Nigeria, Jan. 23 -- Last month's eulogising of the late Australian "shock jock" John Laws has been revealing on the state of health of what is laughably left of the Fourth Estate. It's a telling, sociological reading about those in Australian media who tend to be impressionable and provincial, and the members of a deferential political class keen to keep on the right side of an airwave babbler so superficial and bullying he came to be celebrated as "Golden Tonsils".

Instead of steely, firm analysis of demagogy and corrupt conduct on the airways, a production line of cliches befitting a gouty monarch or mafia don was in the offing. It was uncritical and mawkish, sinister in showing that everyone in the business of broadcasting and news ...