As a sometime journalist with a law degree, I’m not awed by either fancy qualification. I think Jack’s post clearly spells out Galbally’s qualification: he’s a criminal QC who also hires himself out as a TV entertainer. Brain surgeons also have impressive qualifications but would we wheel one out on national TV because he put his hand up in class to suggest cutting Facebook off in Victoria?

Being a QC, Galbally must have called his fair share of experts to testify and he must of course be careful to ask the right questions. And this debate is all about asking the right question. Here’s mine, QC Lover: if a QC had a trial involving Facebook or the internet, would he call Galbally as an expert witness?

Get this if you can, OK? He’s a QC and she’s a journo. That’s it.

I would add that I agree with Kimota, who is posting on Laurel Papworth’s blog to the effect that the fact that its hard shouldn’t mean we won’t try to enforce the law. That the mob now has more powerful means of communicating and organising, doesn’t make it all right. But, as you say, Galbally does himself no favours by suggesting Facebook can stop this any more than Telstra Stadium’s management can control what conversations happen in there.

Derek, the blog entry wasn’t anonymous or uncredited. This particular template doesn’t show the author, you have to go to the RSS feed, which I admit is a weakness we might have to look into.

Derek and John, I think it depends entirely on your definition of journalist whether Melissa Doyle qualifies. We could debate it for some time, throwing dictionaries and common use at each other but it wouldn’t further this particular debate. Is every person who has a journalism degree from Charles Sturt a journalist regardless of what they’ve gone on to do. Perhaps a special episode of “Where Are They Now?” would clear that up.

In terms of “correcting the record”: if you consider hosting “Sunrise” to be journalism then it is quite clear from the original post what she does.

What you both read as thinly-veiled attacks were not veiled attacks in any meaningful sense of the words but clear expressions of a view on Doyle and Galbally’s qualifications for this debate. They were “personal” references only in that any discussion of an individual’s qualifications would have to be personal to that individual.

Galbally might be second only to his father in eminence as a criminal QC but a search on Google (Bible to the Web 2.0 crowd) showed him primarily as a paid speaker and TV commentator (”Sunrise”, for instance) and entertainer (”The Einstein Factor”). His qualifications in criminal law — QC — were mentioned on the show but neither “Sunrise” nor any of the websites I saw offered anything as to his qualifications for a question like this. His comments about what Facebook could and should do suggested an answer.

It wouldn’t be a criminal matter but it would be interesting to hear Galbally’s view on whether suggesting someone wasn’t a journalist could be considered libellous. I know many people who would consider it defamatory to be called a journalist. Ho ho.