Exclusively old news, SMH. “Schapelle Corby conspiracy theorist to stand for WikiLeaks Party in WA Senate byelection” thundered a header in The Sydney Morning Herald, atop a Heath Aston story on the candidacy of Gerry Georgatos. What could have possessed the party to select this outlier nutter instead of the candidate in the election proper … erm, Gerry Georgatos, who is simply recontesting. It even got the”‘exclusive” banner — though Fairfax still has a long way to go to catch up to The Australian, which puts the stamp on the TV listings these days (“a number of channels will broadcast up to 24 hours of TV today, The Australian can reveal …”). — Guy Rundle

The Fin‘s real estate given to property. Did anyone catch the second edition of the new weekly paper The Australian Property Review? Yes, that’s the one this morning’s edition of The Australian Financial Review was wrapped around. The Fin carried 18 pages of property ads and small stories out of a 64-page paper. That’s 28% of the paper and far more than the 16 pages of editorial and tables devoted to companies and markets (25% of the paper) — the paper’s supposed core interest. Seven of the property pages were based on ads  from the CBRE group. Let’s hope the income from all those property ads is helping subsidise the companies and markets pages. — Glenn Dyer

Bolt from the blues. Australia’s most-read columnist seems to be down in the dumps. He’s been “lynched” and “denounced”, and now he’s “bruised”. It might “finally have been too much” for him. What’s given Andrew Bolt such a case of the sads? Bolt said he “watched in horror” as Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton called him a racist on Q&A on Monday night. Langton (falsely, says Bolt) said Bolt had said her colleague Dr Misty Jenkins had no right to claim she was Aboriginal, prompting this line from Bolt in his column today:

“I had so hurt this woman that she ‘withdrew from public life’ and had given up working with students (something seemingly contradicted by the CV on her website).”

Bolt himself was so upset by this claim that he also has withdrawn: “I was so bruised by Q&A that I didn’t go to work on Tuesday. I couldn’t stand any sympathy — which you get only when you’re meant to feel hurt.” That is seemingly contradicted by his blog on the Herald Sun‘s website. Bolt was especially prolific on Tuesday, posting 14 new entries, on everything from SPC Ardmona to Israel and, of course, racism. Being too sad to go to work seems to do wonders for his work ethic.

Front page of the day. Darwin was without power for 12 hours yesterday, with schools closed and public bus service suspended. It also made for some spooky photographs …

Dark Ages