| that even from the 90% dross, there are things one can learn from talkback posters here whose areas of expertise allow us to glimpse angles on stories that the journalists are not telling us, perhaps because they cannot. The discussion of nuclear reactors on these pages was one such subject - possibly taught the journalists a thing or two. If the new legislation restricts itself to penalizing slander, well and good. Even calling someone a liar is slander and different to telling someone they have been economical with the truth on a particular issue. But if the next step is to sacrifice talkback to the interests of "security" - almost everything else here is subservient to this - the internet will get around this problem, and the talkbackers will babble elsewhere. Whatever the case, the newspapers do not stand to benefit from this legislation. |
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