Daily Telegraph defends its turf. After its Monday edition carried the story of how police were after disgraced former cop Roger Rogerson, the Daily Tele’s editors certainly weren’t amused to see a similar headline in the SMH a day later. It earned a page 5 rebuke from the paper, and Paul Barry was even recruited for the effort after he praised the Tele’s reporting in a tweet yesterday (astonishingly, he seems to have been held up by the News Corp paper as some sort of expert — no doubt a novel experience for the Media Watch host).

In other Daily Telegraph news, Margaret Simons has popped up on The Guardian asking whether the paper’s strident tone is a factor in its shrinking circulations (her conclusion — it’s difficult to say for sure but some News Corp insiders certainly think so).

Suicide in headline earns Press Council rebuke. The Press Council has ruled a headline published in November 20th in The Age made unwarranted unequivocal statements on the apparent suicide of a controversial property developer. The complaint, submitted by Age readers, referred to reporting around the death of Jason Van Der Slot. While the copy in the story was duly careful and reported the ambiguity around whether Van Der Slot had taken his own life, the headline read: “Scam developer took his own life”. It was in the paper the day after the funeral.

The Press Council said there was a clear public interest in reporting the cause of Van Der Slot’s death:

“However, especially when a suspected suicide is involved, the cause should not be stated with certainty unless it has been conclusively confirmed with official, medical or other appropriate sources.

The Council concluded that this unequivocal and prominent headline, together with the fact that the funeral had taken place on the preceding day, meant that The Age did not sufficiently care to avoid unnecessary hurt to Mr Van Der Slot’s family.”

In its response to the complaint, the publication’s representatives said they had been unaware the funeral was held the day before, and said they should have checked and withheld the reports for a day or two. A summary of the adjudication is carried on Page 10 of today’s Age and is available on the website. — Myriam Robin

How to write a press release. South Australians may have already seen this, but for everyone else, we reckon this missive out of SA opposition leader Steven Marshall’s office is quite a work of art. It reads (we’ve capped the insults just so you don’t miss them):

‘Todays’ news that Martin Hamilton-Smith has defected to a PARASITIC, DIVIDED and DYSFUNCTIONAL Labor party is an act of POLITICAL BETRAYAL AND TREACHERY

“Mr Hamilton-Smith’s DISGRACEFUL decision is unrivalled in its TREACHERY and DUPLICITY,” said state Liberal Leader Steven Marshall.

What makes Mr Hamilton-Smith’s TREACHEROUS decision even worse is that he has BETRAYED SOUTH AUSTRALIANS living in his electorate of Waite.”‘

It ends by calling MHS’ decision to defect “an act of political betrayal and treachery that WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN”.

So, bad day in the opposition leader’s office then? Here’s the front page at the Tiser. Guess they got the memo. — Myriam Robin

Video of the day. To our readers who remember what computers were like in the 1970s and early 1980s — these kids think you belong in a museum. Watch their bewilderment at being shown an old computer for the first time — “why does it make so much noise?” — “it’s very tedious” — “where’s the mouse?” — “oh yeah, it is floppy” (when shown a floppy disk for the first time). Warning: you will feel very, very old …