Josh.st » David http://josh.st Web, English, 中国, and various geekosity Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:42:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Free press in fragile situations http://josh.st/2010/01/19/free-press-in-fragile-situations/ http://josh.st/2010/01/19/free-press-in-fragile-situations/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:59:27 +0000 Josh http://josh.st/2010/01/19/free-press-in-fragile-situations/ In a retrospective piece in the SMH concerning a new publication out of the University of Melbourne dealing with how media workers responded to and processed last year’s Black Saturday fires, Mallesons IP partner Natalie Hickey writes (among other things) that “It is worth reflecting that a healthy democracy does not need free speech at all costs. Words can wound and information can cause pain.”

What a realisation!

So often in our tabloid, syndicated-to-the-hilt, visually oriented, and, of course, commercially driven media the objective of “the public’s right to know” is utilised as an overriding justification for publication of content that, simply, is unnecessary for the public and unhelpful for those it concerns.

In the Bible, a king called David writes, “You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.” Words can wound, and information can cause pain — and so often our media will “love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right.” (Also David, Psalm 52) The defense that it rates well is inadequate, yet it is enthralling to discover a genuine discussion of journalistic ethics that reflects biblical truth about speech.

God teaches that Christian people are to speak the truth in love, and that, whatever other abilities we may have been given by Him, if we don’t exercise those with love, we have nothing. Oh, that our press would operate on this basis — to do so would serve the “public interest” well!

]]> http://josh.st/2010/01/19/free-press-in-fragile-situations/feed/ 0 The ultimate product placement http://josh.st/2005/04/11/the-ultimate-product-placement/ http://josh.st/2005/04/11/the-ultimate-product-placement/#comments Mon, 11 Apr 2005 03:16:26 +0000 Josh http://www.joahua.com/blog/2005/04/11/the-ultimate-product-placement Last night on MSN…

(22:12:50) Guy: you know the movie show with Margaret and David?
(22:13:01) Josh: what show?
(22:13:03) Guy: umm
(22:13:14) Guy: its on the ABC, they review movies and stuff
(22:13:15) Guy: anyway
(22:13:17) Josh: oh kk
(22:13:22) Guy: i had the WEIRDEST dream the other night
(22:13:27) Josh: re: them?
(22:13:29) Guy: something about nuns and a glacier or something
(22:13:31) Guy: and THEN
(22:13:47) Guy: i had a dream about them reviewing the dream before
(22:13:59) Josh: whoooa
(22:14:02) Josh: that’s trippy
(22:14:03) Guy: and David saying it was implausible and too long
(22:14:09) Guy: i woke up and i was like
(22:14:12) Guy: .….……ok
(22:14:18) Josh: hahahaha! that’s awesome!
(22:14:38) Josh: self-analysis of the plausibility of dreams whilst remaining in the same level of consciousness…
(22:14:41) Josh: that’s cool!
(22:14:57) Guy: i’ve had other dreams a bit like that
(22:16:23) Guy: like there was this one time, years ago, when i was having this dream, and then me, in the dream, i realised i’d already had the dream before, and i told someone else in the dream that i’d dreamt it all before, and they were like, yeh i know, sorry, there’ve been budget cuts so we had to do re-runs
(22:17:05) Josh: lol! hey, what do you expect, dreams are just a more glamorous form of really late night TV… at least you’re not dreaming infomercials!
(22:17:19) Guy: haha
(22:17:26) Guy: imagine product placement in dreams
(22:17:36) Guy: god, what could u charge for that?

And now we know why The BFG must be a millionaire.

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