[In this book] the reader will find something that is far from an exhaustive record of the blow-by-blow events of the campaign — though looking over it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much it had touched on. It rapidly came clear in the reporting that there was no point in simply relating the events that every other Australian correspondent was lifting and rehashing ad nauseam — uselessly, in a world where every newspaper in the world (you know, all the ones Sarah Palin reads) is a Google away. Instead it was an attempt to record the feel of the campaign and the character of the country, the hopes, bewilderments and sloughs of despond of a correspondent who never made any secret of his loyalties.

There’s a lot in that paragraph. Breaking the myth of journalistic objectivity: how should we interpret the stories of a journalist when we don’t know how he or she intends to vote, or who they hope to win? An idea of how journalists can add value to events — by bringing their own personality to the story and filling it with life. “Google” as a gerund.

I heartily agree on the point of “this is why you buy Crikey.com.au” … I am also a paid reader of Crikey as my main daily piece of media. I do not spend money on newspapers or magazines as I have noticed the same “EPIC FAIL” of their narrative.

It takes a brave organisation to write from their perspective. And write against the grain of the large, traditional media especially as it lashes out in its drunken death throes.

Nick