Stories have been doing the rounds in some towns of retailers collecting bushfire relief funds and not being transparent about what they do with the money. My advice is:

1. Be clear about the charity for which you collect.
2. If collections, deposit donations regularly.
3. Get a receipt for each deposit you make and post the receipt in store and on your business social media pages.
4. Choose a charity that is known and understood locally and one that is not engaged with any agenda that may concern some – like any church organisation.

We took this approach following the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria and found our customers appreciated the transparency.

The other point about this is to maintain a business as usual approach as much and possible. I say this as the everyday needs you serve in a typical newsagency or newsagency like business are still there. Serving these needs and not having your attention diverted (as much as practical and possible based on your location) makes sense.

‘Dangerous, misinformation’: News Corp employee’s fire coverage email, by Zoe Samios and Andrew Hornery writing for the Sydney Morning Herald is fascinating look inside News Corp and how one employee views their reporting on climate change.

A News Corp employee has slammed the organisation for its “irresponsible”, “dangerous” and “damaging” coverage of the national bushfire crisis, urging executive chairman Michael Miller to think about the “big picture”.

In an email distributed to News Corp Australia staff and addressed to Mr Miller, commercial finance manager Emily Townsend said she had been filled with anxiety and disappointment over the coverage, which had impacted her ability to work.

…

“I find it unconscionable to continue working for this company, knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies. The reporting I have witnessed in The Australian, the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun is not only irresponsible, but dangerous and damaging to our communities and beautiful planet that needs us more than ever to acknowledge the destruction we have caused and started doing something about it.”

I think the News Corp. reporting climate change has been appalling, ignoring science for baseless fantasy theories from the fringes. Add this to the extreme bias demonstrated buy News Corp on myriad political matters and non wonder people are cancelling their subscriptions and stopping purchasing newspapers.

News Corp. newspapers and online platforms seek to drive agendas rather than reporting news in my opinion. Shame on any of us how pay this American controlled company money to interfere in the future of our country in this way.

Facebook permits the publishing of clearly false and misleading information shared by individuals, community groups and commercial entities on the Facebook platform. Over the last four weeks, during the bushfire crisis, we have seen Facebook permit extraordinary lies to remain published, and, indeed, be shared by many. Facebook have cared little for truth during this.

Facebook ignores or rejects complaints to them about untruthful posts. I suspect it ignores the complaints because plenty of the posts are boosted, paid for. To reject the posts would harm the Facebook business model.

A week ago we discovered a bunch of boxes had been dumped in the car park at our office. The recipients of the parcels had to removed their name and address details. We took photos and I posted about it on Facebook. One of the named people complained and the post was removed by Facebook in a few hours.

Facebook says it was a breach of privacy yet the boxes were dumped, illegally actually, with the information I included out in the public domain.

That Facebook acted so swiftly demonstrates its editorial capability. It is disappointing that it does not use this editorial capability on clearly false and misleading information. My disappointment at Facebook turns to anger during election time when the company permits untruths to be spread, impacting informed engagement in the democratic process.

While we do have news outlets in Australia that also publish untruths, this is especially true of News Corp. outlets, there is some semblance, insufficient in my view but a semblance nevertheless, of accountability. Facebook faces no such accountability.

Truth matters. You only have to look at the back burning nonsense published on social media during the bushfire crisis to see this. There were hundreds (thousands?) of posts claiming that the Greens had blocked back burning. The Greens have never controlled any state or federal parliamentary chamber. The only time a Greens politician had any say over back burning was in the ACT for a brief time and that Greens politician oversaw extensive back burning. Yet, social media platforms like Facebook permitted the nonsense to be published. Complaints went unanswered.

Back to my post about the boxes. One of the people named called me and said that they paid someone else to dump their trash so it was not their problem and that it was not their fault that their address details were not removed from the boxes. They offered to come and pick up their trash. However, once Facebook removed the post I’ve not heard from them again.

Click here to see a New York Times article from today on this topic.