Will Colvin – the George Costanza of Australian online journalism – should have quit, not dumped on his colleagues

As everyone who ever worked with him said today: ‘We all knew’.

What a lazy, entitled jerk.

If he was good enough he would have broken a decent story no matter where he worked. He didn’t.

As much as you really want to dislike Colvin, and I do, you can’t help also having a sneaky sense of smug satisfaction that this will all eventually come back and haunt him one day….

Completely agree. How utterly narcissistic and selfish is this guy to a) do this in the first place, and b) expect praise for it. On social media he seemed surprised Fairfax journalists were condemning him as juvenile.

Considering he has a comfy job doing voiceovers for Media Watch to fall back on, this probably won’t affect him much. But that job was awarded on merit, of course… would have nothing to do with his father being a high-profile ABC presenter…

A lot of people are saying I should have vacated that position for another journalist, so I should make something clear.

The article I wrote describes a period of about a month. I’d been working my fucking arse off for News, everyone was being made redundant and I was one of the people who was picking up the slack, and then my shifts started being cut down.

The company was in free fall, no one knew what the fuck was going on. These new people were coming in and changing everything and everyone was being sacked.

I started to notice that no one noticed if I stopped working. No one gave a shit if I worked my arse off, and no one gave a shit if I didn’t.

By that point I was working for them, about 15 hours a week, and they’d placed me into a role that hadn’t been what I signed up for.

So I bunked off, in the ways I described, for like seven or eight shifts, and then I quit the company.

Yes, the article I wrote was very hyperbolic. I made it sound like I was worse thanI was, because it’s funnier and a better way of saying ‘fuck you.’

In terms of being lazy, or a shitty colleague, I’m sure my current editor at Sneaky, James Branson, can debunk that. You can also look at the quality of my creative output as a filmmaker and a musician if you want to see how hard I work.

Would it be hard to get a full-time job in the future as a journalist? Obviously! But I work in two other successful careers now, and write for fun, and have no interest in properly entering the industry ever again as long as I live.

Love your work, Mumbrella! And I’m also very flattered by the comparison to George Costanza.

Idiot.

I’m not sure who’s going to employ him in the future; this sort of thing feels a bit like he just tattooed a penis on his forehead.

But he’s got 5 positive comments on Sneaky, so what do I know?

The sad thing is he will now have to live up to the persona he has created.

What’s Sneaky?

Well that was an enlightening read.
Btw your quote in this article about ditching to go to surry hills and so on is misleading, he quite clearly says on Sneaky he never actually did that

I wager he absolutely embellished the story.

And It’s nothing new, it’s called a “go slow”.

The Jerk Store called and they’re running out of you.

This whole scenario echoes the same, sad, seeking of 15 minutes of fame at any cost, seen in the profiles of misled young Australians stopped at airports on their way to a glorious self detonated improvised death. The main difference being, no one stopped him.

Don’t you just love it when someone comments on a story critical of their behaviour to explain why they are not a self-entitled twat and actually come off sounding even more like a self-entitled twat. He is no loss to journalism that’s for sure.

Good on you, Will. This is great and exactly what needs to be said about lame, repurposed news sites.

Don’t know him but the whole thing read like someone who was irked that their superior talents had gone unrecognised. He’d written 89 features and been on 3 press junkets (Call the Pulitzers!) and yet was mistaken for an unpaid intern and left on the graveyard shift. Diddums.

Apparently he’s a musician as well. Eurovision anybody?

And while all this was going on at Newscorpse, evil rupees was sticking it into the ABC as being bloated with over-paid, lazy journos!
Sad, on so many levels.

They gave him a job but it was beneath him. Did they not know who he was? Start at the bottom – surely you jest – with the entry-level grunt work of online journalism? He did not get on with his managers, did they not recognise his talent? So he skived off and quit and bragged about it and tipped a bucket of shit on his former employer in a probably, possibly largely fictionalised account. So classy. So Gen-Y. We’re all impressed. Can’t wait to see your next trick.

speechless… Have worked in media industry for 25 years and have a looooong memory. Will make it a personal hobby that this lazy, entitled turd never gets a job in media anywhere. So good luck with your “day job” as a muso … Please.

Sure, the guy’s a jerk. And as a hardworking member of Gen Y, I resent the image he is projecting of the rest of us. But Tim, surely the standard of hardwork is not “filing stories at midnight on their day off.” Employers need to step up and allow their employees sons work/life balance, or Gen Y will be the useless, burnt out generation.

This guy is a legend, good on you – do you guys have any idea how fucking evil news corp is? Maybe you wouldn’t care if someone at a coal mining company did the same thing

This reeks of a publicity stab for that average at best, cacophony, Colvin totes as music. Those super skinny stovepipes you offensively wear might be restricting the flow of ‘creative’ genius to the grey matter, mate. I think you may have had a more lucrative career peddling your mediocre slobber at News than Sneaky – they’re obviously lucky to have you, good luck!

I read that article it was actually pretty funny.

I dislike Rupert Murdoch intensely, but I doubt I would’ve ever really agreed with the politics of any of my CEOs.

I have always worked hard for the people directly around me: my peers, my line manager – and to set a good example for the people below.

More than that, I work hard for my readers.

Actually, more than any of the above, I work hard out of a sense of self-respect.

He’ll have a great journalistic career waiting on tables

What a champion. All you people that think that ‘hard work’ involves staying in until midnight to satisfy the hero complex so prevalent in many passion-driven jobs need to have a think about what you’re really saying.

Sounds like his former employer didn’t create an environment where the staff were valued in the first place. Employers constantly exploit the well meaning intentions of their employees all the time. It also sounds like an industry wide problem, where working sixteen hour days for example is some automatic status symbol around the office. That’s ridiculous. And it’s quite frankly unhealthy.

Well done Will – I read this with a smile! All the best with your new ventures.

“You’ll find them filing at midnight on their day off, working long days then spending their nights at industry events. Age is not a factor. Work ethic is.”

Tim – I hope you pay your journalist a fair wage, and I don’t mean compared to what news corp pays its staff for working overtime. I hope you lead and reward them as well, demonstrating work ethic isn’t about working 12 hr days but actually learning and doing your job to the best of your ability.

This is what’s so f**ked about your industry and the advertising industry is that you believe ego and job titles are worth more than a healthy break with the family. Long gone are the days of getting paid for a solid 40 hr week between 9-5 Monday to Friday on a decent salary….

Well – there you have it. Slag off at Private Industry, and then shove your snout into my bloody pocket – what a grub.

The JCF conference predicts that only 20 percent of journalism graduates will actually become journalists. I graduated my journalism degree last year, I’m unemployed and writing unpaid freelance for two online magazines (I’m up for unpaid sub editor position) and I’m volunteering at a local community radio station. During the 3 years of my degree, I volunteered for community tv and radio. I ran the news department last year, and I’ve completed 4 unpaid internships while surviving off of Centrelink (quite often going without lunches to make sure ends met) I also have an Adv Dip in Commercial Photography. I’m 25 now and had to move back in with my parents. I’m applying for jobs everyday, at least 100 since I graduated. I heard back from 2, interviewed for 1, and I’ve had countless people tell me ‘you’re great, but apply again when you have more experience’.

This article made me feel sick. I want to be a journalist, I want to start at the bottom. I’m not afraid of 12 hour days or moving to rural areas. I will do anything – anything – to get my start but even as I write this, I feel like I’m wasting my time. I know I deserve a job, and I’ll keep trying as hard as I can.

Have we just met 2015’s Corey Worthington?

Why all the haters? You’re all just jealous because you hate your own jobs. Kudos to you man, fuck that company and all the slaves who try to defend the bullshit they contribute to the world.

Will,
you are a waste of skin and you are breathing other peoples air. Cease and desist. Out of your depth on a wet pavement doesn’t cover it, you are so far out of your depth the fish have bloody lights on their noses!

News.com is a joke. Murdoch does not “control” it. That sorry site is simply a thin vein of squealing leftist tripe drowned in a cesspit of corporate click-bait. The fatuous Malcolm Farr (AKA “Princess Leftardula”) maintains control to the point nothing even approximating balanced journalism sees the light of day, let alone the light of screen LED. You claim to feel violated by the “Murdoctopus”? I fear this speaks more to your unhealthy obsession with Yoai tentacle porn, rather than to any imagined employment hardship.

“Journalist”, “Musician”, “Film maker”? You truly are nothing and nobody. I currently provide CAD/CAM primary steel design for POTC5 & 6. I have credits in multiple roles for more major movies than I care to remember. ”Film maker”?! No one I know from decades in the industry would have ever heard of you if not for this sorry episode.

Between landing art galleys on top of Honk Kong skyscrapers, getting the exploding ice rings into a nose-loader cargo 747 for Vancouver Olympics or sorting the sets for POTC I still have time to produce more online content, that entertains more people, than you could hope to achieve at News.com, or worse, their ALPBC.

Welcome to the Internet Will. The lame scream meeja are no longer the gate keepers of opinion. The comments of those that build and advance our society are now valued higher than parasites who just comment on what they did not create and do not usefully contribute to.

Will, if you’d just chosen a plumbing apprenticeship, you could’ve been some one 😉

If journalism does not want him anymore then he sounds like a excellent recruit as a digital, social and content strategist for most advertising agency planning departments. He’ll earn more money, his attitude will be thought of as part of his genius and “bunking off” is a key job requirement for planners.

What a self entitled jerk.

So glad his rich Daddy was able to score him a cushy, zero-accountability, never-be-fired gig.

Double glad I will be paying for it.

Any privately run media outlet would be embarrassed for having hired this twerp. The ABC is PROUD of it.

he is a moron.no wonder he gets a job on media watch.

So he’s got job doing voiceover at ‘our’ ABC. Given that Media Watch takes a week to produce 15 minutes of TV (which includes replays of whatever they’re complaining about), he’ll fit in.

Leftard twit. Now I’m busy toiling in the third world to pay taxes back there to employ it. So over these ABC twirps.

…have no interest in properly entering the industry ever again as long as I live.

Bullshit. He does voice overs for Media Watch according to his Linked In profile. In keeping with this trajectory of wasting other people’s money and resources he’s now a tax hoover. Just like his dad.

I don’t get the outrage, the place sounds like it stinks. The guy went from actually doing work to replacing words in other peoples’ content. He then started goofing off an no one noticed. This isn’t an indictment this guy, it’s an indictment on journalism.

And Sarah, this is what you aspire to? It’s a dead end. Soon enough there will be an algorithm to do this churn garbage and there will even be less graduates pretending to be journalists.

We’ve got plenty of opportunities for young Will in digital planning and social media strategy in agencies all across Australia. In fact the job description calls for young, hip, lazy, rude, self entitled wankers with a proven ability to be able to do nothing at work and shamelessly not disguise their skiving. We just can’t find enough of them, having emptied the bowels of Surry Hills and Fitzroy of all the deadbeats we could lay our hands on. Oh, Foosball skills preferred.

Oh God, I agree with Tim Burrowes, how did it come to this, it’s all over! Seriously though, Will has made the world a worser place

Will, you seem to use the word “fuck” a lot in your response argument. Saying fuck over and over again doesnt make your point any stronger, it just reinforces that you are a douchebag.

Im sure you were educated at the likes of Cranbrook or The Scots (I’m assuming)….. all that money and look what was pumped out of the other end!

Waste!

oh the shame.
a child is but a child by any other name.
Will.

Mike says to Tim: “I hope you pay your journalist a fair wage, and I don’t mean compared to what news corp pays its staff for working overtime”

Hahahaha. NewsCorp paying its staff overtime. Oh, if I had a penny for all the times NewsCorp payed me overtime, I’d have zero pennies. Thanks for the laughs.

If you want to work 40 hours a week, 9-5, then journalism isn’t the job for you, mike. Don’t confuse pride in doing your job well and ego.

So, Will’s a musician and film-maker? Let me guess, he’s also an accomplished barista, a malt whisky connoisseur, a craft brewer, rides a fixie and does a popular DJ stint at underground clubs.

Just as well he’s so talented in these respects as he’s a shit journalist and a narcissistic twat.

Good onyer for calling him out, Tim.

Ha, smart play and good on you Will.

Sneaky wanker.

Konrad, last time I looked News.com had the highest traffic of the ‘major’ web sites, it’s populra and doing well.. please don’t push the argument that it’s all click-bait related, it diminishes the readers of the site and you come off as an elitist….oops too late

If playing to a dozen people at the Captain Cook Hotel on a Sunday afternoon is a successful musical career I’m George Costanza’s hand roadie.

Hey Will, what goes online stays online.
Including nothing.

News ltd paid 500 Million dollars ($500 000 000) for Myspace, then sold it for thirty five million. …… a loss of $465 000 000.

During the time that news was making this “investment” I was being told to get stuck into, or sack under performing sales staff.

These were hardworking young men and women (those evil GenY’s) missing budget by a few thousand dollars a month… miss for three months in a row and your job is at risk.

Did Rupert or his cronies that suck the millions of $ out of News get the sack, for this level of under performance?, nope, they continued on their merry way blagging phones, paying government employees, phone hacking etc etc..

Good on you Will and anyone who is screwing these “people” over, they deserve it theyve been screwing others for ever.

Total jerk

News ltd paid 500 Million dollars ($500 000 000) for Myspace, then sold it for thirty five million. …… a loss of $465 000 000.

During the time that news was making this “investment” I was being told to get stuck into, or sack, under performing sales staff.

These were hardworking young men and women (those evil GenY’s) missing budget by a few thousand dollars a month… miss for three months in a row and your job is at risk.

Did Rupert or his cronies that suck the millions of $ out of News get the sack, for this level of under performance?, nope, they continued on their merry way blagging phones, paying government employees, phone hacking etc etc..

Good on you Will and anyone who is screwing these “people” over, they deserve it theyve been screwing others for ever.

I have no real opinion on Will, just stopped by to say these are the best comments I’ve read on Mumbrella in a long time! Still laughing about the ‘jerk store’…

Wow Konrad,

With mad skillz like that I am suprised you aren’t prime minister yet.

Because anyone who places exploding ice rings in the nose of a 747 is clearly a media expert.

Thanks for the lolz though!

I am also guessing that Conrad hates that guvvunmint money from the communists at “Screen Australia”.

Becuase anyone who drinks the Ayn Rand cool aid would not work in an industry that is (oh shock horror) SUBSIDISED.

“You’ll find them filing at midnight on their day off, working long days then spending their nights at industry events.”

How this is ‘work ethic’ in journalism but ‘gross exploitation’ pretty much everywhere else?

‘All the ways I wasted Rupert Murdoch’s Money’
Are you sure this wasn’t written by Lachlan Murdoch?

I shake my head when I read stories like this. In my day you worked hard, from the ground up and went home when the job was done.

Kids in media these days are so spoiled with their events and bonuses, no wonder this attitude is bread!

Anyway, those are my (limited) thoughts on the topic.

Thanks

Paddy

IGN – contributing to workplace procrastination since ’96!

Someone asked what “Sneaky” was… Its a local Vice wannabe funded by an old media pro, Steve Bush. Free street press mag, I used to se it around Newtown though I have not sighted a printed copy for a long time. Kind funny in depressing way. Depressing because unlike Vice, it had nothing new to say and positioned itself squarely in the undergraduate, Newtown world of “let’s annoy mummy and daddy in suburbia”

The sort of things undergraduates considered transgressive about 40 years ago were all still there.

ps. Will appears to have been sacked from the ABC

http://www.dailytelegraph.com......7273800980

Seems from the comments that most are in favour of more self-flagellation for thankless media bosses than a discussion of the admittedly fucked working conditions which led to him commit career suicide…

Journalism is in enough trouble without this jerk adding to its woes

Oh, he really stuck it to Rupert Murdoch, I’m sure he’s devastated that Will Colvin could do this to him! I’m still laughing at these comments, he’s really furthered his career…

Poor dad. Hard working great guy and one of the best 10 journalists in the country.
Sad for him. Nice work William you have poisoned his well beautifully. Garry Wilson

What a prick eh, $10 he’ll show up as an editor of the New Matilda by month’s end.

Strong work ethic quickly diminishes when you’re treated the same as a colleague who is awful at their job. Why would you continue to work as hard as the lazy colleague, who is paid the same wage as you?

So let me get this straight.

The guy takes a job as a journo (already a slowly dying profession) and then when things no longer go his way he stops doing work, does nothing productive or important with his spare time and then writes a NOT EVEN WELL WRITTEN article trashing his former workplace as a result??

There are 100000oooOooOo0000s of other aspiring journalists actually DESPERATE to break into the industry and get their voice heard. This spoilt privileged asshat has practically taken a giant shit on the integrity of the industry!

Will Colvin literally has nothing to be proud of in his article.

The guy is misguided. But then so is the author who talks about people “…filing at midnight on their day off, working long days then spending their nights at industry events. Age is not a factor. Work ethic is.” Sorry, but that is bullshit. If you can’t get your job done in regular working hours, you are shit. And if you’re staying late and you’re not shit, your work ethic actually stinks more than the slacker. You are doing just as much harm to your colleagues as the slacker. Some of us have productive, creative lives outside of work and, while we’re happy to give our all for the 8 hours we’re paid to work a day, the Stakhanovite obsession with over-commitment from managers doesn’t cut it anymore. The best workers nowadays always have something more productive to do than stay at work; it’s just the terminal nostalgics who equate endurance to productivity and, even worse, creativity, that still hang around after 6.30. Another reason most genuinely creative people choose not to.

I’ll take that $10 bet on New Matilda. Tim @69… The editor of NM had to purchase the website to give himself that job and now sends out weekly begging emails asking readers’ for support to keep it going. Doubt that Sneaky pays enough (anything at all?) to to allow novice writers the opportunity to buy themselves a job…

I feel sorry for Will’s dad as he does have a lot of cred in the industry. Incidentally, Mark Colvin is married to a Greens councillor at Leichhardt Council, who recently got herself into hot water over incendiary social media posts describing police as “hoons”.

There’s lot to be said for having your writing “moderated” or at least read by someone with a modicum of editorial professionalism. But Will describes that process as a “cesspit” and “living hell”.

Welcome to your new future, Will… Sadly, It’s either dad or taxpayers funding it.

Hi Tim,

Cheers for the response. Of course, there will always times when we need to stay late and I don’t think anyone objects to that. But I am talking about the always-on culture that permeates my industry (advertising) and yours. Systemically – like forcing people to opt out of the European Working TIme Directive as part of their contact of employment (which is rubbish – and potentially illegal) But also culturally, where people are cajoled into staying late because “that’s what we do here” regardless of whether “we” actually need to or not. We spend much of our time ridiculing the salary men in more traditional white collar industries, with realising how pernicious our home-grown version of shachiku has become.

“Journalism doesn’t happen between 9 and 5; press releases do.”

Family doesn’t happen between 12am and 6am either Tim. Your attitude of giving your readers a story means working on the weekend is disturbing, given your ‘loyal’ readers probably wouldn’t have cared whether you posted it on Monday or Thursday.

You fail to recognise you’re missing out on ‘life’ with the people that actually care about you. When you’re taking your last moment on life, do you really think you’ll be thinking about the moment you posted a breaking story or time moments you spent with family.

I know a work/life balance is hard but I hope you given your employees a fair and balance choice.

Cheers

I find this highly amusing, having worked in the same company for 5 years although not at the same time, this is exactly the type of behaviour most of the staff got away with on a regular basis. Such a bad company to work for, very low morale and always seemed to reward / promote those who least deserved it. Good on you for exposing it!

I’d like to interject here again and stress the value of work life balance. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. After a lengthy career in media, I took my current role because of the lack of home time that allowed me to ‘recharge the batteries’.

Great work Mike on standing up for good old fashioned workers rights. Contrary to what the general population think, we oldies knew how to get things done between 9-5!

Thanks

Paddy

kind of can’t believe how upset everyone is about this.

As someone said the other day Will Colvin successfully trolled Sydney media this week
Wow, what a flurry. How dare such a young twerp question the dubious practises of commercial media where rewriting is the norm, declare he was disappointed and way over it, when so many are reduced to this churnalism and enduring it to pay their mortgage, lucky young Will forced to rent, has gotten out and is prepared to do anything but this crap. Good luck, I wish you every success in the future. You seem to be quite a good writer and there still might be room for that, at least arguably a lot better than your pompous detractors, who just might be a little envious.
Someone said you went to a government school in Newtown.

Awesome, that’s Wills mum. My mother said she heard some guy crapping away on Ray Hadley and it made her want to vote Green even though she always votes Labor. She’s very against police violence and the way that when anything goes wrong the cops investigate themselves and find themselves innocent. Big surprise. My best friend went to Newtown with Will and she said that he’s very sweet.

Who gives a fuck what school he went to?

I like the cut of his jib. If he’d like to tell his current boss to get nicked and contact me at HEARtFELT/ LOWIE/ DBD we could have a chat about his future.

Has anyone noticed in journalism, marketing and advertising a lot of people stay until midnight because they’re incapable of getting their job done between 9 and 5?

Laziness shows in the product you deliver, not the amount of time you fucked around in meetings during the day.

Has anyone also noticed, there are very few real managers these days? Management, meaning someone who delegates the tasks to their relevant staff and trusts them to get the job done.

I’m a hard working, older Gen-Y who’s been fortunate enough to work for real bosses when I was younger, people who would be in their 50s, 60s, and 70s today.

Unfortunately the GFC culled almost all of them. Now, we’re stuck with a generation of people in their 40s who double-handle everything, burning out their younger staff, who are too nervous to give anyone any real responsibility because they’re worried they’ll be replaced.

Unlike the former generation, who would train people up to handle things in their absence, effectively allowing them to be across 70 or 80 jobs going on at any time, they diminish their staff’s importance to the point where the manager can only be across 2 to 5 jobs at a time.

The result means companies hire more managers than workers, vastly bloating costs and keeping people at their desks until midnight.

Someone will work it out eventually, and when it happens hopefully a shitload of the dead wood in our industries will be swept out – both young and old.

Poor Mark Colvin. I’d be devastated if my kids turned out like this.

There are genuine talented, hardworking Gen Ys out there – if you find them, hang on to them.

I happen to know Jeff McIlstein and he’s a rugby league fan, not union. Probably the most insulting error in the whole piece.

Will Colvin’s article was meant to be funny and it succeeded. Murdoch is running the country and very badly, anyone who makes fun of the horrible Newscorpse and provokes an irate response has done something good. Have a nice life.