I’d just like to apologise for taking part in this silly war of words – unbelievably childish, tedious words – between News Ltd and the internet in general. Because no-one cares. It was entirely pointless. What were any of us trying to achieve?
In our defence, it’s not like there was anything else going on in the world worth discussing.
10 responses so far ↓
dam buster of preston // 6 July, 2009 at 12:44 pm
It is just Newscorp getting worried about dropping readerships and trying to figure out how they can ‘create’ on line subscription based readerships without looking like asses
Megan // 6 July, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Now all you have to do is make sure you never refer to their online rubbish ever again.
Classic Rupert: Everyone is talking about me so I’m important.
Please don’t mention that site again!
PS: The sooner they disappear behind a paywall the better.
cemil // 7 July, 2009 at 11:16 am
I hate it when the media tries to become the story. Watching the Australian and Media Watch going at it over the years has been nauseating. What I find hilarious is that there are now sites that talk about the sites that talk about the news sites. If this keeps going we will have full blog employment by 2012 (sounds like an election promise Rudd can make!)
Think of all the effort wasted on media topic naval gazing!
cemil // 7 July, 2009 at 11:18 am
“PS: The sooner they disappear behind a paywall the better.”
What, you want to put the whole media naval gazing industry out of business!!
Pevva // 7 July, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Erm, it’s a bit hard for a show called “Media Watch” not to have stories about the media ….
As long as News outlets push their commercial barrows through their publications, they are fair game for criticism, just as any other company can be held to account for its statements and activities.
Magpie // 7 July, 2009 at 2:47 pm
What I find hilarious is that there are now sites that talk about the sites that talk about the news sites. … Think of all the effort wasted on media topic naval gazing!
Sometimes, when a whimsical mood strikes me, I have conversations with friends and relatives about things that aren’t directly related to my day to day activities, like clouds and politics and cool things that ants do and who I’d execute if I was Emperor and problems with that movie’s plot and what a bunch of tossers pollies are and how a 4 stroke engine works and holy crap look at that news item and christ the media report science badly and obviously Alexander was Macedonian but also a bit of a no-talent prat and, well, lots of stuff. Conversations are part of life and humans often enjoy them, even if they don’t have the weight of divine sanction that paid written content apparently has, and even if the people speaking are often reasonably ignorant of the subject (conversations occasionally being a method of discovering and combatting such ignorance).
When people realise that blogs are just people having conversations, only on teh intarnets!!@1, we might not have all this hand wringing.
JUST BECAUSE IT’S IN WRITING DOESN’T MEAN IT’S MAGIC.
Megan // 7 July, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Only slighty ‘topic adjacent’, brisbanetimes.com.au has a hilarious piece accusing the PUBLIC of lying to JOURNALISTS!!!!
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/who-are-you-to-call-us-untrustworthy-20090707-db8p.html
Jeremy // 7 July, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Oh my god. That is hilarious.
“Where do we go from here? Can journalists take anyone at face value anymore? Do we need to verify every eyewitness we speak to? What do you think?”
YES! That’s what’s supposed to differentiate you from, I don’t know, a tape recorder.
Thank you Megan – I’ve posted on it at Pure Poison. There may be a post here after dinner, too.
Megan // 7 July, 2009 at 10:45 pm
You’re welcome, glad you liked it.
Interesting point, though: “testimony” from every “eye-witness”? We at SpringHillVoice who are subjected to this poor excuse for journalism asked a few questions: To whom did they ‘testify’? Isn’t it the case that you got this story from something a police officer told you that someone had told them? Wouldn’t that be “second hand hearsay speculation from an unidentified third party subsequently denied by police”, rather than something as weighty as “testimony”? And, “how does something a cop told your cadet on the scene qualify as talking to those lying eyewitnesses?”
Keep up the good work, but please try not to link to the punchdrunkfunk. Please?
Jeremy // 7 July, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I”ll try not to.
I’ve done another post on Conal which’ll upload in the morning.