Sharri Markson (Image: Sky News/YouTube/Private Media)

Marks off Markson We have to be clear about the following clip. This is not something a disgruntled News Corp employee sent us in a petty attempt to embarrass Sharri Markson. This is something that was put out by the network, in public, on purpose:

For those readers who find they cringe themselves into unconsciousness every time they try to watch the clip, it’s an outtake of Markson’s interview with former US president Donald Trump. “I’d love it show you my book, if that’s OK?” Markson says. Trump tenses his face and narrows his eyes like she’s suggested they go to a feminist slam poetry night. He eventually snaps out of it and says: “I look forward to reading it.” Then the pair thank one another roughly six times collectively.

“It was little bit awkward for a time,” Markson then tells a grinning Chris Kenny (presumably basking in one of those moments where he’s the second most embarrassing figure his audience is looking at) — a sentence which is precisely three words too long.

Say what you want about Sky, no other news source would have the courage to ask Trump the questions it does. Questions like: “I’d love it show you my book, if that’s OK?” and “What do you want to say to your many Australian supporters who wish you nothing but the best in November 2020?”

Both sides There’s a lazy and unfair stereotype about a certain kind of conservative white man, that they conflate their own struggles with people from marginalised groups, displaying a complete misunderstanding of oppression, wilful or otherwise.

Not UK Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, though. Speaking to the BBC yesterday, he took a bold stance against misogyny: “Misogyny is absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man.” Finally someone says it.

Feeling Twitchy Overnight, live-streaming website Twitch acknowledged it has suffered a major data breach that included its source code, encrypted passwords and how much its creators had been paid.

Like everyone else, we couldn’t help but have a stickybeak to see just how much the top creators earn. Its top account — a group of Dungeon & Dragon players that has broadcast its sessions online since 2015 — earned a whopping US$9.6 million in the past two years from the platform alone (from ads and donations from viewers). There were two Australian accounts in the top 100, Pestily and Fresh, which have both earned more than US$1 million each from Twitch since August 2019. 

Before you boot up Twitch, you might want to know that these users have spent half a decade grinding on the platform to get where they are. And even once you get there it isn’t easy: Pestily has logged 169 hours of broadcast in the past month, or about six and a half hours a day. 

(For noting: Crikey’s Cam Wilson just missed out on making it into the top earners list, after having made $228 from more than 50 hours’ streaming in the past six months — averaging about $4.20 an hour).

Galloway at bay Nine newspapers’ national security reporter Anthony Galloway clearly takes a lot of convincing before he’ll report something as established fact. In his report on the ACT Supreme Court decision to throw out the government’s attempt to cover up its bugging of the Timor-Leste cabinet, Galloway says the bugging is only “alleged”. Nor is this the first time he has implied it may not have happened — even after Witness K received a suspended sentence for his role in revealing it.

Two groups who may appreciate the “alleged”: Peter Costello, chairman of Nine, who was a senior member of the government that illegally bugged Timor-Leste, and the intelligence agencies that Galloway — like most national security journalists — relies on. What’s even more weird is that the SMH‘s editorial today doesn’t have any qualms about accepting that the bugging happened, or that the spying was illegal.