I spoke to a farmer at Allendale East today who is growing peas, lettuce and brassicas in trial plots, so far with good success. As the only grower in the district he has to organise his own cool storage, distribution and marketing. There have been many reports commissioned, proclaiming the potential of the South East as a horticultural district, but not much has actually been done to make it happen. I might comment more on that later. Meanwhile, this post is about the so-called “quality control” issues with fruit and vegetable production. I read elsewhere that buyers reject many bananas because they are not yellow enough. A slight bruise or too green and they’re rejected, regardless of their edibility. Wholesale buyers are very fussy about quality issues with peas.The grower I spoke to had a similar issue with his peas. He said 80 percent of his first trial crop was rejected for various quality reasons, many of which he believed occurred in transport. Buyers expect the stem to be fully removed from the pod, but in doing so, pickers can inadvertently bruise the fruit (although botanically a fruit, it is treated as a vegetable in cooking). A slight mark on the pod and it would be rejected. I commented how consumers aren’t that fussy about peas, surely, and the grower agreed. But wholesalers can be particularly picky, especially when supply is good and the market is effectively a monopoly. I think it’s a terrible shame that so much food goes to waste. One idea is that the former Mount Schank meatworks could be converted into a cold storage area and processing facility for frozen vegetables. It just needs some political will and commercial vision.

I came across an extraordinary web page, which lists all the executions that occurred in Australia between 1900 and 1967, and many that occurred between 1880 and 1899. Earlier, I had read an epic post by Dina about murderer and bigamist Frederick Deeming. I had a vague notion there was some connection between Deeming and Kalgoorlie, which prompted my macabre search and discovery. I’m yet to establish Deeming’s link with Kalgoorlie, if any, but the list of condemned individuals threw up a surprise mention of Mount Gambier. Robert Nugent (age unknown/white) Murder victim: Harry Edmond Pearce – committed on 17 May 1881 – sentenced on 21 October 1881. Police Trooper Harry Edmond Pearce was assaulted and stabbed during the arrest of Robert Nugent (alias Robert Johnston) on 17 May 1881, who had been charged with supplying liquor to Aborigines. Pearce died of his wounds, and Nugent was charged with murder. He stood trial at the Naracoorte Circuit Sessions, was found guilty and sentenced to death on 21 October 1881. Nugent was hanged at Mount Gambier gaol at 8am on 18 November 1881. Old Mount Gambier GaolJust the one Mount Gambier hanging was recorded on that list. Another man sentenced in Mount Gambier was taken to Adelaide for execution. The State Library of South Australia reveals that Carl Jung was executed at Mount Gambier in November 1871 for the murder of a sheriff’s officer at Mount Gambier. The Old Mount Gambier Gaol is currently a backpackers’ accommodation facility. According to its website, three men were executed there in the late 1800s. I can’t identify the third from web sources. The heritage-listed gaol was built in 1866 and housed prisoners until 1995. The accommodation lease is due to expire on September 30, 2010. The council has flagged it will not renew the lease and is canvassing public opinion on how the historic precinct might be used in the future. I’d like to see it become a museum.

I received a letter from the Electoral Commission of South Australia on Friday, reminding me that voting on March 20 is compulsory and letting me know where to vote. According to the commission’s website, the letter is meant to be sent from Monday, March 15 to all electors. A total of 1,092,762 South Australians are enrolled to vote. At the standard postage rate of 55 cents a letter, that’s a mail-out cost of $601,019 plus printing, maybe a million dollars altogether, even if the postage was discounted. It’s unnecessary expenditure, in my opinion. However, the letter contained two new pieces of information. The electoral commission has established an SMS reminder service, where people can register for a free reminder to vote. Again, I say this is an unnecessary expense. You’d have to be living under a rock in the Simpson Desert to not realise there is an election next Saturday. It’s like some organisations adopt technology for the sake of it, simply because they can and they think they should. I can’t see any strategic communications benefit in providing this “service”. The other new item was an “Easy Voting Card” (pictured below). Electors are asked to present the card (a cut-out ticket) when they vote. Presumably it simplifies identification, although I’ve never been asked for photo ID previously when voting. Usually, you just have to declare that you are who you say you are, and that you haven’t voted previously. A message alongside the “Easy Voting Card” says: “You can vote without this card but it may take longer”. I don’t mind tightening up identification for voting. People should be asked to present a licence, credit card, tax return or Medicare card. If they don’t have any of those, there should be the option of special electoral ID on application. Or maybe we should have a national identification system?

The Sunday Mail has a page 10 story today headlined “Turmoil on the Mount — Newspaper editor quits, reporter accused of poll bias”. It’s mainly about allegations of bias against The Border Watch by the Liberal Party. The story is based on the fact former editor Frank Morello has been assisting independent candidate for Mount Gambier, Don Pegler, with his media releases. Frank’s wife Sandra is a senior journalist at The Border Watch and was effectively the chief political reporter. When the Liberals discovered Frank’s connection to Pegler’s campaign they complained that Sandra had a conflict of interest. They had earlier claimed Sandra’s reporting was biased (before they knew of Frank’s connection). ABC Radio interviewed Pegler about the allegations on Friday. He has claimed the surfacing of this story is part of a Liberal muckraking campaign. The story in the Sunday Mail was factual and reasonably balanced, although I would have liked my denial of bias to have been reported. I appreciate the reporter didn’t cross the line between what I told him as background and my position on the record. I wrote some notes after the interview and these were the points I tried to convey:

I believe the newspaper’s coverage was unbiased (I explained my thinking on how leader Isobel Redmond’s visit was reported); There was no directive from the company to support a particular candidate; The Liberals had raised their concerns and revealed Frank’s involvement with Pegler; Sandra should have disclosed Frank’s involvement, but hadn’t; It was arguable if there was a conflict, but the connection should have been disclosed; Sandra was stood down from political reporting the day the facts were known; There was no connection between my departure and the election.

I thought the Liberals had reasonable grounds to highlight the link between Sandra’s husband and the Pegler campaign, but I continue to deny the allegation of bias. It’s the editor’s responsibility to ensure balance and the Liberals made it clear to me they weren’t challenging my integrity. My view of their perception was that Pegler had the better of early press coverage because he hit the mark with his public statements. I felt the Liberals took at least a week to get into gear. Their opening salvos were negative attacks on the government and a $12 million promise to duplicate a highway that nobody else had been urging, at least during my 20 months at the paper. The Liberals got more “on message” when Redmond visited and they released some popular commitments. Now that I’m one step removed I don’t have a problem with something like this getting into the public arena. It reflects the intensity of the election campaign, which is shaping to be a nail biter, and a competitive media environment.

It annoys me when companies and organisations provide media releases on their websites as PDF files. The files are often too large and slow to open; many have copying disabled; it opens a new browser window and sometimes crashes Firefox. As someone experienced with both media releases and website content management, I can’t understand why anyone would do this. PDF content generally isn’t as effective with search engines and it’s simply not user friendly for basic online documents. Media releases are meant for public consumption. It should be easy to copy them and cut extracts. PDF files are okay for large documents, like annual reports or newsletters, but they shouldn’t be used for single pages. An organisation using PDF for online news makes it impossible to edit or alter the original media release, but that achieves nothing useful. If media releases were published online as Word documents, they could be altered and retransmitted, so I understand why they should not be used. What companies and organisations should do is enter the content of their news articles into the website CMS as posts or pages.

There has been a lot of discussion about newspapers charging for online content, but not much has been said about bloggers doing the same. A company called Fraxion Payments has now made it possible for bloggers to charge as little as one cent per article. “Creators of quality content can now charge for their work,” says Chris Wilkins, co-founder of Fraxion Payments. “Those who create the content will get the lions’ share of the revenue. This is the way it should be.” The company says bloggers will be paid up to 85 percent on a monthly basis for purchased articles, “which may well be a huge boost for citizen journalism”. The payment is actually 60 percent for total royalties of less than US$100 per month. Readers need to register for both a Fraxion account and the blog they wish to pay for content. I find that a little clumsy and it could deter some casual visitors who otherwise wouldn’t mind parting with 10 cents to read a story. The Fraxion people say they are working on an update where people won’t have to login, but “don’t ask when it will be ready”. My “Fraxion Payments Account Registration” email went to the spam box in Gmail too, but I guess that can happen with any automated message. Once registered, readers need to purchase Fraxions, which are about one US cent each. The system looks easy enough to use from a blogger’s perspective, with payments made through PayPal when US$200 is accrued. I can’t imagine readers paying for content on a personal blog like this one, but niche sites and citizen journalist sites may succeed in attracting payments. It’s an innovative concept and one that I suspect will grow in usage.

The Sunday Mail interviewed me today regarding The Border Watch's alleged bias towards the independent candidate for Mount Gambier, Don Pegler. I deny there was any bias, but concede a unique circumstance may have created the perception. I will comment more on my main site after I've read the article. The ABC ran a related interview this morning.

The open source microblogging platform StatusNet has two interesting options for users. Microblogging, for the uninitiated, is online publishing of status updates within a limited space, normally 140 characters. Think Twitter or the wall on Facebook. StatusNet offers its software for download, which can be installed on any PHP/My SQL server. This gives the user control over branding, design and access. I have installed the program at gorey.com.au/miniblog/. For people who don’t have a domain or access to a server, StatusNet offers a hosted account. So, why would anyone use either of these? The “cloud” version doesn’t appeal to me because it simply duplicates what Twitter and others do, albeit using open source software. However, I’m enthused by the self-hosted version, despite its current limitations. Owning the web address and controlling access is a good thing. At the moment it’s not possible to pull Twitter updates or cross-post to Twitter and other services. That’s a must-have feature as far as I’m concerned. When that’s available, a user will be able to run their own customised microblog and aggregate content across different services. I can also see the potential value for businesses and organisations. I’m restricting registration on my microblog to family members at this stage.