ACMA: Ray Hadley’s Wayne Swan comments breached radio code

October 2, 2013 – 1:35PM

Jonathan Swan

National political reporter

 

Breached code: 2GB Radio announcer and talkback host Ray Hadley. Photo: Peter Rae

Talkback host Ray Hadley’s morning program has been found to have breached the commercial radio codes when broadcasting false claims about the former treasurer Wayne Swan.

In a broadcast that aired on June 25, 2012, Hadley claimed that children visiting Canberra’s Parliament House would no longer be offered fruit snacks and bottles of water due to budget cuts. Hadley based his assertions on a story in that morning’s Daily Telegraph.

Commentators and journalists have a responsibility to correct the record if they get it wrong

However, before Hadley went to air with his claims, Mr Swan had issued a statement to all media outlets saying the story was “completely wrong” and that not a “single dollar” was being cut from the schools hospitality program.

Wayne Swan: his office contacted 2GB over the report. Photo: Andrew Meares

Hadley ridiculed Mr Swan’s statement, telling listeners: “It appears Mr Swan has not read what he needs to read in relation to all of this.”

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Rather than taking Mr Swan’s word that the story was inaccurate, Hadley described the then federal treasurer as one of the “most dishonest politicians ever to govern this country”.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority judged that Hadley failed to make “reasonable efforts” to broadcast factual material.

The ACMA also found that, in later broadcasts, Hadley failed to properly correct the record and did not clearly acknowledge that his original statements were wrong.

The authority is in discussions with 2GB about remedial measures. The ACMA does not have the power to fine Harbour Radio, the licensee of Hadley’s station 2GB. Nor can the peak body remove the talkback host from air.

Options for punishment include the ACMA asking Harbour Radio to issue a correction or accept an “enforceable undertaking” if they breach the accuracy code again. Another option is for the ACMA to impose an additional licence condition on the broadcaster, as it did when 2Day FM’s morning host Kyle Sandilands asked a 14-year-old girl whether it was her only sexual experience when she had been raped at the age of 12.

The Hadley decision is similar to an ACMA finding last year against the host’s colleague Alan Jones. On his 2GB breakfast show Jones said that “human beings produce 0.001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”.

Like Hadley, Jones had failed to make “reasonable efforts” to ensure the statement was accurate. After the ACMA handed down its ruling, 2GB promised to give Jones journalism training, “concerning factual accuracy”.

Hadley has been contacted for comment about Wednesday’s ACMA decision.

Mr Swan told Fairfax Media that Hadley’s broadcast was “completely false from the outset”.

“Even when my office contacted Mr Hadley’s show directly, and even after the Daily Telegraph admitted it got the story wrong and corrected it, Mr Hadley refused to tell his listeners the actual truth,” Mr Swan added.

“Just like politicians, commentators and journalists have a responsibility to correct the record if they get it wrong.

“Mr Hadley failed his listeners by refusing to so.”

Hadley is currently involved in legal proceedings over his alleged bullying of a junior colleague at 2GB.

The Sydney Monring Herald

Medical mistakes kill hundreds in Queensland

October 2, 2013 – 9:26AM

Kim Stephens

 

A new report has revealed the level of human error in Queensland medical care. Photo: Louie Douvis

More than 200 people died as a result of human error or systemic failings in Queensland hospitals last financial year.

Among the 241 incidents where a patient died or suffered serious harm, one person died from being administered the wrong blood type and six succumbed after being given the wrong medication.

Childbirth cost 10 women their lives.

The figures, which cover public and private health facilities, were revealed in the 2012/13 annual report by Queensland’s health watchdog, the Health Quality and Complaints Commission.

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In other revelations:

• 13 people had the wrong surgical procedure performed on them, or a procedure performed on the wrong part of their body, which resulted in death or injury;
• 12 people had surgical instruments or other material left inside them, which required further surgery to extricate;
• 12 people suicided while receiving inpatient health care;
• 56 people under the care of mental health services took their lives; and
• 130 people died or were injured in a way that “was not reasonably to be expected” from their medical treatment.

These “reportable events” result in the death or serious harm of patients, triggering an investigation.

The report noted the incidents were not always the result of mistakes.

“Incidents are usually the result of a complex series of contributory factors, including organisational, staff, patient, equipment and communication factors,” it read.

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Christian Rowan said human error was an unfortunate part of life, of which the medical profession was not immune.

“The critically important thing is there is a learning from it to try and prevent it in the future,” he said.

“Humans can make errors and that’s an unfortunate part of life and we need to be striving to prevent them but there needs to be rigorous reporting for checks and balances to make the system safer and better for people.”

The HQCC report, presented to Health Minister Lawrence Springborg in September, also revealed complaints against all Queensland health providers grew by 5 per cent last financial year.

Overall the top two causes of complaints were inadequate treatment and poor communication and information, while the most complained about health organisations were public hospitals, correctional facilities and medical centres.

A spokesman for Mr Springborg saidcomplaints about public hospitals had actually reduced.

“Slightly more than half (51%) of the complaints made about healthcare organisations in 2012-13 were about public hospitals – this is a 12% reduction on 2011-12,” he said.

“The 5 per cent increase is most likely attributable to the rise in complaints from correctional facilities which accounted for 11 per cent of complaints in 2012-13 compared to 5 per cent in 2011-12.”

Doctors accounted for 66 per cent of complaints, while 15 per cent made complaints about dentists.

Since 2009, complaints made to the watchdog about the state’s health providers have jumped by 52.5 per cent.

Both Dr Rowan and Mr Springborg’s spokesman said that did not necessarily signal more people were dissatisfied with their medical treatment.

“There has been significant rises in recent years in relation to complaints regarding adequacy of treatment and communication,” Mr Springborg’s spokesman said.

“Matters such as (Bundaberg surgeon Jayant) Patel have proved highly valuable in raising awareness of the various mechanisms available to people who have concerns around the healthcare they receive.

“It is important these concerns are heard and addressed where appropriate or referred to the appropriate agency for further action.”

Dr Rowan agreed.

“The HQCC has been in existence since 2005/6 and it often takes a while before an entity like that is broadly known in the public domain,” he said.

“Whether it’s a net increase or a vehicle to highlight what already existed at least there is an independent entity able to receive these type of things and positively resolve matters that need to be resolved.”

Brisbane Times

The Blacklist’s sinister James Spader: a Hannibal Lecter for our times?

October 2, 2013 – 3:14PM

Mark Sawyer

Journalist

As one of the FBI’s most wanted, James Spader’s Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington invites easy comparisons with Hannibal Lecter as the omniscient villain tormenting his easy on the eye female FBI handler.

COMMENT

Lecter-like … James Spader as ‘Red’ in The Blacklist.

As Robert California in The Office, James Spader was the sinister overlord of the Dunder Mifflin paper supplies company. In stark contrast to the man he replaced, eternal 12-year-old Michael Scott (Steve Carell), whose stupidity was endearingly apparent, California was a cunning and calculating man with an open-house policy for skinny-dippers. A very disturbing and disconcerting person.

Now he has the leading role in the US espionage drama, The Blacklist, which premiered in Australian free-to-air TV in Monday night.

Spoiler: And it didn’t take him long to push the buttons that code up the long-running baddie lead that we yearn for today. With his smugness and superiority, he easily goads his chief adversity into sticking a sharp implement into his neck.

As one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted, Spader’s Raymond “Red” Reddington surrenders at its Washington headquarters and quickly confounds his handlers with his uber-relaxed demeanour, combined with grim warnings of terrorist acts large and small, including the imminent kidnapping of a top military officer’s young daughter.

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For all this free intel, a fiendish caveat. Red will only deal with a young profiler named Elizabeth Keen. Shorn of that Dundler Mifflin hairpiece and in the first outing at least, Spader invites easy comparisons with Hannibal Lecter as the omniscient villain tormenting his female FBI handler. It never doesn’t make sense to have Beauty up against the Beast. As the “chosen” agent, Megan Boone is easy on the eye but she will have to shuck off her trusting side.

What to make of the the wider cast of villains? A hangover of the Balkan wars of the ’90s? Has the appetite for Arab baddies been sated? This is pure speculation, mind. All I would say is that the writers will have to be pretty inventive to sustain a plot on old grievances from the old Yugoslavia when the plot-heavy potential of the 9/11 era grinds through its second decade.

An enemy for whom an individual death holds no sting, which counts decades as minutes, is a hydra-headed non-stop plot device. That was deftly illustrated in Homeland, the US remake of the stellar Israeli series Prisoners of War. But a bunch of (say) stewing Serbs, cranky Croats and moody Montenegrins? They’ll have to work hard at that.

The action is head-spinningly kinetic. That’s par for the course, but it never hurts to remember that Hitchcock did his tension nice and slow.

So what will audiences make of this new anti-hero, now that Dexter and Breaking Bad have ridden off into the sunset (one sporting the other’s head on the back of a tortoise)?

Will Spader and Spacey – as in Kevin, the shark-like plotter of House of Cards – reign?

Hair regression aside, the unctuous Spader hasn’t changed that much since that late 1980s headline writers’ talisman, Sex Lies and Videotape. He may not have Spacey’s range but on one showing of The Blacklist he looks capable of erecting a fortress of evil, with him as CEO.

And his character Red fits the bill in another vital way. In this golden age of long-form TV drama, the first thing we can observe is that the supposed battle is “over” before the hero even meets us. Look at Don Draper in Mad Men. His world, the easy omnipotence over the way the white men dominate the culture, is “over”. In a more quotidian way, when we meet Walter White in Breaking Bad, his cancer diagnosis signals that life is “over”. For Red, his surrender to the FBI means it’s all over.

But is it beginning too?

That’ll be up to us, his ultimate handlers. Truly, in TV-land, this is a golden age.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Captured: Afghan accused of killing Australian soldiers

October 2, 2013 – 1:14PM

Judith Ireland

Breaking News Reporter

 

The Afghan sergeant suspected of killing three Australian soldiers in a “green on blue attack” in Afghanistan last year has been captured, and is expected to stand trial for murder.

Chief of the Defence Force David Hurley told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday that Sergeant Hekmatullah had been captured in Pakistan and is now in custody in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Hekmatullah who is accused of killing three Australian soldiers is in custody. Photo: Danielle Smith

General Hurley said the man may face the death penalty under Afghan law if found guilty.

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He said Pakistani authorities had informed Australia as far back as February of Sergeant Hekmatullah’s capture.

The families of the Australian soldiers killed were told on Wednesday.

Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic

“This was bittersweet news for the families,” General Hurley said.

“On the one hand, there is a great sense of relief but it will not change history.”

Lance Corporal Stjepan ‘Rick’ Milosevic, 40, Sapper James Martin, 21, and Private Robert Poate, 23 were fatally wounded in the attack on August 29 2012 while Australian forces were relaxing at a patrol base 20 kilometres north of the main Australian base at Tarin Kowt. Two other Australian soldiers were injured.

Private Robert Poate

Last week, an internal Defence inquiry found that the soldiers killed by the rogue Afghan soldier had only the minimal level of security protection.

Until Wednesday, the whereabouts of Sergeant Hekmatullah were not publicly known.

General Hurley said the former Afghan soldier, who had family links to the Taliban, was apprehended by intelligence in Pakistan and then deported to Afghanistan. Sergeant Hekmatullah will now be prosecuted under Afghan law.

Sapper James Martin

Sergeant Hekmatullah escaped the base after the shooting in August. General Hurley was not able to say how long the sergeant had been in Pakistan before he was apprehended.

He suggested the delay between his capture in February and transfer to Afghanistan was down to the relationship between Pakistan an Afghanistan, as well as the Pakistani elections.

The Chief of the Defence Force said Australia still did not have any formal indication why Sergeant Hekmatullah attacked the soldiers, adding that it was still only speculation that he was a member of the Taliban.

General Hurley said the Afghan National Directorate of Security and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been “instrumental” in ensuring Hekmatullah’s deportation to Afghanistan.

The Defence chief also acknowledged members of the ADF and other Australian agencies, such as the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and Defence Intelligence Organisation, who provided “crucial support in capturing Hekmatullah”.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Números de ontem do TV TOTAL

Country	Views
Brazil	599
Portugal	93
United States	70
Canada	22
Japan	6
Angola	6
Australia	5
France	4
Germany	4
Italy	3
Poland	2
Chile	2
Cape Verde	2

 

Alexis Ford NUA

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Flávio Ricco comenta a festa de 20 anos da Fox

 

A festa de 20 anos da Fox, realizada terça no Fasano, em São Paulo, foi acompanhada por profissionais do grupo, imprensa, mercado e por executivos de outras emissoras. Também foi exibido um vídeo com suas próximas novidades, entre elas, a série “Bruna Surfistinha”.

Curiosa foi a reação do público, predominantemente masculino, uma vez que o clipe foi “amarrado” com imagens de Deborah Secco nua e em ação, no filme da “Surfistinha”, tendo Anitta – “Show das Poderosas” – como fundo musical. Tremenda babação.

 

Flávio Ricco com colaboração de José Carlos Nery

Multishow vai transmitir show com grupos musicais

 

O Multishow transmite hoje, ao vivo, às 22h30,  apresentação dos grupos Gang do Eletro e Banda Uó.

 

Flávio Ricco com colaboração de José Carlos Nery

Flávio Ricco faz algumas considerações sobre a cobertura da Fox na Copa do Mundo da FIFA Brasil 2014

 

 

Chamou também atenção a presença do treinador Emerson Leão, especialmente convidado por Eduardo Zebini do canal Fox Sports…
… Ele poderá ser uma das próximas novidades, principalmente para as transmissões da Copa do Mundo no ano que vem.

Aliás, a Fox vai fazer a cobertura do mundial com os seus dois canais. O segundo entra mesmo no ar em janeiro. Está confirmado.

 

Flávio Ricco com colaboração de José Carlos Nery

Confira alguns convidados da festa de 20 anos da Fox

 

Rafinha Bastos, tranquilo, esteve na festa de 20 anos da Fox…
… Danilo Gentili também. E o “CQC”, com Maurício Meirelles, idem, na mesma data.

 

Flávio Ricco com colaboração de José Carlos Nery