It's just a jump to the [L]eft ...

If you were an alien who had crashed into Earth and, for some reason, decided to read today's Australian, you would be forgiven for thinking it's a dominantly Left-wing journal in cahoots with the US Democrats.

On page 15, you'd see at least half the page devoted to a piece from the by Andrew Sullivan - `America in a Right awful mess` - about the damage the Scooter Libby conviction has had on the Republican party.

Next to that is a story about Dick Cheney (fair to say he's no favourite among Aussies) and the civil case he and Karl Rove now face after illegally revealing the name of a CIA agent, which led to the Scooter case. `Plame suit puts heat on Cheney`.

[These first two stories received front page teasers, by the way.]

Under all that is a story about senator Barack Obama (`Angry Democrats pursue Fox over Obama remark`) and the collar-residing heat over an Obama/Osama joke made by Roger Ailes on Fox News. Naughty foxes of the Right and shame on their `supposed conservative conspiracy`, it says.

Finally we have a whole piece devoted to how George Bush is `ignoring` comments made by Hugo Chavez that the old-eyed republican is `political dead meat`. The president can ignore it as much as he likes, but the papers obviously didn't, and now you're all reading about (remember, you're the alien) how the Venezuelan socialist wrecked George's chances of making friends with Latin America. (I guess Bush is nowhere near as good at ignoring as Mr Howard).

All this in an allegedly centre-right newspaper - what a time-warp.
Has anyone seen the road signs that read `turn left at any time with care`? ...

--
image: iStockPhoto

Back on board

After a massive three month break I'm finally back at uni and my nose is back where it feels safe - pointing at the spine of an open book.

I'm not going to bore any of my zero hundred readers with mundane details about my holiday - let's just say that after three and a half months off I'm glad to be using my brain again.

Loads of interesting issues have come to the media foreground since the end of 06, and with an Australian election at the end of this year and the US Mardi Gras/presidential election at the end of next year there should be no shortage of blogger ammo to keep me going.

This is my final year of uni and in first semester I'm taking Persuasive Writing, Political Communication, Journalism Ethics and Media Audiences.
I'm going to try and tee up some work experience as soon as possible this year so after I graduate I can just sidle into a full-time job.

It should be a fun year and, once again, feel free to contribute any comments you may have to my editorials and I promise I'll extend you the same courtesy.

Fire up the espresso machine!

--
photo: Shore Coffee