Silvester is, as far as his job description goes, a 'senior writer on law and justice'. But in his 'Naked City' column each week he delivers much more. He is a throwback to an age when journalists drank with the men they chronicled, an era without mobile phones, Twitter and 24hr news stations. His writing is hard but witty, sensitive but tough, and each week his column his the first (and sometimes last) thing I read in a paper costing $2.70.
His column today on Tony Mokbel's elaborate scheme to skip town during his 2006 trial for cocaine trafficking was fantastic, as was this 2010 piece - written with his Underbelly offsider Andrew Rule - on former Victorian police chief Mick Miller.
Flanagan is a sports writer, primarily a scribe on Australian rules football, but like Silvester he writes with such feeling and passion for his subject that the terms journalist and sports writer sell him short.
He also writes a column inside the paper proper entitled Saturday Reflections, funnily enough next to the insipid Danny Katz, where he gets to sound off on pretty much anything.
His thoughts on the divide between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians are where he really shines.
