Subjects the political journalists of Australia's Canberra Press Gallery to a journalist's eye, offering a penetrating and personal story about a world both extraordinary and ordinary, where the barriers between the personal and the political shift and blur. The author, a journalist and novelist in Australia, calls for a reinvigoration of Australian journalism. Lacks a subject index. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Margaret Simons (b 1960) is an Australian academic, freelance journalist and author. She is currently the media commentator for Crikey and has written ten books.
She is currently Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Melbourne.
Simons was a finalist for a Walkley Award for journalism in 2007 for the story Buried in the Labyrinth, about the release of a pedophile into the community, published in Griffith Review and her book The Content Makers – Understanding the Future of the Australian Media was longlisted for the 2008 non-fiction book Walkley award.
Simons also writes for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Monthly. For many years, she wrote the "Earthmother" gardening column for The Australian.
Simons has a doctorate from the University of Technology, Sydney and was co-founder, with Melissa Sweet, of the community-funded news site YouComm News. She lives in Melbourne.