P&I can pursue important issues early and keep publishing when others look away because it answers to readers, not powerful interests. One week into the August fundraiser, that community has already taken us almost 20 per cent towards our target.

In a former life, I was responsible for media and communications at the Australian National University.

My favourite part of that job was waking each day to hear familiar voices on the radio helping us all understand the events of the day – whether it was the Fukushima nuclear disaster, what to do in a white-powder scare, or another political upheaval.

Lately, it has been déjà vu all over again.

This week, ABC’s Four Corners ran a shocking exposé of a computer algorithm distorting the aged care system. Except that, for P&I readers, it wasn’t quite such an exposé. The leading expert in the field, Kathy Eagar, wrote about technology trumping human judgement back in July.

And this is no coincidence. In fact, it is a........

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