OPINION: The media vs Laurel Papworth
While I’m sure she’s a very nice person (I once chaired a PR panel she was on and she seemed entirely human), so-called digital evangelist Laurel Papworth really grates my cheese. And not in a good way.
It’s that snide use of the phrase “heritage media”. You have to hear it come out of her mouth to feel the full contempt she appears to have for things non-digital. She takes another pop on her site.
Her usual argument is that the established media, whether print or broadcast, is stuck in its ways, ignorant of the new and doomed, doomed, doomed…
And there is a certain type of digerati who really winds me up. So obsessed are they with the new, that they refuse to accept the possibility that anything that went before has any value. Don’t Twitter? Then you’re a muppet. What do you mean you haven’t been on People Browsr yet? It’s been available in beta for nearly a fortnight – what are you thinking?
Today Laurel’s complaint is that there was a vast old media conspiracy to avoid covering her jaunt to the Middle East:
I had a poke at Australian media for ignoring my trip to Saudi Arabia to teach Arabic women about social media. Waste of time really, we know that social media is in direct competition with heritage media.
Yes, Laurel, I’m sure that’s why you weren’t on the front page of all the newspapers. It’s a plot to deny bloggers like you the oxygen of publicity. Not a news judgement about the level of interest Australians would have in the trip.
But the main thing that bugs me (and yes, I come from a print background) is the denial of human behaviour. Consumers use every form of media. Print and TV may change, but it’s not gonna die.
I’ve a feeling that in a few years, Laurel’s heritage media pronouncements will look about as visionary as the people who predicted that television would kill radio.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
I agree with Tim on this one. Papworth and some of her fellow bloggers are wind-up merchants, and arguably lack credible experience of other media that would add some rigour to their comments and curious turns of phrase (‘heritage media’ etc).
That traditional media is struggling will have an interesting side effect for Ms Papworth et al, as a whole lot of trained, experienced, credible and well-informed journalists are already being dumped with more surely to follow… while hard for these people financially, many of them will finally have the time to pay blogging the attention it deserves (instead of being squeezed within an inch of their working lives as their employers suffer).
I suspect the blogging landscape in Australia a year or two from now will be well and truly turned on its head.
User ID not verified.
Man I could not agree with you more! I am only new to the social media ‘scene’ but it is so easy to pick the ones who are just riding the wave and calling themselves experts!
Excellent post and I have just subscribed to your feed (which by the way doesn’t seem to be available on the main page – the link is https://mumbrella.com.au/feed
Rogerio
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I think her often condescending views come from her understanding technology but not media or marketing. There are loads of clones in the au social media space who are committed to telling us we are idiotic and backwards if we don’t have a yammer beta invite and will soon be extinct as the media machine suddenly becomes irrelevant. It is mistaking a media evolution as a revolution … Media channels rarely, if ever, replace eachother.
Ben
Wow. Way to cause a stir in the social media pot!
I am definitely an advocate and certainly a jumper on the social media bandwagon. But on the same hand, definitely understand the other media has its place in a marketing budget, although less so over the next few years. That’s not to say that social media is the only answer, or that social media is for every brand.
Starting with a bang, I like it!
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