EDITORIAL
Kinglake Ranges News strives to provide accurate local news with integrity, accuracy and always offers and seeks a right of reply from those we are reporting about before publishing.
I, Ashley Geelan, the editor of Kinglake Ranges News, have provided local news to various media outlets for over a decade. This includes the Mountain Monthly, Mountain Views Mail, The Age, ABC Local Radio, Kinglake Ranges Radio 94.5FM, Yea Chronicle, Alexandra Standard, Diamond Valley Leader, Whittlesea Leader, The Border Mail, Whittlesea Review and North Central Review, among others.
I’m the only local journalist who is a member of the Media, Entertaiment & Arts Alliance and the International Federation Of Journalists.
Whilst I am not yet a qualified journalist (I’m currently studying after La Trobe University offered me a place this year). A place I’d sought since finishing secondary school in 1996.
Whenever I am unsure of the integrity of my work, I use the resources of La Trobe’s University’s Department of Media and Communications lecturers and tutors who are some of Australia’s leading journalists to ensure the integrity of, and be critical of my work.
This includes Bill Bainbridge (Producer, The World, ABC TV); Phil Kafcalouldes (ABC International, Radio Australia); Gerald Whateley, (Sports commentator, ABC Grandstand); Nashya Bafen (SBS World News) and Brigid McCarthy among others, including my fellow journalism students.
Kinglake Ranges News strives to deliver accurate and fair news to the Kinglake Ranges and wider community and follows the MEAA’s and IFJ’s “Declaration on the Principles of Journalism.”
I welcome critical comments, suggestions and news tips at all times. Where a mistake is made, it will be corrected and given top priority in my reporting.
I don’t plagiarize other’s work and always attribute work properly.
Some claim that I have re-written council media releases, this is a standard journalistic practice.
The whole point of media releases is to be given to journalists to write their own reports from, having first done this as a 16 year old work experience student for the Preston Post-Times and Northcote Leader in 1996, when press releases arrived via fax.
In fact, the re-writing of media releases, and how well they were re-written, was the first assessment of semester two’s journalism subject, ‘Writing for Media’ whereby students were required to both re-write the media release and turn the media release into a news report as well.
Ashley Geelan,
Editor,
Kinglake Ranges News.
