Cirrus@Austlit

'Not long after John Clarke died in April 2017, his elder daughter, Lorin, attended a children’s birthday party where she found herself standing alone.' 

'Days before the publication of a new biography of federal Labor cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek, the Nine newspapers carried an exclusive extract in the Good Weekend magazine, accompanied by a news article leading with Plibersek’s assertion that if she had stood for the party’s leadership after the 2019 election she would have won.'  (Introduction)

'The title of Paddy Manning’s The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch tells us what is good and not so good about this biography.'

'The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is under an existential threat, especially from the conservative federal government, even though it is the best-trusted news organisation in Australia, and plays a vital role in Australian life.

'For years, the ABC’s funding has been slashed, forcing it to let go journalists with decades of experience in asking hard questions about anyone and everyone, including government. It has been besieged by written complaints from ministers, hectoring by prime ministers, and intense pressure on its most senior executives. Its board has been stacked with a succession of political appointees. It has been relentlessly, often baselessly, attacked by the Murdoch media.

'Apart from the external attacks, the ABC has also inflicted damage on itself. It has not only shed staff but has cut important programs; contentious enterprises have been dropped and replaced by benign, inoffensive ones. It is not surprising that staff morale at the ABC has sunk in recent years.

'This book details how the travails of the ABC in this period fit into a global debate about the role of public broadcasting in the modern era. Who Needs the ABC? also takes seriously the arguments made for the ABC’s break-up and privatisation, and offers a rejoinder to those calls. It doesn't shy away from the failings that have led to the ABC’s current parlous position, but it identifies the vital role that it plays in Australian cultural and democratic life, and argues for a continuation of that role — and shows how it can be done.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'There is a famous legal principle, usually attributed to eighteenth-century English jurist William Blackstone, ‘It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.’ How does that sit with historical cases where a cleric is accused of child sexual abuse?' (Introduction)

'The satirist inverted conventional journalistic formats to probe politics and power'

'It's etched into our neurological pathways; we can't live without it. Telling true stories is one of the things that makes us human, and a strong narrative has the power to profoundly change the way we think.

'Truman Capote's ground breaking In Cold Blood set the tone and narrative non-fiction now appears in print and online journalism as well as in books. Capote's work is also a classic case study of the thorny issues arising in telling true stories: how to maintain editorial independence while becoming close to your subject; how far to take the narrative when reporting on real events; whether an 'omniscient narrative voice' is appropriate for non fiction; and what kind of relationship to create with the reader.

'The stakes are high: true stories deal with real people, often at turning points in their lives. Matthew Ricketson uncovers the techniques of some of the best international practitioners from America, Australia and Britain, and shows how to produce authentic, vibrant and memorable writing. ' (Publication summary)