After his passing many mainstream hacks started on their merry way of demonising my father, but this was heavily outwieghed by the response from the many battlers for whom he took up the sword. You are right about one thing though, he did change the face of publishing in Australia.

He would have to have a very sharp eye to see the plates from Cullen Bay. Kennedy is home and in bed well before the paper goes to press.

If he does see the plates before they go to press why does he correct the errors?

Many journalists are effectively immune from the effects of lawsuits because their employers pick up the tab and are insured anyway.

It varies from paper to paper. I know that old man Kennedy runs a pretty sharp eye over the plates before the NT News goes to press each day.

Defo cases cost big bucks and raise the ire of the Head Office, Profit Be Upon Them. Insurance only covers payouts, it doesn’t do much for lawyer’s fees. If a journo puts the company in the line of fire twice I expect they’d be politely told to get lost.

Why don’t you look up the meaning of the word “blasphemy” before you abuse it again?

blasphemy

It alleged, without foundation, “

It alleged, without foundation, ……………….that, when I went to the ministerial wing, women tried to avoid me.

Well I’m guessing it might well be true now, if it wasn’t before. Not only will the ministerial wing women avoid him, so will men, politicans and sensible school boys in all other places.

By contrast, my blog of freedom is a labour of love. It’s not something I could sell, note the lack of even a domain name, it’s a free site on blogspot. And while it’s serious to me, it’s hard to argue that I’m doing it for money, which is what your post implies.

In fact, I’m yet to work out which charity will receive the small amount of revenue we’ve collected from Google Adsense, perhaps you can make a suggestion.

So your lengthy laboured comparison of us to an old sleaze who has much more in common with Crikey and Stephen Mayne is quite wrong.

My blog of freedom preceded Solomon Lew bankrupting me on the most spurious of grounds. No defamation lawsuits before then. Not one. Not even a threat of one.

My blog of freedom is published by one of the world’s largest media companies. No defamation lawsuits served on them. Not one. Not even a threat of one.

And for the record, as I was reminded recently the Toorak Times used to regularly slag off my old man. I have no plans to emulate such a publication I assure you.

[paragraph deleted]

As for defamation law, I agree it should be stricter. Many journalists are effectively immune from the effects of lawsuits because their employers pick up the tab and are insured anyway. I’d like to see them(us) personally liable. But that won’t be happening any time soon.

This was easily the most amusing day I’ve had in nearly 3000 posts. I have proved an important point. Despite their bravado, their acid and bluster very many Australian journalists are completely unwilling to face any kind of scrutiny of their own actions, let alone liability for their attacks on others.

That one blog story, hardly my biggest, caused a couple of supposedly seasoned journalists to wrestle it out on the stage of a supposedly prestigious nationally televised journalists’ union awards night shows just how unused to scrutiny they are.

And I can promise this. We’ve only just begun.

Disappointed,

Port Melbourne.

Today Crikey’s other muckraking political correspondent Christian Kerr ‘fessed up that it was actually he who had linked to the unnamed blogger!

I thought you didn’t read Crikey Ken!

Trackback.

It’s been a disjointed day for your Bannerman. Firstly a network failure at the coal face followed by a very late start to the working day, which thanks to a faster than November broadband plan passed…..well, faster than expected. The……