16 March 2009

What's gone wrong in Jon Stanhope's media office?

| johnboy
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With the extra-ordinarily good Penelope Layland moving on from the Chief Minister’s media office the wheels appear to have fallen off.

I know other news outlets are becoming increasingly frustrated by the great silence that has descended, especially with a lot of no-brainer departmental stuff now needing sign-off by the Chiefly office.

Today there was an effort which really demonstrates the way things have gone in the last couple of months.

Released today, dated today, is an admonition to come along for the “Festival of the Forests”. Also known as arboretum open day, which was, er, tomorrow.

With the Liberals having sorted out their communication efforts it’s not a great time for the wheels to be falling off.

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betterdeadthanzed8:51 pm 18 Mar 09

jakez said :

RiotACT is too open to be truly credible (its openness is also its greatest asset of course)

A bit like imdb in that regard. Most of the reviews seem to be written by brain-dead morons (no offence gang) but the rating system harnesses the wisdom of the masses.

I simply don’t believe in having a number one source of news. The mainstream media by necessity is too brief and blinkered to provide anything of real substance. RiotACT is too open to be truly credible (its openness is also its greatest asset of course).

Thus I use a wide variety of sources.

Hehe! Hansard schmansard! I quote Skidbladnir all the time ….

: )

I used to read RiotACT in conjunction with a couple of news websites, but now I mostly just look here for local news.

And personally I think it’s a lot more honest to reproduce press releases verbatim than it is to pull out a thesaurus, replace a couple of words with synonyms, re-order a few sentences and delete a couple of paragraphs then dress it up as original research.

And I just realised that I was quoted in the ACT Hansard too!

I also don’t count RiotACT as my number one source of hard factual news. But then Canberra Times defiantly isn’t either. For truly local news however, I come here to see what others know, and share what I might. It is the only website which full fills that function for me.

Plus, there is the added joy of baiting trolls, stoking flames, and picking on Elkie.

(And I still think Jazz\Jb took all the least exciting bits and made them into poolroom quotes)

@Memberforbelco: I wouldn’t consider RiotACT the main news source of public record, merely a local Canberra website in terms of scale, content, and exactly what that implies in terms of relevance to the _average_ Australian.
(Johnboy probably agrees on most of these, last I heard neither he or the RiotCabal weren’t trying to out-game News Limited)

That RiotACT is a kind of gutter press I can happily deal with (its not like I only come here for my news), but if it only takes $0.13/day to keep Johnboy in warm drugs and cheap cleeping bags, while still get me quoted into ACT Hansard occasionally, it has some value, because its not like we’re the only ones reading it.

memberforbelconnen said :

I think most people would agree they don’t come to Riot for actual news, more for a laugh and something to read.

Au contraire, mon frère!

I want to know what’s going on and talk about it. Isn’t that what news has always been?

I’m not going to argue with your ill-judged observations.

But I will note I’m well placed to make comparisons, and that office might be hard worked, but is not performing to the standards it used to.

memberforbelconnen12:08 am 17 Mar 09

Pasting press releases verebatim and running stories like “where can i get a good pork pie?” and “who wants to buy my Kings of Leon tickets?” does not mean RiotACT is a news outlet.

RiotACT is more like a community bulletin board and chat room – I think most people would agree they don’t come to Riot for actual news, more for a laugh and something to read.

With that in mind, it’s a bit rich for you to criticise what I am sure is hard working office.

GardeningGirl5:56 pm 16 Mar 09

Came up blank for me. Guess they read RiotACT 🙂

Not enough strong coffee or hours in the day, I would imagine.

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