Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Media's standards are slipping.

Hi all,

I have been marvelling at the incompetence of the media lately. I have noticed technical and intellectual stuff ups all over the place. Last night I was watching the local Prime news and for the third time in recent weeks the bulletin had blackouts and ads breaking in during news stories. Last night those errors wrecked a story on the Wangaratta floods, and as I live in Wangaratta I was particularly interested. I've heard that the news will be no longer located in the local region soon, they are moving it to Canberra, so maybe the current staff don't give a stuff anymore. Pity, I used to work for Prime.

Next we have The AGE, where I have frequently spotted typos over the past few weeks, making me feel better about all my typos. Are the journo's too overworked to check their work? That may explain their ridiculous front page story of a couple of days ago. Evidently WikiLeaks published a secret American memo saying the Australian media was full of stories about Kevin Rudd being a micro-manager and control freak. Need I say anymore. The ABC news last night didn't even state that the supposedly secret information was originally broadcast/published in the Australian media.

Then we have local ABC radio. I often listen to Joseph Thompson for a bit of a laugh as he tries to work his small town shock jock thing. He often interviews people via the telephone. Problem is, we can hardly hear them.

Maybe they all have shares in the web companies.

Graham.

5 comments:

graywave said...

It's been going on for years. Australian network TV is a joke and most of the newspapers are painful to read. Worse still are news services like Big Pond's which mostly just reprint ABC articles along with illiterate press releases that don't even seem to have been read, let alone edited, often containing duplicated sections and US spelling.

I suppose journalism just isn't what it used to be and we'll all have to learn to live with that.

Graham Clements said...

And with the web and Fox news/Newscorp around, its quickly becoming a world of incorrect information.

I forgot to add the media moment yesterday that prompted the post. The local ABC regional news said that residents of Wangaratta should boil their water because of the flood waters. Ten minutes later they seemingly corrected that and said residents downstream of Wangaratta, a big difference. But my sister, who lives in Wodonga and listens to the same regional radio stations, said that later in the day the radio told her that Wangaratta residents were to boil water and then they changed their minds to downstream of Wangaratta. Not sure it was the ABC. If it was, that is absolutely pathetic.

Anthony J. Langford said...

I didnt know you used to work for Prime.. I used to work for GMV6 before it became WIN TV.. basically the amalgamation of all regional stations into the networks ruined local TV..the staffing levels halved overnight.. very sad..

yes, standards have dropped all over.. the internet has caused this.. Papers have their net version to upkeep as well... its not hard to see that they hire monkeys to write these web articles.. not only are there typos galore but they are badly written..

its product over content...

its sausage factory..

i know how it goes..i still work in one..

Graham Clements said...

I worked in traffic in Albury then they opened a new station at Ballarat when amalgamation occured and I moved there. Ended up supervising the traffic department. In the end I found it all too stressful and not that meaningful an existence and I quit like most of the other staff. I also found Ballarat way too cold and moved to Queensland.

I read in the paper last weekend that Prime are moving out of the large purpose built building on the outskirts of Ballarat to a smaller building in central Ballarat. The article said that at its peak 70 people were employed there (that would have been when I was there). I wonder how many there are now.

I'm still spotting typos in The Age. Does anyone in management actually read it? Perhaps it is like when I worked at Prime, no one watched their own channel.

Graham Clements said...

should have said regionalisation instead of amalgamation. I was working at Prime when regionalisation occured - that is the city stations attached themselves to one main player in the country, like seven did to Prime and then Prime started to beam into the five separate markets in Victoria.