"Aussie soccer club sign foreign national"

Thursday June 11 saw me turn out at a training session for a local soccer (English footy) team at training. Plenty of people had said I should give it a go and although it has taken like four months I am glad I have.

I have played two games for them at the moment - a 4-1 loss were I was voted BOG (Best on Ground) and a 3-0 defeat were I conceded a penalty, which was saved! At half-time in both games we were only 1-0 down.

On the serious stuff, I helped cover the Knox Journal for two weeks while the actual journo for the paper was away on holiday which including me covering a council meeting, albeit a very short one - again adding to the experiences.

It has already led to another front page, the Journal have been so good to me I will not be able to thank them enough when I do go home.

And something that really interested me was the front page of the Herald Sun in, a national newspaper here, running a front page photo of the dead body of Des Moran. I am not familiar with the whole story (read here from ABC News) but here is an opinion from young and grumpy.com that reflects what quite a few people said about the photo. Now I have done Ethics at university and I'm pretty sure that an attempt to put this photo on the front page would have been greated with certain distaste.

We follow the PCC code and surely 3) Privacy but definetly 5) Intrusion into grief or shock have been breached? It may have been in the public interest to know that he was shot dead in broad daylight but for a pic of his dead body, I am skeptical.

Again, my knowledge of the Australian media watchdog is very limited but there must be some guidlines for newspapers and does this photo not push the boundary?

It seems Des "Tuppence" Moran was a bit of a gangster and it seems his family have been involved in mobster business - again something which I know very little about so research it yourself ;)

My main gripe is putting a photo of anyone's dead body on the front page, I mean it's a little graphic isn't it? And what does it really achieve - it didn't happen when Michael Jackson died and splashes of so many other people die - they get a mugshot pic not one of them lying flat out dead on the ground. I have a lot to learn about the media here...