Impossible, I say!

October 10th, 2006 | Media

I’ll be off line for at least a few days, maybe till the end of next week, in the interests of life beyond university and bringing it about sooner rather than later. Apart from the post written last week that is waiting to be seen tomorrow, this will be the last until my current assessment nightmare is over.

To get one last link in before I go, however, I present this one from Crikey today, in which the former chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, David Flint, claims “journalists have become so powerful that they rule the roost”.

No longer anonymous as they once were, many journalists now publish or broadcast with no editorial supervision whatsoever, as Lord Hutton found at the BBC. Alternatively their celebrity status can often ensure that any supervision is minimal. This was inconceivable 40 or 50 years ago. The potential for proprietorial control is just not there.

Did someone say ‘celebrity’?! Sweet! This j-gig is looking better by the hour.

And when you tell me that’s not the tone of news around here, I’ll confidently retort, “Talk to the hand! On which I have written the name that gives me authority. That’s right, it says David Flint. Read it and weep, propriet-ahh!!”

poÂ·tenÂ·tial (pÉ™-tÄ•n‘shÉ™l)
adj.

Capable of being but not yet in existence; latent: a potential problem.

Having possibility, capability, or power.

Grammar. Of, relating to, or being a verbal construction with auxiliaries such as may or can; for example, it may snow.