More belt tightening on the way for APN newspapers?

 

In recent years the number of press releases (often published almost verbatim with source unattributed) masquerading as news articles has been steadily growing in Australian mainstream media generally and in Northern Rivers media in particular.

 

With little or no critical evaluation of the contents of these releases finding its way into print and journalistic opinion frequently being substituted for investigation; sometimes by the time one reaches page five of any newspaper it almost feels as if the proprietor should be paying readers and not the other way round.

 

APN News & Media, which has an established presence in regional New South Wales, saw its shares hit a new low that immediately wiped an estimated $33 million off its market value after declaring its publishing revenue down 10 per cent in the second half of this year on 13 December.

 

With another $25 million in cost cutting scheduled for 2013, it is hard to see how regional newspapers like The Daily Examiner and The Northern Star will be able to resist the temptation to pad their daily issues even further with the viewpoint of political and industry interests churned out in cost-free publishable form by people paid to further party or corporate agendas.

 

It’s becoming harder and harder to believe that print media has a legitimate future as it begins a slow devolution in the direction of 17th Century propaganda sheets.

Dennis Shanahan finally loses any grip on reality

Mal Brough (top) and Dennis Shanahan (bottom)

 

Dennis Shanahan writing in The Australian on 12 December 2012:

 

FORMER Howard government minister and putative MP for Fisher, Mal Brough, is the latest political casualty in the ongoing scandals surrounding Peter Slipper….

But the real political victim is now Brough, who stands accused of working with Ashby and co-worker Karen Doane in an underhanded political scheme based on disloyalty, political preferment, duplicity, and lies - all aimed at bringing down Slipper and promoting Brough….

In the face of what is set out below, one wonders in what alternative reality this political editor now dwells if he can seriously apply the term “victim” to this man.

Justice Rares findings concerning Mal Brough in his Ashby v Commonwealth of Australia and Peter Slipper judgment of 12 December 2012:

 

135 Mr Ashby asserted to Mr Harmer that his justification for his disloyalty as an employee in providing copies of Mr Slipper’s 2009 and 2010 diaries was that he wished to place the material in the public domain. That was, his assertion went, because he “believed that the conduct was morally and legally wrong and he felt aggrieved that he had been placed in the situation of becoming, as he understood it, exposed to (and potentially implicated in) what he regarded as the wrongful conduct of a public official”: [116] above. The words I have emphasised were ambiguous. If they referred to Mr Slipper’s conduct on the days covered by the 2009 and 2010 diary entries he surreptitiously sent to Mr Brough and Mr Lewis, there is no evidence to support Mr Ashby’s description or that he had any knowledge of particular conduct of Mr Slipper that was morally or legally wrong prior to him or Ms Doane sending the diary extracts to Mr Brough and Mr Lewis.

136 …..Rather, Mr Ashby’s and Ms Doane’s conduct at that point indicated that he and she were anxious to supply information to Mr Brough and Mr Lewis so that they could use it to assemble an attack on Mr Slipper, if they could find sufficient material to do so, using the diary entries and other evidence…..

138 I am also satisfied that Mr Ashby and Ms Doane by about 29 March 2012 were in a combination with Mr Brough to cause Mr Slipper as much political and public damage as they could inflict on him….

141 Mr Brough was unlikely to have been offering to assist Ms Doane and Mr Ashby in seeing Mr Russell QC for advice or looking for new careers out of pure altruism. Realistically, his preparedness to act for them was created and fed by their willingness to act against Mr Slipper’s interests and assisting Mr Brough’s and the LNP’s interests in destabilising Mr Slipper’s position as Speaker and damaging him in the eyes of his electorate…..

142…. Certainly, the nature of the allegations that Mr Brough, Ms Doane and Mr Ashby had provided Mr Lewis in about late March and early April 2012 would have suggested to a political journalist that there would now be more than one news story about Mr Slipper to pursue….

146 Mr Ashby and Mr Lewis had planned that articles about Mr Slipper’s use of travel entitlements would be published shortly before these proceedings were filed. They both knew that Mr Lewis would be able to publish further articles on the subject matter as soon as it was filed in Court in the originating application. Ms Doane and Mr Brough had also discussed the timing and sequence of publication of stories by Mr Lewis. So much is clear from Mr Ashby’s texts to Mr Nagle of 10 April 2012, Glen of 11 April 2012 and Ms Doane’s email to Mr Brough of 10 April 2012: see [82], [90], [86]. The planning reveals that Mr Ashby calculated how he would attack, and use the press to attack, Mr Slipper.

147 Mr Ashby had planned with Mr Lewis, and probably separately with Ms Doane and Mr Brough, the sequence of publications so as to raise the more serious allegations in the originating process, after the stories of 16 April 2012 appeared. The timing of those 16 April stories was linked to when the originating application would be filed. Once Mr Ashby began seeing Harmers and went into “lock down”, Mr Brough and Mr Lewis became anxious to know when the proceedings would be ready to be filed. Hence their strenuous attempts to contact Mr Ashby once he began to act on Mr McClellan’s advice to filter media contact through him. Mr Ashby had emphasised in his text to Mr Lewis on 10 April 2012 that “We need to act fast mate”. And Mr Brough told Ms Doane on learning that, eventually, Mr McClellan would meet Mr Lewis “Everything will be fine”: [94].

196 Having read all of the text messages on Mr Ashby’s mobile phone, as Mr Ashby’s senior counsel invited me to do, as well as the other evidence, I have reached the firm conclusion that Mr Ashby’s predominant purpose for bringing these proceedings was to pursue a political attack against Mr Slipper and not to vindicate any legal claim he may have for which the right to bring proceedings exists. Mr Ashby began planning that attack at least by the beginning of February 2012. As Mr Ashby and Ms Doane agreed in their texts of 30 March 2012 what they were doing “will tip the govt to Mal’s [Brough] and the LNP’s advantage”: [66]. It may be a coincidence that Mr Ashby suggested to Mr Slipper the idea of becoming Speaker just as Mr Brough began to move towards challenging Mr Slipper for LNP pre-selection for his seat and Mr Ashby ended up in an alliance in late March 2012 with Mr Brough to bring down Mr Slipper after he became Speaker….

http://youtu.be/AEWfsUO7YZY

* Photographs found at Google Images

UPDATE:

Justice Rares found that Mal Brough had known in early April 2012 that an application was to be filed by James Hunter Ashby. Court records show that it was filed on Friday 20 April 2012.

This is what Oppostion Leader Tony Abbott told the media on 13-14 December 2012:

'I think that Mal Brough was perfectly and properly endorsed by the Liberal National Party. He's been quite transparent and upfront about his involvement and, as I said, the matter is now subject to appeal,'

Who on earth decided that sending online newspaper readers blind was a good idea?

 

Busy, busy, busy, is the nicest way to describe the updated website now online for The Daily Examiner.

Often violently coloured, with visually distracting animated ads and barely a space for the reader to rest their eyes.

All this serving a local demographic which indicates that the newspaper’s most faithful followers are not young IT experts.

 

 

Newspaper circulation figures show decline on NSW North Coast

 

Weekday circulation figures for principal regional daily newspapers according to AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER HISTORY GROUP NEWSLETTER No. 69 October 2012:

 

 Click on table to enlarge

 

The only regional daily to record an increase in the audited period to the end of June was the Gold Coast Bulletin (up 221 sales, or 0.61 per cent). The remainder recorded declines of from 0.33 per cent (Broken Hill) to 11.05 per cent (Gympie). And, of course, the Daily News on the Tweed coast is no longer a daily printed publication. It closed on 3 December 2011.

What this blog is not

There has been some discussion in the Northern Rivers recently about blogs versus mainstream media and, it is obvious that many people have contradictory expectations of regional blogs.

So this is what North Coast Voices both is and is not.

It is not a newspaper or a news aggregate website.

It is a group site which offers local opinion on issues usually relating to government, international affairs, society or the environment.

Its authors are all older residents of the NSW North Coast and they openly lobby for causes which are dear to their hearts or are matters of  concern.

North Coast Voices also seeks to inform and that is why its posts frequently contain links to publicly available primary sources and documents.

It employs no-one, has no journalists on its contributor list and has no money in the kitty for expensive research. Since early October 2007 it has posted seven days a week without fail – except between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.  

This blog was created at a time when Australian regional blogs were rare and those commenting on society and politics were even rarer still. It was meant to fill a perceived need for local voices to be heard on the Internet.

We here at North Coast Voices believe we have succeeded in this aim.

Da Troll

Unlike the metropolitan media, here in the Northern Rivers our local newspapers tend to host polite commentators.

However, recently one regular contributor began turning into a bit of a troll:

By yambaman from Yamba,

Just wondering if some shooters could be let out of national parks to get rid of the human "ferals" living near me?

By yambaman from Yamba,

Prosecute the trespassers! Can Centrelink get out there and get the dole bludgers more gainfully employed - I have heard Gina Rinehardt is looking for employees? Hopefully "Boudicca" and "Davey Bob" could join the foreign workers, then again maybe they are foreign workers judging by their names!

What yambaman forgets is that North Coast towns are not all that big relatively speaking and (just as Boudicca is widely known to hold a degree in environmental science from the University of New England) so many people know a great deal about him.

Such as his real name, what he looks like, his age, home address, the car he drives, preferred sport, hobbies and much, much more courtesy of his tendency to chatter away on multiple platforms across cyberspace.

An anonymity allowing one to be gratuitously nasty or xenophobic just doesn’t exist today.

First Crack In The (Pay) Wall?

“The New York Post introduced a paywall last year that meant iPad users accessing its website with mobile Safari would be redirected to its official iPad app, and would then have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access its content. However, it has now performed a complete u-turn and scrapped that paywall completely.

The Post’s website is now available in all its glory on the iPad, allowing readers to access all of its content completely free. Although the site does present a popup inviting users to download the official iPad app — which still requires a subscription — this can easily be dismissed by hitting “Cancel,” and users then gain full access to the site.” {Cult of Mac 20^th June 2012}

The Daily Examiner, Grafton NSW, gets new editor

From APN News and Media 1 April 2012:

Jenna Cairney has been appointed Editor of the Daily Examiner in Grafton. Jenna has been with APN since 2009 at our Warwick and Stanthorpe operations, most recently as Chief-of-Staff of the Warwick Daily News. Previously she worked in Scotland as a reporter for The Courier, The Evening Telegraph and The Sunday Post publications. She has covered music and the arts for Livingson Music Magazine in Scotland and the North Texas Daily in the city of Denton in the United States. Jenna is one of our rising stars and will bring considerable passion and energy to the Grafton role when she joins the team from April 16. As previous announced, current Daily Examiner Editor David Bancroft is taking up the new role of Group Editor for our Rural Weekly products.

Ms. Cairney comes with a very impressive resume and we wish her well in her new position.

She has big shoes to fill for the departing editor, David Bancroft, was one of a rare breed. A local Valley boy, born and bred, with both a passion for the region and compassion for his community. He displayed a knowledge of local, state and federal politics which translated itself into a real understanding of the problems, needs and aspirations of that diverse and geographically widespread community called the Clarence Valley.

Newspaper nicknames

Readers of newspapers can, at times, be very cruel. For some, all they have to do to get their daily fill is stroll out through the front door and pick the day's copy up off the driveway (if the deliverer has been on target), out of the rose bushes or (and I swear this is true) if the deliverer has it really in for you, off the roof.

Column8 in today's Herald provides further samples of homework it set its readers. The task was simple enough. All that was required of readers was to tell the Herald (aka Granny) the nickname they gave their newspapers. Previously, The Courier-Mail was said to be the 'Curious Snail', The Cairns Post is the Cairns Ghost (it's thin and wispy at times), The West Australian is the Wet Alsatian and the SMH is The Sydenham Awning Herald ("it works better said than read".

Today, the Western Advocate is the Western Abdicate, The Canberra Times is The Crimes and our own local rag, The Daily Examiner, is 'the one minute's silence' (that's how long it takes to read it).

 

Our neighbours are somewhat kinder, they call it the 'Egg Timer' but Elsie, who lives up the street, calls it 'The Daily Exterminator'. At our place it's referred to as 'The Rapper' - most mornings it takes longer to get the plastic wrap off it than it does to read it, but that's nothing to whinge about. In fact, that task can be quite a challenge and test the grey matter a lot more than a Rubic Cube.

Note to DEX editor and staff: don't get your knickers in knots over those comments. DEX is just like our pet greyhound - you're 'family' and we still luvs ya, warts and all.