Unfortunately we can’t see the story that this item from the Crikey newsletter refers to. It has been removed from The Australian’s website, but as Margaret Simons notes, it’s a disturbing development in police-media relations when this type of deal appears to be the norm.
There’s no doubt that security services worldwide like to cultivate tame journos and editors and there’s no doubt about where The Australian stands on international terrorism. Is there an interesting convergence of interests here?
In Richard Flanagan’s novel, The Unkown Terrorist, this scenario is played out
in a fictional way, but hey…truth is stranger, so they say.
Top Stories
1. The Oz, the AFP and the Haneef leak: What is going on?
Margaret Simons writes:
What’s going on with the editor of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, and the Australian Federal Police?
Commissioner Mick Keelty was on AM this morning claiming that Mitchell had assured him that the AFP was not the source of the extraordinary leak of the record of interview with Dr Mohamed Haneef. Keelty pointed the finger firmly at Haneef’s defence team as the source, although Haneef’s lawyer flatly denied it.
What is Mitchell doing entering into this conversation with Keelty, given that almost any discussion of sources is dangerous for journalists, since it necessarily narrows the field of suspects?