEAA Code of Ethics, and the journalists’ union has recently […]

Ethical lapses by journalists contributed to Gillard’s demise

By Denis Muller, University of Melbourne Originally published at The Conversation June 28 2013 An integral power of the media is that of portrayal: the act of determining how people, events, ideas and organisations are described to the public, and therefore how they are perceived by the public. In this way, the media constructs for us […]