Remember when… that piece was first published?
Readers of the weekend print edition of the Sydney Morning Herald were treated to a lengthy – and entertaining – piece on mixtape nostalgia by Charlie Brooker.
It was almost as good as when it first appeared on the subscription-free Guardian website a fortnight before. That’s the thing about newspapers – you may be reading news that’s at least a day old, but the features can be considerably more ancient.
Perhaops that’s why the SMH headlined the piece “Do you remember when..?”
Two weeks is actually quite a short time. I’ve seen several pieces in the SMH at the weekend that are from several months before in The Guardian,
Totally agree: reading the SMH is like reading the Guardian/Telegraph, even for matters that demand an Oz local eprspective. I’m all in favour of good writing wherever it comes from, but when did we sign up again for a colonial newspaper? Where’s the coverage from lLatin America, for example: not only lots of latAm people here in Oz, but heir economic situation has to have lots of parallels with ours in the GFC….
As an expat living in Singapore, the mere mention of the SMH Weekend Edition made me smile with nostalgia. Interesting articles, opinion pieces, fiction – the Brand SMH for me, is a great aggregator of content that I like to read.
So does it really matter that it gets that content from other parts of the world … is the very fact that it has found it, and presented it to its audience enough…?
Kevin Kelly wrote a great piece (http://changethis.com/53.01.BeyondFree) on what value can be offered if everything out there on the web is free… maybe the SMH is actually ahead of its time – and practicing what he preaches…
Hi Neil,
I think the issue is perhaps that powerful media brands based outside of Australia now have strong international online audiences including here.
So the SMH cannot expect to belatedly publish a piece in its print edition that was prominent on The Guardian home page and hope that none of its readers have already seen it. It’s perhaps an example of how the game is changing for syndication too.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella