In September 2007 I wrote about an unreported naval battle halfway between Sir Lanka and the Cocos Islands, which seemed a little mysterious. The Sri Lankan navy only had five offshore patrol boats. How did they know to amass sufficient force to intercept a four-ship Sea Tiger convoy 1100 kilometers from home? Their accurate intelligence suggested a US and possibly an Australian role. In any case, 18 months later the Tigers were finished as a fighting force. Continue reading →

Duchessing Rupert

Rupert Murdoch’s tweets have an almost irresistible appeal. He’s indestructible. He shrugs off the hundreds of hostile slaps he gets for much of his Twitter feed, the same way he has ignored his critics for six decades. Like him or hate him you have to admit: he’s perky. And of course really wacky. The man who built the world’s most powerful media empire, and he thinks things like that? And hey, now he’s on Tumblr, doing kooky things all over the world!

There’s a rich vein of comedic material in @rupertmurdoch—probably a whole sitcom series. But that’s not the only way to read Rupert Murdoch on Twitter. 

It’s a micro-blog, and his 750-odd Tweets provide snapshots for what’s on Murdoch’s mind.

More specifically, his Tweets are a record of the last person that Murdoch has been talking to—it just gets recycled and blurted out. The tweets are also an indicator, for journalists who work for the most famously interventionist media proprietor on the planet, of just what the boss might be thinking about.

Put those two things together and you may glimpse the process where people gain Rupert Murdoch’s ear, and how that message can be re-broadcast around the world. Continue reading →

Kyle Sandilands are leaving Southern Cross-Austereo’s 2DayFM (let the grief be unconfined) to join Mix 106.5, apparently for altruistic reasons and a minimum of $1 million a year apiece.

Their time at 2DayFM had many features. Like this one, when they hooked up a 14-year-old girl to a lie detector in July 2009. To be clear here, the girl was accompanied by her mother, but clearly appeared an unwilling participant. She explicitly said she was afraid and that this was not fair. She was then asked about her personal sexual history, with the clear message that if she was not truthful she would be branded a liar. She said she was raped when she was 12 years old.

Continue reading →