“Don’t kid yourself that it can’t happen here,” warns Kerry O’Brien

Kerry O’Brien spoke what has become the unspeakable truth about the World we are living in. He praised Palestinian journalists and mentioned the the G-Word genocide at this years Walkley’s Awards.

Well done, Keeza.

John/Togs Tognolini

‘’The point of what we've just watched is firstly to honour those of our colleagues beyond Australia who have suffered in far too many cases died trying to uphold a principle of their craft to expose the secrets that the abusers of power do not want the public to know. But the second purpose of that package is to provoke an honest appraisal of how that same fundamental principle is working in our own country on our own domestic beats.

 First things first, it would be remiss of me not to refer specifically to theappalling and outrageous casualty list of Palestinian journalists and other media workers in Israel's war on Gaza. Since the brutal attacks by Hamas on Israeli citizens two years ago, having excluded med global independent global media access inside Gaza, leaving us all to rely on local journalists substantially to bear witness to the devastating effect of Israel's bombardment on the civilian population of Gaza and the famine that has accompanied it.

Israel has failed dismally to explain with any credibility why so many journalists have been killed. Importantly, what we should acknowledge tonight is the impact those journalists have had in return for their sacrifice.

They've confronted the world with powerful evidence that has gradually taken on the look and feel of genocide in real time in our living rooms as well as the corridors of the UN and its agencies. It is significantly due to the courage and stubborn determination of those journalists that no reasonable citizen of the world has been able to look away. They and their surviving colleagues have provided an irresistible clarity of truth that has profoundly influenced global public opinion to the point where even some close allies have been compelled to condemn the nature of Israel's ongoing war and declare their recognition of a state of Palestine.

On press freedom. Generally, in a world that is becoming more and more illiberal, including now the most powerful democracy of all, the message is becoming stark for our own country. When the president of the United States sits in the White House with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, as he did a week ago, and seeks to dismiss the brutal murdur and probably dismemberment of Saudi journalist and Washington Post writer  Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi government as ‘things happen,’

things happen. And castigates the journalist who dares to ask the crown prince about it. It illuminates just how far the ground has shifted for journalism in the United States. All those massive lawsuits against mainstream media outlets Donald Trump regards as the enemy that are designed to intimidate against continuing to chronicle his alarming demolition job on the institutions that underpin democracy in America are testament to the clear and present danger for a strong, free, effective, and independent media everywhere. And don't kid yourself, it can't happen here……….’’