Inga Liljeström - Film Noir for the ears

Inga Liljeström

When did you decide that you wanted to be a musician and/or songwriter? How did you start going about it?
From a very early age I was enthralled by music and especially singers. I remember lying on the lounge listening to Melanie Safka when I was about 6 years old and being overcome with goose bumps - and this became a little ritual that extended to other singers as I was growing up - a very addictive rush. So I think the seed was planted early on.

I had an alternative upbringing and my mum joined a cult when I was 10, and this is when I started singing. I would help lead the church in singing in tongues - and I think it led to a natural affinity with improvising. I studied jazz at university for four years, and started composing after this - firstly in an experimental band with co- writer/ film composer Felicity Fox. The group was called Helgrind- awkward time signatures and chordal movements - lots of distortion.

After this, I wanted to experiment as a solo composer, to create more intimate music that had more scope for dynamics, and more interesting instrumentation. I received two grants from the Australia Council for the Arts to do this, taught myself to program music, and produced two albums, the first being Urchin and now my latest project Elk.

What's the best advice you ever received about making music, and who was it from?
My lecturer at University said to always try and play with people better than you I like that it's humbling and you end up having to better your skill - keeps you on your toes. is that about making music, I don't know?

Perhaps not judging your composing till the refining stage-think that's from the Artists Way by Julia Cameron. It's almost like not being cognitive when first putting some ideas down, just trusting that there might be an idea you can refine afterwards. I saw Merideth Monk perform last year and her pre amble to a song was how she sat on a hill and asked for inspiration - and along came a bee - and that was her song - no judgement and very pure. It was solo voice making buzzing sounds in a very Merideth way.

Who is an Australian musician you particularly admire? Can you tell us why?
I think Nick Cave is incredible - great composer - Come Sail Your Ships just breaks my heart - I snuck into one of those big out door concerts last year and saw him perform that song - and it made so much sense - the romance of his songs and his style.

Also Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance - what a unique style and voice, and her story of performing for over a decade, playing in Melbourne pubs being ignored in the corner - and then it happened! And being both a recording artist and a composer for film - an incredible career.

What would be your dream local line-up for a gig, and why:
If I was to watch the show - perhaps the Ubin of 6 years ago- I totally loved their first album- (haven't yet heard the second album) and sonically live it was bliss for me - renewed my belief when I was in a dry spell then Don Meers playing his dark filmic music accompanied by visuals and a comfy chair - then perhaps an Oren Ambarchi solo set, finished by a few tracks from Prop, and a DJ set from Raven spinning some insane cut up electronica as you gather your things to go home - well satiated! that would be a nice night?

Can you tell AMO a story behind your latest release?
It took a long long long long long time to conceive and a long time to record - nearly killed everyone who was close to it and we all (producers, arrangers, musicians who played) became mad perfectionists with lab coats and frizzy grey hair.

And some how it turned out just how I wanted it, which is unusual in a way I worked visually - giving everyone visual cues and it seemed to work, like having the film and creating the music to it.

What do you want people to get out of this record when listening to it? How would you choose to describe it someone who was unfamiliar with your work?
I hope some nice images are conjured for the listener - I hope it transports them and lifts their spirit. I like music that helps me leave for a while - even doing dishes then can have a romance about it and it's a lot about love - it being healthy, which includes some darker hues.

If I was to describe it - I guess I'd say it's filmic, lush orchestrated music, caught between glaciers and fjords and a 50's film noir with occasional visits to the desert.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when writing & recording this release?
There were challenges all the way, from writing and conceiving the idea of what I wanted as a framework, to working with people, because you end up having intense relationships with most that come on board, and it ain't all love but it was pretty close to it!

Money is always an issue when you can't pay people what they deserve - I did a lot of cake making..

What do you think is unique about the Aussie music scene as opposed to the rest of the world?
Music is so cross pollinated stylistically these days- and we borrow from everyone / every country. I guess there is still a strong identity with rock / country music - and there is something pure about it which I like.

Perhaps that's one of the unique things about Australian music, a humble quality to a lot of it. The folk / indie rock that's coming out at the moment, it's healthy, not too damaged or self effacing the hip hop scene isn't all about gold chains and white Adidas pants - and the electronic stuff is pretty pure-music for music's sake. I guess we are more earthy and home grown - not as much pretension and cash as say America..

Lastly, what's the best thing about being part of the Australian music industry? The worst?
Well - there's a few things - we are making some wonderful music here - some truly original music that offers something alternative and progressive - but it usually goes unnoticed. It's a shame you usually have to go overseas to be noticed. I still don't understand that one?

At the moment I'm enjoying a sense of extended family with musicians and some of the smaller labels it's not every man for himself or people out to rip you off - safe I guess.

It would be nice if the government was more switched on and wanting to support the arts and culture, for example some countries in Europe, where the government actually supports the artists - gives allowances etc. Then we could concentrate on what we do best!

http://www.amo.org.au/qa_interview.asp?id=562

http://www.groovescooter.com/catalogue/inga.html

music
film noir

Message from John Cleese - To the Citizens of the United States of America

I got this email the other day, just brilliant!

To the Citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium," and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up "vocabulary"). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a called "Come-Uppance Day."

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling "gasoline")-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with mayonnaise but with vinegar.

9. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." American brands will be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors asgood guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American "football." There is only one kind of proper football; you call it "soccer." Those of you brave enough will, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (i. e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Thank you for your
co-operation and have a great day.

15. Start pronouncing "Queen Camilla." She will be your next queen!


comedy
humour

Mr T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool

this is gold! the links are hilarious too but it doesn't beat watch this movie....whatever you do....find it somehow.

the agony booth : MR. T'S BE SOMEBODY ...OR BE SOMEBODY'S FOOL Review

movies

The XI over-achievers

The XI over-achievers

Daniel Brigham hails those who have made it to the top against odds of ability or fate

1 Geoff Boycott
Born into a mining village where life was unsympathetic, Boycott was obsessively determined to play for Yorkshire and England. Wearing NHS specs made necessary by poor eyesight, those who saw his solid but resolutely defensive technique on display for Barnsley gave him little hope of fulfilling his desire. He refused to play outside his limitations and, as a result, he finished his career with 22 Test centuries a joint English record with Colin Cowdrey and Walter Hammond.

2 Andy Flower
Ryan Giggs playing for Wales, Michael Caine appearing in Jaws: The Revenge individual quality tends to take a dip when surrounded by collective mediocrity. Flower is different. He played 63 Tests for Zimbabwe and only seven were won. Yet this run of misery never affected his temperament or technique and he finished his Test career with an average of 51.54 better than Viv Richards, Denis Compton and Steve Waugh.

3 David Steele
Steele's call-up by England in 1975 to face the Australians was met by sniggers in the media and `who he?' by the opposition. At 33 the bespectacled Steele had scored only 16 Championship centuries in 12 seasons for unfashionable Northamptonshire. But, despite getting lost on his way out to bat on his debut at Lord's, he maximised his main asset concentration to score 50 and 45 against Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee. He scored three more 50s in the series and became one of only three cricketers voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Steele finished with an average of 42.06 from eight Tests, nearly 10 runs more than his county average.

4 Nasser Hussain
With two fingers to the press box and two ways of playing his cricket tough and stubbornly Hussain squeezed every ounce of his ability out of his persistently broken fingers. In the early days of Hussain's career the idea that this young firebrand would ever lead England with acumen and intelligence and turn them into a competitive, professional team would have been as likely as, well, England producing a competitive, professional team.

5 Andy Ganteaume
With no formal coaching Ganteaume, an opening batsmen, was a decent cricketer for his native Trinidad. After impressing in practice matches against England in 1947-48, Ganteaume, then 27, was called up for the second Test at Port-of-Spain. He struck 112 in his only innings but, due to more talented players returning from injury, was never picked again. He did, however, finish with a higher Test average than Don Bradman.

6 Johnny Douglas
Ian Botham, Keith Miller and Imran Khan emptied bars; Douglas could cause an exodus from the stands. More dour than dashing with the bat and more solid than sparkling with the ball, Douglas captained England to an away Ashes victory in 1911-12. A hero in Essex, Douglas managed the double 100 wickets and 1,000 runs in a season five times without the innate talent of the aforementioned allrounders.

7 John Emburey
Although Emburey finished with a less than flattering bowling average of 38.40, his Test career lasted 17 years. His bowling got flatter and faster and he went on two rebel tours. But still England kept going back to good old Embers. And then there was his batting. which progressed from looking like Phil Tufnell's ugly sister to a bizarre concoction of no footwork but plenty of improvisation; he finished with a healthy Test average of 22.53.

8 Wasim Bari
As a keeper Bari was very safe but did not indulge in the kind of dives that made Jeff Dujon, Rod Marsh and Alan Knott great. With the bat he averaged only 15.88 and made 19 Test match ducks. However, his enthusiasm and his obsessive Jonny Wilkinson-esque practising ensured he was Pakistan's first choice behind the stumps for more than 15 years.

9 Frank Chester
A First World War injury ended Chester's hugely promising career; he lost his right arm just below the elbow. Undeterred, Chester put on the white coat and started his distinguished career as an umpire in 1922. In his obituary Wisden wrote that he "will be remembered as the man who raised umpiring to a higher level than had ever been known in the history of cricket".

10 Courtney Walsh
Walsh lacked the eye-popping brutality of Ambrose, the prodigious swing of Marshall and the sheer pace of Patterson but, in terms of wicket-taking, he remains the most successful quick bowler of all time. He did not get his hands on the new ball until around eight years after his Test debut, and it was his unerring length and his endurance, rather than any extravagant movement, that brought him 519 wickets. Implausibly for a fast bowler, he played 132 Tests. Only three players all batsmen have played more.

11 Steve Waugh
Couldn't hook, couldn't pull, couldn't go anywhere without his baggy green. It was Waugh's love of winning, rather than his fine but unspectacular talent, that turned him from a good player into one of the greats. As Ian Chappell told Tony Greig: "You've just said he was the finest allrounder in the southern hemisphere. I'm not sure if he's the finest allrounder in his own family." Not bad, then, that he went on to average 51.06 from 168 Tests and captain Australia to 41 Test victories.

This article was first published in the February issue of The Wisden Cricketer.
Click here for further details.

cricket
Sports
Sport

Why media ownership matters

Why media ownership matters

by Amy Goodman and David Goodman
Published on Sunday, April 3, 2005 by the Seattle Times


George Bush must have been delighted to learn from a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that 56 percent of Americans still think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war, while six in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al-Qaida terrorist network ? notions that have long since been thoroughly debunked by everyone from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to both of Bush's handpicked weapons inspectors, Charles Duelfer and David Kay.

Americans believe these lies not because they are stupid, but because they are good media consumers. Our media have become an echo chamber for those in power. Rather than challenge the fraudulent claims of the Bush administration, we've had a media acting as a conveyor belt for the government's lies.

As the Pentagon has learned, deploying the American media is more powerful than any bomb. The explosive effect is amplified as a few pro-war, pro-government media moguls consolidate their grip over the majority of news outlets. Media monopoly and militarism go hand in hand.

When it comes to issues of war and peace, the results of having a compliant media are as deadly to our democracy as they are to our soldiers. Why do the corporate media cheerlead for war? One answer lies in the corporations themselves ? the ones that own the major news outlets.

At the time of the first Persian Gulf War, CBS was owned by Westinghouse and NBC by General Electric. Two of the major nuclear weapons manufacturers owned two of the major networks. Westinghouse and GE made most of the parts for many of the weapons in the Persian Gulf War. It was no surprise, then, that much of the coverage on those networks looked like a military hardware show.

We see reporters in the cockpits of war planes, interviewing pilots about how it feels to be at the controls. We almost never see journalists at the target end, asking people huddled in their homes what it feels like not to know what the next moment will bring. The media have a responsibility to show the true face of war. It is bloody. It is brutal. Real people die. Women and children are killed. Families are wiped out; villages are razed. If the media would show for one week the same unsanitized images of war that the rest of the world sees, people in the U.S. would say no, that war is not an answer to conflict in the 21st century.

But we don't see the real images of war. We don't need government censors, because we have corporations sanitizing the news. A study released last month by American University's School of Communications revealed that media outlets acknowledged they self-censored their reporting on the Iraq invasion out of concerns about public reaction to graphic images and content.

The media organizations in charge of vetting our images of war have become fewer and bigger ? and the news more uniform and gung ho. Six huge corporations now control the major U.S. media: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (FOX, HarperCollins, New York Post, Weekly Standard, TV Guide, DirecTV and 35 TV stations), General Electric (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Universal Pictures and 28 TV stations), Time Warner (AOL, CNN, Warner Bros., Time and its 130-plus magazines), Disney (ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, 10 TV and 72 radio stations), Viacom (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Simon & Schuster and 183 U.S. radio stations), and Bertelsmann (Random House and its more than 120 imprints worldwide, and Gruner + Jahr and its more than 110 magazines in 10 countries).

As Phil Donahue, the former host of MSNBC's highest-rated show who was fired by the network in February 2003 for bringing on anti-war voices, told "Democracy Now!," "We have more [TV] outlets now, but most of them sell the Bowflex machine. The rest of them are Jesus and jewelry. There really isn't diversity in the media anymore. Dissent? Forget about it."

The lack of diversity in ownership helps explain the lack of diversity in the news. When George W. Bush first came to power, the media watchers Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) looked at who appeared on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Ninety-two percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male, and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, there was even less diversity of opinion on the airwaves. During the critical two weeks before and after Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations where he made his case for war, FAIR found that just three out of 393 sources ? fewer than 1 percent ? were affiliated with anti-war activism.
Three out of almost 400 interviews. And that was on the "respectable" evening news shows of CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS.

These are not media that are serving a democratic society, where a diversity of views is vital to shaping informed opinions. This is a well-oiled propaganda machine that is repackaging government spin and passing it off as journalism.

For the media moguls, even this parody of political "diversity" is too much. So as Gen. Colin Powell led the war on Iraq, his son, Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led the war on diversity of voices at home.
In the spring of 2003, Michael Powell tried to hand over the airwaves and newspapers to fewer and fewer tycoons by further loosening restrictions on how many media outlets a single company could own. Powell tried to scrap 30-year-old rules that limited the reach of any television network to no more than 35 percent of the national population, and limits on cross-ownership that, for example, prevented newspapers from buying television or radio stations in the same city. The new rules would have allowed a broadcast network to buy up stations that together reached 45 percent of the national population.

The attack on the existing media-ownership rules came from predictable corners: Both Viacom, which owns CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's conservative FOX News Channel were already in violation, and would be forced to sell off stations to come into compliance with the 35-percent limit. The rule change would enable Murdoch to control the airwaves of entire cities. That would be fine with Bush and the Powells, since Murdoch is one of their biggest boosters.

Murdoch declared in February 2003 that George W. Bush "will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of 2 to 1." Murdoch leaves nothing to chance: His FOX News Channel is doing all it can to help.

It looked like Powell, backed by the Bush White House and with Republican control of Congress, would have no trouble ramming through these historic rule changes. The broadcast industry left nothing to chance: Between 1998 and 2004, broadcasters spent a boggling $249 million lobbying the federal government, including spending $27 million on federal candidates and lawmakers.

This would normally be called bribery. At the FCC, it's just business as usual.
You would think that FCC deregulation, affecting millions of Americans, would get major play in the media. But the national networks knew that if people found out about how one media mogul could own nearly everything you watch, hear and read in a city, there would be revolt. The solution for them was simple: They just didn't cover the issue for a year. The only thing the networks did was to join together ? and you thought they were competitors? ? in a brief filed with the FCC to call for media deregulation.

And then, something remarkable happened: Media activists ? an unlikely coalition of liberals and conservatives ? mounted a national campaign to defeat Powell and stop the corporate sell-off. The FCC received 2 million letters and e-mails, most of them opposing the sell-off. The Prometheus Radio Project, a grass-roots media activism group, sued to stop the sale of our airwaves, and won in federal court last June. These are hopeful signals that the days of backroom deals by media titans are numbered.

Powell announced his resignation as chairman of the FCC in January. Arguably the worst FCC chairman in history, Powell led with singular zeal the effort to auction off the public airwaves to the highest corporate bidder. In so doing, he did us all a favor: For a brief moment, he pulled back the covers on the incestuous world of media ownership to expose the corruption and rot for all to see.

Kevin Martin, Bush's newly appointed FCC chairman, will, according to an FCC insider, be even worse than Powell. Leading conservative and right-wing religious groups have been quietly lobbying the White House for Martin to chair the FCC. Martin voted with Powell on key regulations favoring media consolidation, and in addition has been a self-appointed indecency czar. The indecency furor conveniently grabs headlines and pushes for the regulation of content, while Martin and the media moguls plan sweetheart deregulation deals to achieve piecemeal what they couldn't push through all at once. This is the true indecency afflicting media today.

The major media conglomerates are among the most powerful on the planet. The onrush of digital convergence and broadband access in the workplaces and homes of America will radically change the way we work, play and communicate. Fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) from the regional Bells, Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony, bundled services from cable companies, and increased capacity in satellite and wireless technologies will transform the platforms on which we communicate.

Who owns these platforms, what is delivered over them and, fundamentally, in whose interest they work are critical issues before us now. Given the wealth of the media companies and their shrewd donations into our political process, the advocates for the public interest are in far too short a supply.

A blow against media ownership consolidation ? now or in the future ? will have far-reaching implications, as critical information gains exposure to a caring, active public. Instead of fake reality TV, maybe the media will start to cover the reality of people struggling to get by and of the victories that happen every day in our communities, and in strife-torn regions around the globe.

When people get information, they are empowered. We have to ensure that the airwaves are open for more of that. Our motto at "Democracy Now!" is to break the sound barrier. We call ourselves the exception to the rulers. We believe all media should be.

Amy Goodman, host of the award-winning radio and TV news show "Democracy Now!," and her brother David Goodman, a contributing writer for Mother Jones, are authors of "The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them," which was just released in paperback by Hyperion.

© 2005 Seattle Times


media

News and politics

Tori Amos - The Original Sinsuality Tour

Tori Amos - The Original Sinsuality Tour

The sensational, unique and unbelievably talented Ms Tori Amos is at long last returning to delight her Australian fans.

When she first toured here in 1992, Tori Amos amazed and moved Australian audiences, drawing universal critical acclaim for a series of wise, warm and wildly charismatic concerts that many claimed were the best concerts of that year. But after returning in 1994 for a set of shows that became the stuff of legend, Tori has not been back to Australia for more than 10 years, which has ensured that her upcoming May live shows will be very highly anticipated and very special events.

Tori's live performances continue to prove again and again that she has a clear edge over her female contemporaries. Weaving a magical music journey, the varying moods and textures of her piano playing, the highs and lows of her vocals, the thoughtful flow from the one song to another, are all presented in an epic but highly personal way.

I was not going to miss out on tickets to something that personally could be a once in a life time event. The tickets went on sale to the general public on Friday 8/4 for her performance at the Sydney Opera House. I tried to buy them on Thursday thru the presale thing on ticketek, I logged on their website before it opened but I couldn't get any. I had the day off on Friday and I drove down to Sydney to go to the box office at the opera house, I got there at about 7:30am for a 9am opening. So glad I did, while I was in line, me and JP were both ringing up the opera house box office and could not get thru, she was also trying the opera house website without luck. The lad behind me in the line was ringing ticketek and had a friend online trying their website without luck. I ended up getting 2 tickets for the front row of the dress circle so I am very chuffed about that. I went home and got online and they were selling tickets to a second concert on the Sunday....so I bought a ticket for that performance too!

Call me crazy, I probably am...there is no denying it but I was not going to miss out on this. I already have one experience of missing out on seeing Tori live which is harrowing enough. When I was overseas in 2003, I was planning on visiting the US in September knowing that the final stop on her Lottapianos tour at the time would be in Florida. She ended up making a DVD of the performance "Welcome to Sunny Florida" Anyhoo, I purchased my tickets a few months before while I was in the UK. The problem was that I ran out of money about 6 weeks before the concert so I had to drag my sorry ass home. It seriously was a major tragedy for me....the worst feeling was being back at work, knowing that my tickets were sitting there at the box office in West Palm Beach while I was mourning my loss in front of my computer at work.

There will be many a photo on my blog after this concert, that's for sure and certain. The tickets to both of these Sydney concerts sold out very quickly, so much so that a third concert has been arranged for 14/5. This date was originally set for a performance in Canberra but had been moved to Sydney to accommodate the demand.

Music

News Values for a New Age of Journalism

First Draft by Tim Porter: News Values for a New Age of Journalism

Are some of the newsroom's most prized values contributing to journalism's continuing decline in credibility? What should replace these values to better reflect the complexities of modern media yet still embrace the core principles of journalism? What should be the standards of credible journalism in an age when all definitions of news are up for grabs?

The scoop, for example - beating all other perceived competitors to a story - is so highly valued in most news organizations that a story of otherwise middling importance might be elevated to the front page or to the lead of a newscast by its exclusivity. The words "the Daily Bleat has learned" or "Eyewitness News has determined" can trigger a Pavlovian salivation among editors, who respond to the stimulus by awarding the "scoop" prominent placement.

Daniel Okrent, the now lame-duck public editor for the New York Times, dissects the paper's Page 1 play of a March 31 report that Columbia University cleared its professors of charges of anti-Semitism, a report obtained a day before its public release by the Times writer with the promise of not seeking "reaction from other interested parties," presumably those students who leveled the charges initially.

Wafting from the process - and the motivations - that moved the Columbia story from press release to front page is a "slightly fishy smell" that Okrent attributes to the routine propensity of scoop-driven reporters to make deals for exclusivity and result in less-than-fully reported stories or, worse, leaks (he cites the Valerie Plame case) that play the reporters like "Silly Putty."

The scoop mentality, says Okrent, is out-dated in these times of omnipresent news. I like his Darwinian description and dismissal of those who defend the "so-and-so-has learned" mindset:

"Some newspaper people seem to regard beating the competition as the opposable thumb of journalism, an essential characteristic that distinguishes winners from losers. I think it's more like the tailbone, a vestigial remnant from the era when reporters were still swinging from the trees - that distant time when New York had eight daily papers, and newsboys in knickers prowled the streets shouting 'Extra!' whenever their papers had something the other guys didn't."

It's important to distinguish, as Okrent does, between faux scoops like the Columbia story, which is all about a powerful institution controlling the presentation of news, and real investigative work. The former involves deal-cutting; the latter source-making. The former serves only the reporter and the newsmakers; the latter serves the community and can protect the people from the powerful.

The current newsroom value system should be shelved, dropped into the desk drawer with the pica pole, the Royal and the eyeshade. A new set of standards is needed to differentiate journalism from the glut of celebrity, opinion and minute-by-minute media that is often masquerades as journalism in the mind of an unwary public.

Let's demarcate, again, the line between the elements of journalism and the values of the newsroom. Often, as practitioners know, they are quite different, with "real-world" demands and rewards of the newsroom regularly taking precedence over the ideals outlined by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenthal.

What is valued in the day-to-day activities of newsrooms today? How should these values change in order to contribute to credibility and separate journalism from the media pack? Here's my list:

Old Newsroom Value: Competition. The obsession with being first leads to a buffet line of bad journalistic behavior - deal-cutting (Okrent), anonymous sources, lop-sided stories (with follow-ups often receiving lesser play than the original, errors, out-right chicanery and plagiarism.

New Value: Context. Thoroughness serves readers, not sources. Information, with more reporting, becomes education. Transparency trumps anonymity.

Old Value: Speed. A relative of competition, the one-day news cycle of newspapers is the remains of a bygone era when readers waited the arrival of the Daily Blat to learn the news. Speedy reporting, writing and editing have their place for breaking news - on the Internet, not in the paper. Telling complex stories quickly, with few sources and in tight space creates the abundance of mediocre, mid-length institutional reporting that fills more local news pagers.

New Value: Discipline. Today's news today - or even tomorrow - is useless to readers if they can't make sense of it. Break the news tight; go longer, more-layered in the next pass to tell it right. Mid-length he-said, she-said reports provide neither.

Old Value: Individualism. The one-reporter, one-story, one-editor paradigm is inflexible and contributes to the flow of mediocrity. Daily messages about what's important are often mixed; managers pull in opposite directions; good stories go understaffed while lesser ones use up valuable resources.

New Value: Collaboration. Cluster a mix of journalists (word, visual, digital) around the best daily stories. Use editors as hands-on producers, not just traffic cops. Set reporting priorities for the day, the week, the month, the year and allocate teams accordingly.

Old Value: More. Editors place a premium on a high story count from most reporters and want bigger news holes even though they might not have the resources to fill it with quality work. The result: Editing by the numbers and column inch; bland stories and photos needed to fill sections; addiction to routine, institutional events because it guarantees "news."

New Value: Less. Five to 10 well-reported, better written, fully illustrated stories are better than 20 run-of-the-mill reporters. Use the teams to "produce" news packages. Brief the rest. Less leads to depth, context and layering.

Old Value: Words. Newspapers are run primarily by "word" people - former reporters or metro editors. Stories still typically are told in traditional formats. There is no Pulitzer for graphics or for design or for online. In most cases, despite two decades of forced integration between visuals and text, words still rule.

New Value: Layers. Use all the components of modern journalism to tell stories - words, photos, graphics, online. "Long" is a relative term. "Long" compared to what? This requires teamwork (see above) and "producers" not just "editors."

Old Value: Authority. Journalists have access to powerful institutions and officials the public does not. Many journalists confuse this entry into the backrooms of policy for authority or expertise when in fact it is only a day pass granted because the powerful find the news media useful. From authority comes arrogance, and from arrogance disregard for the opinion and, eventually, the goodwill of those journalists are supposed to serve, the members of the community.

New Value: Interaction. Don't cover the community, be the community. Get the reporters and editors out of the building; bring the citizens in. Enable community participation online and in print. [Read: Don't Reflect the Community, Be the Community.]

Old Value: Answers. News stories are supposed to provide answers, to assign reward or blame, to leave no ends lying loosely about. Journalists search for facts to explain complex issues, but facts alone are often not enough to provide readers with understanding.

New Value: Questions. Sometimes there are no answers to difficult and persistent issues like poverty, racism, religious and moral differences or the role of government in private lives. Journalists have the opportunity to explore the questions, air the differences and enable civic debate. Those tactics are more likely to provide "answers" than an array of facts alone.

Old Value: Objectivity. The standard for the last half-century of journalism, objectivity emerged as an antidote to the partisan press but grew to become a cherished recipe for blandness and a form of stenographic story-telling that eschews passion in favor of the emptiness of he-said, she-said, one the one hand, on the other and yet on another constructions.

New Value: Truth-telling. Get the fact, yes, but foremost tell the truth. I'm borrowing from Dan Gillmor to say: Replace objectivity with thoroughness, accuracy, genuine fairness and transparency.