Is the Adelaide Now drunk man video bad news judgement or click addiction?
I’m not sure if this is a change of strategy to get clicks or a misjudgement, but a very odd “story” has been posted in the news section of Adelaide Now.
A CCTV video popped up on YouTube about a week ago featuring somebody in the US affected either by drink or drugs chaotically trying to buy booze.
Admittedly it’s quite funny- particularly if you don;t think too hard about the misfortune of the person involved. You may even have had it forwarded to you – I have, a couple of times.
But two days ago News Digital Media’s Adelaide Now decided it was news. Or rather, they posted it in their news section under the headline “Drunkest man ever tries to buy booze” with the following copy:
“IT’S something many have done – headed to a bottle shop drunk to try to buy more booze. But our efforts were never caught on CCTV and posted on the internet. Unlike this poor bloke, whose Chaplinesque efforts at procuring some beer from a bottle shop were caught on film and promptly posted on the web with the tag: ‘Drunkest Guy Ever Goes for More Beer’ so millions of viewers could gawk and have a giggle. Enjoy!”
The reader comments tend to echo my confusion on why this is a) a story or b) relevant to Adelaide. Although by no means all of them are critical, those that are include:
- “This is not news”
- “Oh, yeah, that’s ketamine. No doubt about it whatsoever. Although don’t blame the journos. They’re worked like dogs and many of them are very young and lack the basic life experience to recognise this video is wholly inappropriate for a news site. Blame the profit motive and the staff cutbacks, the hiring of what are more or less kids to do an adult’s job, and the wholesale sacking of the people (sub-editors) who were previously employed to check facts (and spelling, ahem) and act as a last line of defence for overworked, tired journos.”
- Adelaide News? Shame. This happened in the US and has been on Youtube for a few days. What does it have to do with Adelaide or even Australia?
- “Pretty inappropriate for a domestic news service to consider this as being worthy of reporting. To finish with “Enjoy” only serves to underline the distasteful tone of the entire article. Best leaving the humiliation video hosting to college websites, AdelaideNow, they do little to assist the already ailing credibility issues of a supposed “news” service.
- “This is absolute shit and not news worthy, It’s sad that news services are turning to internet funnies for stories. There are no factual details in this story. Get a clue Advertiser before you embarrass yourself on a much larger scale.”
- “I can’t believe this is on AdelaideNow.”
Which suggests that at the very least, the video doesn’t tie in with Adelaide Now (and the Adelaide Advertiser’s) brand values as the readers woule perceive them.
But it’s also the first time I remember being forwarded a link to an Adelaide Now story. And guess what’s currently the site’s most read article? Are clicks worth it at any price?
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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It looks to fake and a bad ‘drunk’ performance.
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Definitely not news in any way, shape or form.
Very worrying that News plan to charge people for content of this calibre.
Ben Shepherd wrote an interesting post about this also – http://bit.ly/7DTkB
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They haven’t even got the original video and pinched it from someone else who has watermarked the thing.
Rupert, I mean Wendy, you guys are gold.
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News Ltd needs to create a social/fun spin-off site for this sort of thing. Then they can get their share of the viral stuff without dragging down their newspapers further. Slashdot.org did it quite poorly with idle.slashdot.org, but they had the right idea at least.
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Thanks for the link Joel. I was complaining/ saying admiringly to someone yesterday that the problem with Ben is that he keeps thinking the same thing as me and writing it first.
Do follow Joel’s link – it’s a good perspective.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
“The hiring of what are more or less kids to do an adult’s job”
That’s a disgustingly ageist remark. Are you saying anyone under the age of 20 isn’t capable of independent thought?
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I think you’re asking the wrong people, Don.
As I mentioned above, that was a comment that appeared on the Adelaide Now website.
But as it happens, to a certain extent, I tend to agree with that comment. As journalists become more epxerienced they tend to hone their understanding of who their readers are, and what the news values of their title are. That informs their judgement of what to put in – and what to leave out.
That’s not about age per se, but about time spent as a journalist.
I’d be pretty confident that this piece wasn’t posted by a 20-year news veteran.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
My apologies… I read that fast and wrong.
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Fairfax do this as well. They take clips from youtube and other sources and republish them without permission. They could easily embed them but then they couldn’t wrap them with ads. Eventually someone will sue them. I can understand if it’s newsworthy but it usually isn’t
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Err, is that a joke, or illustrating the point, or some sort of coincidence, or hypocrisy or auto ad placement thingo that has the Adelaide Now “Todays most Popular” whatsit right beside the devastating critique?
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…and now it’s on the Herald Sun and Courier Mail websites, such is it’s newsworthiness!
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Maybe i’ve been eating too much iSnack 2.0 but this looks fake.
Notice at the end of the vid, the guy easily hops up, opens the door and leaves?
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@Jock
That is a screengrab so that we can see that the video was in the most popular.
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poor, poor effort.
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