How To Shoot Oneself in the Foot While Hoping for a Walkley Award

The Walkley Awards

by Mary W Maxwell

Each year, in April, writers can send in a self-nomination for a Walkley award. Both the editor and assistant editor of Gumshoe submitted an entry in 2015. (Did not win.) This year we are again having a go. The fee is a mere  $150 to register. The rules allow the entrant to submit “a body of work” consisting of his/her 5 fave productions from April 2015 to April 2016.

My faves were: my Fodder Note video and my What the Fruit video, plus articles on Car-di-nal Pell, “Thanking Fiona Barnett” and – hoping to get their attention – “Was Man Haran Monis at Seascape?”

Of Dee’s Chosen Five, the first was “MH17 — Apportioning Blame” (meaning apportioning it to various media outlets). After that she listed:  Microcephaly from the Zika Virus (but really from Monsanto), the cropped photo of Jahar (this is actually a biggie in the exculpatory department), something tying injections to Cheney on 9-11 (only in Melbourne!), and — from the strictly foot-shooting department — “The Media Are the Enemy Within.” [Yes, in an application for an award from a mainstream media foundation!]

We also had to name our body of work.  I named mine “It’s Been a Thrilling Year for Journalism: 2015-2016.” I like to suck up. Members of the Walkley Foundation’s board of directors tend to be from Fairfax, Guardian, Courier-Mail ABC, Channel 9, that sort of thing.

The title Dee has given to her body of work (really someone should have a talk with her) is:  “Understanding the Enemy of Free Speech.”  Meaning, of course, the media.

Then we had to give a “supporting statement” in 300 words or less as to what we did and how we did it.  Here they are:

Mary Maxwell’s Supporting Statement for the Walkley

I covered the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses and the revelations of Fiona Barnett; I compared the Balaclan stadium killings to various similar ones; and inspected the new claims about the Port Arthur massacre and the torture of Martin Bryant.

The topics may sound bleak, but an exceptional number of high-quality breakthroughs for society have occurred. I have started to believe in the future again! My heroes in this are Fiona Barnett, Cherri Bonney, Vanessa Goodwin, and Dee McLachlan.

During this year I finished writing an academic book, “Fraud Upon the Court”; it gave me many tools for handling live cases. My background of research into mind control helped me get a handle on Mrs Barnett’s situation and on the drugs used on Martin Bryant when he was 21. [Like wink-winksville. Will anyone notice?]

My first publisher was The Age in 1981. I now find myself ignored by mainstream media but this is no problem; the alternative scene is flourishing and my boss at Gumshoe News (online) is skilled at creative production.

Let’s face it: we Gumshoers annoy persons in authority; that’s unavoidable. We don’t take a government press release and use it — we tear into it. Then we ask: If the wrong thing has been done for a long time, how to get onto a new track? It can be done! We talk about it almost every day.

Our community of commenters at GumshoeNews sound like they are willing to do the needful. No wonder I am smiling in most of my 30 Youtube videos.

Normally when I am allowed “300 words or less” I go for the 300 exactly, but on this occasion, after 258 words, discretion reared its ugly head and I quit. The party of the second part however, issued 298 words of which the last 36 helped to inspire the title of the article article at hand — about shooting oneself in the foot.

Here is the offending item:

Dee McLachlan’s Supporting Statement for the Walkley

I never wanted to start being a journalist. [Well there you go.] I was compelled to solely by the lack of free, analytical and investigative journalism in Australia’s mainstream media.

I originally started Gumshoe News to counter the nonsense being written about the September 11 attacks –“9/11” — but it has expanded, and now Gumshoe cover many subjects.

Why do few people “believe” the mainstream press? (Recent reports put the figure as low as 7%! ) It’s a propaganda vehicle for the corporates that own it.

The stories I am submitting cover Canberra’s handling of the MH17 crash, vaccination, Dick Cheney’s putting his feet up on his desk on 9-11, a piece of tampered evidence in the Boston Marathon case, Monsanto’s likely connection to a virus in Brazil, and media’s complicity in covering up crime.

“How It Was Obtained”

Many of my publications are generated by my reading the mainstream news and then researching the real story behind it. In two cases however, I was the original sleuth.

One has to do with the so-called Boston bomber, Jahar Tsarnaev. I observed in Court Exhibit #22 that a video of Jahar contained a still photo inserted into it. This photo had the telltale marks of cropping. I have declared the cropped-out part to be exculpatory evidence for Jahar who is now on Death Row. Gumshoe has been digging into the case in a major way.

The other scoop came when a Gumshoe reader, Christopher Brooks, managed to secure a letter from his MP which confirmed my guess of secret dealings with regard to the investigation of MH17.

Editor McLachlan then added—wait for it:

“I can imagine that however relevant my material may be, the Walkley Foundation will not profile it. My personal guess is that the Walkley awards, too, aid the suppression of evidence about such things as 9-11.”

Note: Dee will pay for free pizza for all Gumshoe supporters on the night we win the award.

Yay.

— Mary W Maxwell and Dee McLachlan have co-written two books in the last year: Truth in Journalism, and Port Arthur: Enough Is Enough

Photo credit: abc.net.au