Tag Archives: News.com.au

In today’s news, more trivial shit

Posted on May 16, 2012 by | 19 Comments

This is the current main image on smh.com.au (2.45pm):

Smh.com.au Sarkozy's shoes

Shoes are An Important Story, dontchaknow.

Yes, an official meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande -
Sarkozy’s Cuban heels let him see Hollande eye to eye – and the journo writes about his shoes. And gets it wrong – those are not Cuban heels. And then the online editor at smh.com.au decides it’s important enough to be the main image.

You can’t make this shit up.

And over at News.com.au, this is the story the online editor believes is the most important of the afternoon:

News.com.au and the leak

It’s not even a popular tv show.

A tv show that often isn’t in the top 10 most watched of the week is considered more important than the news that the Electoral Commission has cleared Craig Thomson of electoral fraud. That’s right, the result of a show that most people don’t watch is more important than one of the biggest stories of the year. Or perhaps it’s that a positive result for Thomson ruins News Ltd’s anti-Government agenda. (Psst journalists, starting all your news stories with “Tony Abbott says” is not holding the Government to account. It’s letting the Opposition control your news agenda, and the result is you’re not holding anyone in power to account. Also, consider that Baym wrote this in 2005:

“Mainstream journalism’s reliance on predictable conventions can render it susceptible to manipulation by the professional speech writers and media handlers who seed public information with pre-scripted soundbites and spin,” (2005, p. 265).

Politicians know that you’ll lead your story with the dumb quip, and if someone asks any questions of substance, no one will report the answer. They also know that no journalists will fact check their claims, particularly those about the economy. Journalists, you are being used. But I digress.)

News.com.au is also running a BIG story about a finance reporter adjusting her skirt for a split second – stop the fucking presses, right? – and two free plugs for upcoming films.

I’m not suggesting that online news should be worthy and serious all the time. But it’s pretty hard to argue that it’s worthy and serious even some of the time.

One of the things I’m looking at in my doctorate is how young people experience the news. The research indicates that they reject mainstream news because it’s trivial and sensational (eg, McNair, 2000; Buckingham 2000; Raeymakers 2003; Mindich, 2005; Costera Meijer 2007… you get the picture. I won’t post all the refs below – I’ll put them in the comments if anyone wants them). It used to be the case that young people developed an interest in news when they “grew up”, but this is no longer so certain.

I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again: In the 2004 US presidential election, 21 per cent of 18-34-year-olds got their news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live – just behind the 23 per cent who got their political information from network news (Feldman, 2007). But, those who watched the comedy shows knew more about election issues than those who got their news from the MSM (National Annenberg Election Survey). If I was still a journalist, I’d be pretty fucking nervous about that.

References:
Baym, G (2005), ‘The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism’, Political Communication, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 259-276.

Costera Meijer, I (2007), ‘The paradox of popularity: How young people experience the news’, Journalism Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 96-116.

Feldman, L (2007), ‘The news about comedy: Young audiences, The Daily Show, and evolving notions of journalism’, Journalism, vol. 8, pp. 406-427.

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In Lara Bingle vs the MSM, I am on Team Lara

Posted on May 2, 2012 by | 42 Comments

The 697 people (so far) who’ve found my blog in the last 24 hours searching for “Lara Bingle nude on balcony” alerted me to the fact that someone has taken a photo of Lara Bingle nude on a balcony and told the MSM in order to drum up interest in the photo. I’m quick like that. It’s a shame the MSM isn’t so quick to realise how they’re being used, but why should entertainment reporters be any different to political reporters?

I’m going to pick on News.com.au because their story is the most ridiculous: Lara Bingle feels ‘violated’ by nude photos, by Chris Paine and Owen Vaughan. And no, I have no idea how it took two journalists to write 505 words about their Google searches, with just a single interview that resulted in one sentence making it into the story. Two journalists!

First, let me show you the bullet points at the start of the story. This will be important later:

News.com.au bullet points

The bullet points on the News.com.au Lara Bingle story.

And now the story:

LARA Bingle says she feels “violated” and “emabarrassed” by paparazzi photos of her naked on her balcony.

I’m embarrassed that neither journalist can spell “embarrassed”. But picking on typos is unfair, when there’s so much more to pick on about this story. Did I mention it took two journalists to write it?

I’d also like to point out that the photos aren’t of Lara Bingle on the balcony. She was inside her home and closing the balcony door. INSIDE HER HOME. The photos were first aired on A Current Affair (Channel 9) last night. Which means that no one in charge at ACA and no one in charge at News.com.au is bothered by the fact that it is a massive invasion of your privacy to have someone take photos of you inside your own home. Is that the kind of “journalism” they support? How many steps do you reckon it is from publishing photos of someone inside their home to hacking someone’s phone?

It is the fourth nude photo scandal to beset Bingle, and it has left her clearly upset.

Despite reporting that Bingle is “clearly upset” about these photos being plastered across news sites – as anyone would be – News.com.au is still running the photos and the story nice and large on the website. News Ltd sites love nothing more than sticking the boot into Lara Bingle while simultaneously using her as clickbait.

But what are these four nude photo scandals?

Photos of her topless in a field, taken seven years ago, appeared on websites in 2007.

You mean photos that were taken when she was possibly underaged and then sold overseas by the photographer and published in German GQ magazine and it would have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for the MSM yelling “CLICK HERE TO SEE NUDE BINGLE BOOBIES!”. It says a lot about the MSM’s attitude towards Lara Bingle that the person who made money from selling the photographs is believed, but the person in the photos is not.

A mobile-phone snap of her in a shower, allegedly taken by her then lover, former AFL player Brendan Fevola, when they had a brief fling in 2006, was first published in 2010. Those pics contributed to the breakdown of her relationship with cricketer Michael Clarke, to whom she was engaged.

A photo that News.com.au gleefully ran across their homepage ALL DAY. A photo that any idiot could see Bingle had not consented to. A photo that Fevola reportedly showed to all his mates and a bunch of sports journos, and despite him being married, the journos portrayed it as her scandal, not his. You tell me, what’s more scandalous: a young woman in a nude photo she doesn’t want taken, or a married man taking a nude photo of a woman without her consent and then showing it to his workmates and the media. It’s pretty embarrassing for journalists that they can’t even get the scandal right.

Sources said a different set of photos showing the bikini model sunbathing topless on Bondi Beach were offered to magazines several weeks ago, though apparently there were no takers.

“Sources said”? I call bullshit. That just sounds like someone wanting to have a go at her.

And now, wait for it… the single quote that it took two journalists to get:

“She’s really upset and embarrased about this invasion of privacy,” she told news.com.au.

That was really worth the wait, wasn’t it? Two journalists! And they still can’t spell “embarrassed”. (I really hope there are no typos in this post…)

While Bingle is believed to be upset about the most recent shots, the drama surrounding their taking and attempted sale will only focus more attention on her reality show, which is being made for Channel 10.

Remember those bullet points?

But some claim the whole thing is a stunt

With no reference to ANYONE who may be making that claim, we can only assume that it’s Paine or Vaughan making that claim. It’s not really journalism is it, to report your opinion as though it’s someone else’s?

Sure, it could be a stunt. But without a single piece of evidence in this story indicating that it could be a stunt, I’m inclined to believe that it’s just the journos making it up.

Whatever you do, don’t read the comments. Remember, these are the ones that a journalist read and thought “yes, that’s fine to publish”.

Like this one:
Brett of Perth Posted at 2:13 PM Today
Who hasn’t seen it all before anyway and if Fevola didnt want it, how hot can it be?

Clearly hot enough for Brett of Perth to click on the story in order to see naked photos of her. How stupid can Brett of Perth be?

Update May 14: Still don’t think News Ltd websites use the words “Lara Bingle nude” to increase traffic? Check out the links at the bottom of yesterday’s story. These links were manually added by a journalist:

Links in Daily Telegraph's Lara Bingle story

Dailytelegraph.com.au demonstrates just how much they rely on Lara Bingle for traffic

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A new low in journalism

Posted on February 14, 2012 by | 10 Comments

The third top story on News.com.au tonight is a photo of the dining table inside Whitney Houston’s hotel room. [Update: I originally published this post with a screengrab of the story, but having that photo on my blog didn't sit well with me. It made me just as bad as them. So, it's gone.]

Third top by placement, put there by an editor. I ummed and ahhed about clicking on it, but needed the timestamp. It’s been there for five hours. Five hours. Since it’s 9.30pm, that’s most likely two shifts. Two different news editors have decided that it’s ok to run this story.

News.com.au is running images of Whitney Houston's hotel room

A new low in Australian journalism

The first – apparently most important – bullet point: Whitney’s last meal: Hamburger, fries, turkey sandwich. Followed by speculation.

Do we need to know what Whitney Houston had for dinner? No. The answer is no. It’s 99.9999999 out of 100 times always no.

It is grief porn. It has no real news value. It is there to make people think they might see something gory. For shame, News.com.au, for shame.

Update: I published too quickly. It’s the main pic at dailytelegraph.com.au, with the caption:

SEE inside the hotel room of tragic pop star Whitney Houston before her death, including the final meal she ordered.

It’s not a fucking theme park ride.

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MSM finds the big stories just too damn hard

Posted on October 13, 2011 by | 39 Comments

The most important story on the News.com.au homepage at midday is that a former Playboy playmate walked past the striking Qantas workers. Seriously. This is their main story. You can’t make this shit up:

A former playmate near striking Qantas workers is Big News at news.com.au

A former playmate near striking Qantas workers is Big News at news.com.au

And if you clicked on the Kendra Wilkinson link and saw the photo of her at the airport, despite the nonsense that she “lifted their members”, I’d be surprised if anyone knew who she was. Unless the Telegraph journo (who wrote the story) told them, simply so he could link her arrival to the Qantas story. You know, I’ve always thought that the striking Qantas workers story could do with some boobies.

By the way, I loved that the Hamster guys last night laughed at news.com.au’s laziness with this story: Help us decode the carbon law:

IT HAS 18 pieces of legislation, making up 1129 pages and 255,539 words.

And it’s the most important change to Australia’s laws in decades.

At news.com.au we want you to help us sift through the fine print and tell us what you think.

So take the time to go through the bills – there are links to them all below – and let us know what you find.

It’s SO IMPORTANT that not a single journalist at news.com.au was told to read it. Getting your audience to read legislation for you because you couldn’t be bothered is hardly the data journalism that The Guardian used to investigate 458,832 pages of MPs’ expenses. And we all know that’s where they got the idea. Well, they got the idea but they missed the point.

But I should be even-handed in my pointing out of dumb journalism. The Herald Sun had one of their journalists get a “body language expert” to comment on a photo of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. (And other than talking to journalists, what do body language experts do? Is it like therapy, but instead of talking about your stuff you show a video of someone else doing something?): Cold comfort in kiss between Gillard and Rudd:

IT was almost like she was kissing a blow-up doll, a body language expert declared of yesterday’s kiss between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

Dig at Gillard’s private life, check.

Allan Pease, who co-wrote the “Definitive Book Of Body Language”, said both politicians were trying to put on a positive show, but the gesture appeared too thought-out and lacked genuine warmth.

“The whole thing is awkward,” Mr Pease said.

You know what’s really awkward? Convincing people you’re a real news organisation when you run dumb stories like this.

Who gives a shit if Gillard and Rudd like each other or not? Do you like every person you work with?

According to the story, Rudd was holding a “bundle of paperwork” in one arm so he went for a handshake. What the story fails to mention, but you can see it in the video, is that everyone was hugging and kiss-on-the-cheeking:

Mr Rudd initiated contact with a handshake before Ms Gillard converted it into a full-blown embrace.

But instead of a heartfelt hug Mr Pease said the PM squeezed her former boss’s shoulders in a holding-like grip.

Ooh, “former boss”, nice little undermining dig there from Wes Hosking. And besides, aren’t all grips “holding-like”? If you’re gripping something, you’re holding it. And to me it just looks like a normal hand on the shoulder (but I am not a body language expert, of course):

A normal kiss on the cheek becomes THE END OF THE WORLD at the Herald Sun

A normal kiss on the cheek becomes THE END OF THE WORLD at the Herald Sun

If you don’t put your hand on the other person’s arm, then it just dangles awkwardly by your side.

Ms Gillard pushing her hips away from Mr Rudd was a further sign the pair lacked an intimate connection, as was her closed-mouth smile.

“Women do that gesture in situations where they feel really uncomfortable,” Mr Pease said.

I’d hate to work with Mr Pease who thinks that a kiss on the cheek between colleagues requires a crotch thrust and grind.

“If you’re with some bird and you’re trying to impress her and she’s got the expression Julia Gillard’s got, you kind of know you’re bombing out.”

Um, Mr Pease, you do know they’re not dating, right?

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Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Posted on October 6, 2011 by | 8 Comments

This is a bit insensitive, News.com.au:

News.com.au - offering live coverage of someone being confirmed dead.

News.com.au - offering live coverage of someone being confirmed dead.

The headline “Steve Jobs, 1955-2011″ would make you look a little less giddy with excitement over the news that someone has died.

Plus, talk about not getting the point of a live blog. Here, let me explain it to you. I promise I won’t use big words: A live blog is for unfolding events. Once someone has died, there ain’t a lot more to happen. Sure, “tributes will flow in” (one of journalism’s favourite cliches), but the event itself is over.

News.com.au tells us they don't have any news

News.com.au tells us they don't have any news

If you don’t have any news, why bother saying it? It just opens you up to jokes at your expense: “Hurr, hurr, News.com.au has admitted they don’t have any news on their site”.

Sure, there is more to come after this story – those tributes have to “flow in” – but just because you have the technology to live blog, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for every story. I thought that was pretty obvious.

Update (and no, I’m not live-blogging the news coverage. I just saw this and felt my criticism should be fair and balanced): Now smh.com.au is doing it too:

Smh.com.au also feels the need to live blog a death

Smh.com.au also feels the need to live blog a death

Tell me, what’s more important: knowing that Bill Gates said “I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work”, or knowing that he said it 11.40am?

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Wine company 1, news editors 0

Posted on August 15, 2011 by | 18 Comments

When women talk about anything – even their lunch – it’s apparently gossip. At least, that’s the bullshit this stupid story from News.com.au wants you to believe: Women gossip five hours a day. And you can’t argue, because it’s a study by a wine company.

I don’t get the headline. Why can’t I argue about it?

The story is yet another Daily Mail re-write. News.com.au is full of them. They even re-write British crime stories, which makes absolutely no sense.

EVERY cliché about gossiping women has been confirmed by a new study into how much time women spend talking and what they talk about.

Ah, no, it doesn’t confirm anything of the sort. It does say that women spend five hours a day talking about stuff – which most people who work with other people would do. And since it is very clearly not a peer-reviewed study, all it does confirm is that news websites can be relied on to uncritically give your wine company a free plug.

Now, the FIRST question a journalist should ask when given a media release by a wine company about a “study” is: why would a wine company be interested in this? The answer, of course, is a very simple Google search away:

Keen to try and bottle up the energy and buzz created when girls have a get together FirstCape Café Collection is looking for the UK’s Queen of Chat, the chattiest, most fun, engaging and bubbliest female, to reflect their lighter style wine range.

So pick up a bottle of FirstCape Café Collection – available from all major retailers (RRP £3.99) – on your way home tonight and let the chat begin.

Yes, that’s right. FirstCape wines has a new wine range to promote, and just got free coverage in the UK and Australia. They must be laughing their arses off while rolling in the handfuls of cash that they saved on advertising.

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A reliable source of unreliable information

Posted on July 25, 2011 by | 15 Comments

The last few days have been a news editor’s wet dream: a massacre and a dead celebrity. Journalists would have been called in on their day off BECAUSE IT’S A NEWS EMERGENCY. And once the online journos have raided the photo library for galleries, and scoured the internet for every bit of salacious gossip that can be dressed up as news (hey, if you put inverted commas around it, then you don’t need to verify it, right?), the boss will be buying pizza for everyone to celebrate (I know this from experience). The excitement in the newsroom is actually quite disgusting.

If you look at where the stories come from, almost all will be British tabloid re-writes. As though a British tabloid is a reliable source of information. (There’s another issue here, in that everyone assumes that someone else has checked the story and verified all the claims. But that’s another post.)

And so we have this at news.com.au:

Amy Winehouse story

News.com.au, reliably reporting unreliable information.

That she bought coke and ketamine earlier that night is just an unverified claim from an unnamed source The Sun found in a pub, so it should be ‘Coke, ketamine’. And treated with a bucket of salt. But why let punctuation get in the way of a drug headline. (Also, a coke and ketamine night isn’t exactly sordid. Or unusual for many people in the UK and Australia. It shits me to tears when journalists act all pious over drug-taking. I’ve been to News Christmas parties and they are not examples of clean living. And like many workplaces, Tuesdays are grumpy days in newsrooms.)

The story itself is yet another re-write from The Daily Mail: Claims Amy Winehouse bought ‘cocktail of drugs’ on night she died:

DETAILS of how Amy Winehouse spent her final hours have emerged, with claims she bought a cocktail of drugs before her tragic death.

That doesn’t even make sense. Either the “details have emerged” (what a cliche) or they’re just unverified claims. It can’t be both.

And what gives any journalist – particularly one on the other side of the world – the right to report that someone died from a drug overdose before the cause of death has been established? Unless that journalist was with the person when they died, then it’s just speculation designed to get people to read a story, which is good for advertising. We’re talking about a celebrity whose music is loved by millions – people will still read the story if you don’t put drugs in the headline. And when the results of the autopsy are released, then you can report that. You know, like journalists are supposed to do.

The story has been updated since I first read it, and is now shouting about how Winehouse MAY HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR A FEW HOURS BEFORE SHE WAS FOUND, OH MY GOD! What a ridiculous piece of hysterical reporting.

I’m not having a go at individual journalists. We’re all guilty of doing things without thinking too deeply about the words we’re using. But Australian journalism has a serious credibility problem, and this is not a problem you want to have when you’re facing paywalls on websites. Here’s a radical suggestion: why not make the product worth paying for?

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