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Browsing the highlights and lowlights of the year, media treatment of vulnerable people has been a constant. The regrettable circumstances surrounding the suicide of nurse Jacintha Saldanha come to mind, but there are surprising moments when journalists have distinguished themselves with investigative reporting for the common good.
For the international community, including Australia, it is devilishly difficult to find the most helpful stance to take with the present regime in Zimbabwe. It is naive, however, to simply assume that things will come right once Mugabe has died. The fact is that things could get worse once he is off the scene.
Many Fairfax readers will miss the familiarity and romance of print. But more disturbing is the likelihood that the dignified authority of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age mastheads will be lost when the more ephemeral, entertainment-oriented electronic edition is all we have.
The readiness of developed nations to help and receive refugees and asylum seekers has come under greater strain. Xenophobia has intensified in Europe, where Greece's Golden Dawn party threatened to expel migrants from schools and hospitals if elected.
'The Anders Breivik example shows us that extremism is not one way ... We really need to think deeply about some of our prejudices.' Australian Muslim academic Mehmet Ozalp sees the case of Norwegian mass-murderer Breivik as highlighting the urgent need for interreligious and cross-cultural dialogue.
A large segment of Malaysian society and the government in particular is clearly xenophobic. Yet Malaysia has thrown its arms wide open to asylum seekers heading to Australia. What is the motivation underlying Malaysia's sudden love affair with refugee swap deals?
Too often I've opened my front door and found myself tempted by some sales pitch. So today I'd answered warily, spoke through the screen door and tried to keep the encounter brief. 'I'm sorry, but we're not interested.' The salesman knew better: 'It's because of the colour of my skin,' he replied.
My last visit to South Africa was in 1989 when apartheid was in its death throes. The only difference between then and now in the gap between the poor (mostly black and so-called coloureds) and rich is that some blacks have become the 'nouveaux riches' of the new South Africa.
I had anguished over a particular sentence which was the subject of days of media comment. One of my fellow judges stuck his head around the door and said, 'Neil Mitchell says you are right.' This I found unsettling. Then he added, 'But don't worry, Derryn Hinch says you are a disgrace.' Phew!
What do young Australians take away from John Marsden's novels - and now, the film Tomorrow, When the War Began? They are more than escapist fantasies. They convey value messages, calling on young Australians to cherish our country, not to take it for granted, and to be prepared if necessary to kill and die for it.
X people work hard. Y people are natural athletes. Z people treat the world like they own it. Q people are violent. R people are drunkards. S people mistreat women. V people are queue jumpers. Racial generalising becomes racist only if we accept its false premise.