An unremarkably large amount of coverage of an ‘unremarkable’ story
The decision by The Australia’s editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell to threaten Julie Posetti with legal action over a tweet she made while covering a conference is unremarkable, the newspaper says.
So unremarkable, that the newspaper has today dedicated a remarkable 20 paragraphs to explaining why it is unremarkable. Unfortunately, within those 20 paragraphs, there was no room to explore the issues around a newspaper suing (or threatening to sue) a journalist for reporting remarks allegedly made by somebody else at a conference, even if they were later denied.
And just to be sure we get the message about the unremarkableness of it all, the point is reiterated with an article in the paper’s Media Diary too.
I lol’d
I think the Australian is developing a serious disorder with being unable to stop talking about itself. Seems like every day it’s got another editorial justifying it’s coverage of this or that. I just blogged about this (see link below), but I think the editors need to seriously look at whether such an approach is going to grow or diminish the Oz’s relevance to readers
http://spongeist.wordpress.com.....-yourself/
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Ironically, the Media Diary piece is at odds with the other piece about just how remarkable or otherwise this may be.
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Interesting line in the Media Diary entry;
“If it had happened on a newspaper, the paper would have to apologise, correct the record, and if damage had been done to someone’s reputation, pay recompense. Strip out the sexy addition of social media, in other words, and this is journalism – the rules are there to keep us all honest, so let’s not try to bend them.”
Did Chris Mitchell ask for a retraction?
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Ok, it may be rare in the Twitterverse, but I don’t mind the recent sharpening of the poltical tone of The Australian. Compared to the increasingly vacuous Fairfax titles, I’d rather a paper with personality and a voice. And titles with a differing viewpoint in competition.
But, it’s plain to see that if you cross Holtocracy, you will get squashed. Particularly if you’re already as small as a gnat.
The Grog’s Gamut “expose” a few weeks back, where a blogger was “exposed” as a Canberra public servant, and now Posetti-Gate, never merited a scintilla of the coverage they were awarded by The Oz’s Media section.
Prime real estate on the back page given to these “stories”? Please. Alongside the year’s ratings, as a story today? Yet there they’ve been.
In fact, you should be hard pressed to think that the Grog and Posetti stories merited a mention in the Media Diary, with its Kool-Aid contrived controversies.
And how many defamation plaintiffs get an article to kick off their litigation, as was the case last Friday?
And I don’t imagine that the Holtocracy will be launching litigation against Mark Scott for his digs at the firm last week.
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Suddenly the game has changed now the audio has been released on the ABC site. Should Chris Mitchell resign because of his personal eco-facist views and prescriptive manipulation of his staff to fit in with his political agenda? Where to draw the line.
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