Melissa Fyfe's Promotion. Great News!

In relation to the previous item about Andrew Bolt's attempts to intimidate and browbeat Fairfax management into silencing reporters like Phillip Coorey, it seems it isn't working. Not working at all!

The good news is that the magnificent Melissa Fyfe is being promoted from reporting on state politics for the Sunday Age to covering the federal sphere. At a moment in time when progressive forces need to be mobilised and regimented in support of the carbon levy (not a tax), it is a fantastic thing to see one of the best reporters in the country bringing her insight and perspective to Canberra. There is one Green, the brave and courageous Adam Bandt, in the House of Reps, who faces every day a barrage of negativity from the Murdoch-dominated press gallery. At least now, with Melissa in town, he will have a reporter who can cover his actions and initiatives with a fair, open-minded devotion to spin-free journalism.

And the bad news?

At a moment when the reactionary party controls both houses of state parliament and the state of Victoria is sliding rapidly back into the moral corruption and cronyism of the Kennett Era, the best reporter of the lot will be moving to hundreds of kilometres away from the action. Can we expect Melissa's replacement to keep turning over  Big Ted's rocks and revealing the sordidness underneath? She did it again this weekend with her revelation that the Bailleau  Goverenment has been intinidating the scientists at Melbourne University in order to rig the results of its ridiculous "test" of using cattle as a means of averting bushfires. Yeah, like cows eat gum trees or something.

As we all know, and I include Melissa in this, it is climate change that is making the bush go up in flames, as her daily Age colleague Adam Morton helps the scientist David karoly explain if you click the link.

Congratulations, Melissa. The IQ of the Canberra press gang is about to go exponentially!