More ‘errors’ stirs Bauer to action on international articles labeled as Australian
Bauer has put “processes in place” around internationally syndicated content after more examples of international stories being presented as local content came to light, including the address of an English woman telling the tale of her “crooked cop” husband being further changed for the New Zealand market.
On Friday Mumbrella revealed a story in Take 5 by Lisa Andrew had her home address changed from Redruth, Cornwall, to Redfern, NSW. At the time Bauer blamed it on a typographical “error”, but it has emerged the same story in Bauer’s Lucky Break magazine in New Zealand described her as being from Christchurch. Both titles are under the purview of real-life weeklies editor-in-chief Paul Merrill.
In this week’s Take 5 Sara Westle, the source of the story ‘She’s keeping a deadly secret’, is said to be from Melton, Victoria, rather than her actual home of Leicester in the midlands of England.
And the story ‘Darl it’s our Honeymoon’, said to be about Louise Blair, 25, of Brisbane, has been adapted from an exclusive story in British tabloid The Sun, and is understood to originate from Scotland.
The revelations throw further shadows over the way Bauer handles internationally syndicated content, after the group said it would look to share more stories from around the world, with journalism academic David McKnight telling Mumbrella the original “crooked cop” article was “one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen in journalism”.
Bauer Media Group says that article had originally appeared in The Daily Mail and was purchased via a “syndication service”.
However it is not the only article from the publisher to have certain facts altered from the original story.
Lucky Break, NZ
Take5 said the victim was from NSW
Take 5 also published a photograph of 100-year-old Daisy Dunnett in the article “My secret is my Toyboy” showing her holding a copy of Take 5, in place of her birthday telegram from the Queen.
A spokeswoman for Bauer Media Group said: “There have clearly been some errors and we now have processes in place to make sure it won’t happen again. Editorial excellence is paramount to Bauer Media across all titles and platforms.”
“Errors”. Come on. This is just endemic in the industry. It’s called “Making Sh1t Up” Like FAMOUS magazine claiming someone is married, and poor Jennifer Aniston can’t hold onto a man/babies!!!
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“Editorial excellence is paramount to Bauer Media” bahahahaha.
Fess up guys, you tried and failed.
Yup now its time for you to…
1) be surprised it happened
2) Apologise for an innocent mistake
3) Put “steps in place” to ensure it wont happen again.
Job done according to the “media problem solving for dummies”.
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This is just getting embarrassing. Just call it for what it is, Bauer!
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Fiction, not factual. Saving money at the expense of quality. Reveals very poor journalism ethics and lack of regard for the people they use in their stories and their readers. Be great if we could have Australian media professionals writing stories about real Australians, instead of all this imported garbage. Might give Bauer a bit more control over quality (and credibility) that way, too.
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This is why I stopped buying magazines, foreign crap being printed in magazines which were previously Aussie icons. I – like many others – bought a magazine called Australasian Post every week, which contained bush yarns, Ken Maynard pub cartoons and pictures of iconic Australian scenes. When Murdoch took over HWT in 1987, within a few months I noticed foreign crap sneaking in – stories about the cheese rolling in the UK, the tomato throwing festival in Spain, etc. When they ran a story about the running of the bulls I stopped buying it permanently. The magazine closed down a few years later.
Take 5 started as a mag featuring reader-submitted articles and competitions. To now have this sort of thing sneaking in is a tragedy. It will ensure that magazines – and the print media in general – will continue its long decline in the Internet age.
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F#@$%^ing sub-editors eh? always changing stuff.
Yours Truly
Wil,
Host of the Neil Mitchell Program
St Kilda,
North Dakota
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@ Aussie_Austridge…. sadly for a mag to survive these days it’s going to have to be an overseas license where a fair slice of the editorial is taken from its foreign parent. Just the way publishing runs these days – it’s cheap, ready made and ready to go with a quick sub turning $US to Aussie ones. Magazines have been doing it for ages, and I’ve certainly noticed that the newspapers are consistently doing it too now. From my experience (in the mag game) the publishers of these titles screw, screw and screw the editorial costs down to the ground and pick themselves up a nice Christmas bonus for doing it. Things aren’t going to change when many publishers’ mantra these days is cost cutting.
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So DB you are saying there’s lots of “screwing” going on in the editorial teams at Bauer? Now there’s an exclusive!!!!
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So unethical and so unnecessary. Australia is teeming with great stories. I worked with Bauer in the UK and I know the stories they like. I’ve worked in Australian media for many years too. I regularly have great stories for these magazines but get fobbed off or hear crickets (not always I must say, but there are fab stories waiting to be told), and yet old overseas stories are regurgitated. Give the public what they actually want which is real life stories about real Australian people! And hey, maybe employ a few Aussies as well.
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