Friday 19 August 2011

Dissent in the Examiner camp ... looks like it's an attempt to balance the ledgers


Monday's Daily Examiner carried an opinion piece ("Poker faced gambling") written by staffer Tim Howard about "the smell from a putrefying mix of self-righteousness and self-interest emanating from a loud group of people who turn out to be in a minority".

Howard was referring to "misinformation (being) spread by the club and gaming industry" in relation to proposed poker machine tax reforms.


Well, didn't that set the cat among the (stool) pigeons in the club industry. The usual suspects from local clubs hastily put pen to paper and wrote letters to the editor of the Examiner so Wednesday's paper carried letters from the general managers of Grafton District Services Club and Yamba Golf & Country Club and the CEO of Yamba Bowling and Recreation Club.

But, then to balance the books, yesterday's Examiner carried a letter to the editor penned by a colleague of Howard at the paper, Peter Smajstr, the paper's media sales manager.

And, just so everyone knows, Peter backs the clubs, but wants to assure readers that it's just his opinion, just as Tim's piece was Tim's opinion and not that of The Daily Examiner.

It seems the last people the paper wants to get offside are its advertisers. 


Source: Daily Examiner

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You can tell the editor's on annual leave!
The acting editor opening an opinion piece with "There's a stench coming off the loud and boisterous opposition to the proposed poker machine tax reforms" was bad enough, as was characterizing local pokie players as incontinent. But to then descibe mandatory pre-committment as a tax reform was also stirring the possum quite a bit.
I suspect that the Daily Examiner was intent on giving its letters to the editor page a bit of a kick start and instead got a well-deserved kick itself.
It's belated invitation to the community to respond gave me a bit of a laugh.