Following the death of Michael Jackson on Friday, the media was in a frenzy that had not been seen before. Twitter went down, Google thought they were under attack and traditional media struggled to keep up.
The most-widely replayed media stuff-up was the reporting that actor Jeff Goldblum had fell to his death while filming in New Zealand.
It’s an old nugget that had been used before but it got a re-run on Twitter and before we knew it, the Today Show’s increasingly leather wallet-looking Richard Wilkins was reporting it as though the NZ police had confirmed it. They didn’t check the facts and it wasn’t until a viewer emailed the show that they dismissed it as a hoax.
Today on The Colbert Report, Jeff Goldblum responds to Wilkins ever-exaggerated reports of his so-called demise.
Josh, July 1st 2009 |
Posted in A Current AFail., Media Culpa
It’s been interesting watching the looming battle between News Limited mouthpieces Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair and Crikey’s new blog Pure Poison
I was always a big fan of Boltwatch because Andrew Bolt’s free reign of deceptions is something that should be challenged. SoI’ve been following their new blog from the very beginning. It started off well with a few keen insights into why people like Bolt and Piers Akerman are often guilty of the very misinformation they often criticise the Left for. However, once Bolt began subtley (I say subtle because he refused to link to the blog) accusing Pure Poison of writing outright racist comments on his blog in an attempt to vilify him, it went a bit downhill from there. It has become a bit of a “he said she said” game over the blogs.
I see that Pure Poison have made a couple of posts since sticking to the original aim of the blog, I hope they keep this up and it doesn’t dissolve into just petty in-fighting. As much as I think Andrew would like it, I hope you guys don’t stoop to it.
In the mean time, I , like a growing number of people I know, consider Google Reader an essential part of my day. And it has a permanent slot in my Firefox tabs. So if you have any interesting media related blogs you think I should be reading, please comment and let me know, I’ll look into them and link to them from this site too, if they take my fancy.
Josh, February 25th 2009 |
Tags: Andrew Bolt, Blogs
Posted in A Current AFail., Blog, Editorial, News
In the past few days, we’ve also seen a number of the commentators using the fires to get a free kick in for their ideological positions. Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt have used this both as a time to paint the environmentally friendly and those who do believe in climate change, which is frankly, most of us, as uncaring bastards trying to gain attention at a time of national tragedy while at the same time claiming it is green policies that lead to the fires.
They’re happy to put the foot in when it suits them but if anyone argues differently, ‘it’s not the time’ to argue about this.
Not to mention 2GB’s Chris Smith, 2SM’s Grant Goldman and Fox News, among others, have all tried to blame the fires on Islamic terrorists.
In the meantime, the police today have arrested two people in relation to some of these fires. Lets hope the media, desperate for someone to blame, will remember the rule that they are ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
Josh, February 12th 2009 |
Tags: Bush Fires, Journalism
Posted in A Current AFail., Blog, Editorial
As the Christmas Cheer begins to roll in and all your regular media commentators depart leaving the Leila McKinnons and the Samantha Armytages of the world to take over, and stories about the best christmas lights or the post-Christmas sales start to dominate, the media news cycle tends to die. A lot.
Excepting a major disaster, like a tsunami, now is about the time that the stories that wouldn’t really get a run seem to dominate the news.
Read more…
Josh, December 22nd 2008 |
Tags: Channel 7, Channel Nine, Horrordays, News Limited
Posted in A Current AFail., Media Culpa
Last Thursday night, TT tried to show up Foxtel by giving this dodgy guy an airing who is trying to sell free software on his dodgy website. The software allows you to view streaming cable channels but the software he’s pushing is software that is normally freely available, and was using TT to push his stuff. Just watch the video, the guy looks uber dodgy.
Not just that, Peter Blasina is about the most woefully incompetant IT ‘guru’ around. He completely failed to pick up on what was wrong with the story. I think his bright shirt must have blinded his eyes to how dodgy this guy really is. But he can use an escalator and his shiny 3G phone at the same time! Give that man airtime!!
Read more…
Josh, July 28th 2008 |
Posted in A Current AFail., Media Culpa
