Daily Examiner editor spits the dummy as he grabs his hat and coat

The Daily Examiner, 4 August 2009

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Editor Peter Chapman takes a swipe at the noisy minority as he prepares to leave The Daily Examiner for Queensland's The Fraser Coast Chronicle, after less than 15 months in the Clarence Valley.

Which possibly makes him the shortest-term editor but one The Daily Examiner has ever had in its 150 year history.

In November 2008 Peter gave a talk to Grafton U3A which indicated that he has worked on at least thirteen different print and television media outlets since the early 1970s, as well as for approximately four sporting bodies.

Editor made use of internet sources, but he forgot to thank them

The front page of today's Daily Examiner carries a report written by its editor, Peter Chapman, about the disqualification of a jockey whose urine sample tested positive to a banned substance.

Racing NSW stewards disqualified the hoop for 12 months on the basis of an analyst's finding of an opioid in a sample taken from the jockey after he completed trackwork in July.

According to Chapman, "the test revealed traces of the prohibited drug, Buprenorphine, in his system".

No, Peter, stewards did not reveal to the public just what the jock's sample contained.

Chapman proceeded to provide readers with the duck's guts about Buprenorphine.

Although it made for interesting reading, Chapman didn't say that the information provided about the substance was lifted from any one of a number of sources on the internet. And, of course, he didn't acknowledge the source/s.

Even more interesting, was what Chapman (with all his editing skills) elected to leave out about the substance's adverse effects.

In addition to the effects stated, the source/s Chapman 'borrowed' from also stated that the substance had the potential to affect a chap's love making.

Thanks, Peter, for sparing the readers those details!

Read Chapman's piece in The Daily Examiner's here.

Woke up with a vacant sensation between your journalistic ears? Then publish a viral email!

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The editor of that APN newspaper The Daily Examiner of Grafton in the Clarence Valley was obviously having a lazy day when he decided that those paying top price for the Saturday issue should be treated to the re-publication of one version of a hoary old copyright article from last century, which has become over time one of those ever-adapting viral emails which clog our PC inboxes from time to time.

At the time of writing this it had last turned up on a blog on 18 June 2009 in what appears to be the version Peter Chapman used.

Unfortunately a hard copy newspaper doesn't have a handy delete button, so a prolonged groan rang out across the valley from the many who had already read the supposed London Times obit in various forms over the years.

Common sense may not actually be dead but there is certainly a dearth of it at The Egg Timer these days.

Newspaper porkies for sale in the Clarence Valley

Oh dear, The Daily Examiner editor is at it once more.

On Tuesday 30 June 2009 he proclaimed he never did it - yet again.

Forgetting established chronology (the first published article appeared on 11 June and the first letter some four or five days later) he blames the Grafton-based APN newspaper's readers.

Unfortunately for Peter Chapman his previous words and those of the newspaper's journalists live on and show the heavy-handed, hearsay-ridden attempt to link crime, Beachside, Ngaru Village and "men of aboriginal appearance" as well as "Young people running around the streets staging break and enters and smashing property".

Here are two of those The Daily Examiner articles from 11 June and 12 June 2009:

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Blistering barnacles, Mr. Editor!

Letter to The Daily Examiner editor, Peter Chapman, published on 25 June 2009.

See other posts:
Brave young Maree Jay takes on the ugly face of Australian journalism at The Daily Examiner
Greatest problem! Crisis! It's extravagation time at Tabloid City

Brave young Maree Jay takes on the ugly face of Australian journalism at The Daily Examiner

Hot on the heels of The Daily Examiner office at Yamba being broken into and what sounds like an amount of petty cash stolen, that newspaper attempted to run a crime wave scare concerning people of aboriginal appearance and allegedly low police numbers [The Daily Examiner, 11 June 2009].

Something that Grafton Police Chief Inspector Darren Spooner flatly denied as he happens to live in Yamba [The Daily Examiner, 13 June 2009,p5].

By 12 June 2009 this inchoate media beatup had quickly morphed into a generalised attack on the indigenous community of Yamba.

Now 22 year-old Maree Jay of Grafton has taken the newspaper's boastfully unrepentant editor to task for his judgmental, one-eyed, hearsay-ridden view of the Yaegl community.

Once again, Peter Chapman has added an editor's comment which reflects his inability to recognise his own journalistic shortcomings.

Ngaru Village

THIS is a formal complaint written to the people involved in the production and publishing of the story 'Yamba's Mission' (DEX, June 13).
This article is an example of social segregation and disinclusion. These are two words identified by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner 2003 as contributors to a) the history of oppression of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait lslander people and b) the continuation of such abuse.
By publishing this story you are actively continuing that cycle. The 'Yamba community' is spoken to as if they are white, and the 'Aboriginal people'are not spoken to, they are spoken about.
It is 2009, I am 22 years old and the printing of this story made me feel sick in the bottom of my stomach.
I wonder how a story with the same stereotyping, ignorance, opportunism and the lack of factual research seen in stories published when my grandmother was 22 years old can be so destructively distributed throughout our community.
Did you ask anyone in the Aboriginal community anything about their life? No. You snuck in at 6.15 in the morning to rely on photos that give an out-of-context, sensationalised impression.
lf you were a Koori person, would you want to go into town with this story in the press?
Maree Jay,
GRAFTON.

EDITOR'S COMMENT; The response from Maree Jay reflects indignation that someone would dare criticise Yamba's Ngaru Village.
Like us, you know that our story is based on fact, not on rumours.
Key details of what is happening at the village have been known to this paper for many months.
Rather than attack us, the question I put back to you is: As a concerned 22-year-old what have you done in the past few years to assist Ngaru Village and to help improve the living standards of the children who call the village home?
It would have been easy for this paper to have ignored Ngaru Village. We knew we would generate howls of protests like yours.
I don't apologise for taking the stance we have, in fact l would have been embarrassed if we
hadn't.

As the editor has not yet made one constructive suggestion or concrete offer of help, it is the height of hypocrisy on his part to suggest that another should be doing so.

Peter Chapman may not be embarrassed, but I wouldn't mind betting that there are a few reputable journalists who would be embarrassed by his amateurish existence.

North Coast Voices will be revealed for its ignorance according to the mainstream media!

The Daily Examiner masthead

This year The Daily Examiner of Grafton (which is the only local daily newspaper covering the Clarence Valley) marks 150 years of journalism and news reporting, so it is sad that the once proud newspaper was reduced to this last Saturday when the editor was criticized by James Patterson of Ramornie in a letter to the editor.

In part this is what Mr. Patterson said:

You deserve to come under attack for your articles on the Yamba village because, in your rush to get the story out, you delivered a piece low on research and fact and high on emotive journalism.
Your key story ran for a week to mainly justify your position.
A raised voice at 6.15am, a photo of a rundown building and a quote from a politician are not cold, hard facts that will convince people.

Peter Chapman's reply induced some mirth here at North Coast Voices when in part it stated:

EDITOR'S COMMENT: To every story there is a start and an end.
We have only just scratched the surface of the Ngaru Village story.
I refute your comments that it wasn't based on any hard facts.
It is unfortunate that many people in the community know about what is happening in the village yet very few if any, are prepared to put their name to the story.
Our information comes from impeccable sources and when the story is finished people who have criticised our stance will be revealed for their ignorance.

On Saturday The Daily Examiner also ran this story which, rumour has it, is a change of tone and emphasis brought on by the thought that ABC TV's Media Watch may be aware of Peter Chapman's recent over the top reporting on Ngaru Village.
A case of twice bitten, third time shy?

Did the editor's dog eat his homework?

How does one account for the Comment in today's Daily Examiner by its editor Peter Chapman?

In a piece titled Banks law unto themselves Chapman has simply reproduced, word-for-word, a media statement released by Senator Steve Fielding.

Okay, let's give Chapman some credit. He acknowledged it was Fielding's work and to make things easier for his readers he turned one paragraph that consisted of two sentences into two one-sentence paragraphs.

Perhaps the editor's dog ate his homework and when it came time to hand up his copy for today's paper he had nothing.

Let's hope other journos at The Daily Examiner don't follow Chapman's lead and simply rehash media statements.

Oh, by the way, Fielding's media statement can be read here.

Greatest problem! Crisis! It's extravagation time at Tabloid City

Image from The Daily Examiner on 12 June 2009, page 14 and pointer on the front page

There is a reason why newspaper journalists were just two places off the bottom of the Roy Morgan June 2009 poll, which rated public perception of the ethics and honesty of Australia's main professional groups.

Here is a perfect example of modern gutter journalism - The Daily Examiner indulging in a little Ngaru Village bashing (calling it the shame of Yamba) and in the process telling us that no-one wanted to talk to the newspaper even though it was going though politically correct channels.

According to the editor's Comment article; an urban residential area, with no more than fifteen unit clusters/houses (about twelve occupied) and a handful of kids, is apparently causing the greatest problem facing the Clarence Valley community today.
In fact it's a crisis!

In increasingly breathless purple prose the editor expects that any car he travels to the village in will likely be pelted with stones and abuse will be hurled.

Yes, I can really see his point.
Disregard the fact that many of the Yaegl traditional owners live quietly in the wider 6,500-strong Yamba community and, that there are around 50,000 people living across the Clarence Valley on any given day which means that the combined weight of the dominant groups outnumber these original Australian families.
Forget that it is the personal experience of many Yamba residents that when travelling into Ngaru Village they are only met with a quiet and dignified politeness.
Completely ignore those indigenous families where a parent works full-time and the children go to school regularly.
A few kids in one area are allegedly busy turning our cherished, otherwise major problem-free, whitebread way of life to dust if the hyperventilating editor is to be believed.

The day Peter Chapman published this tripe I happened to pass a Yamba home mourning the recent loss of a young indigenous person to suicide - but blinked editors don't even think about the sort of conditions which cause this all too frequent tragedy, do they?

Oh, but I am remiss! I am forgetting to mention that the very next day after his Comment went to print the editor offered to 'help' Ngaru Village.
How did he do that? Why by splashing out on the entire front page of The Daily Examiner's Saturday issue with this supposed offer, in which his opening paragraph stated that the Yamba aboriginal community...is collapsing.

Then on Page Four filling the personally-penned article with hearsay, outright gossip and ill-formed opinion.

As well as admitting that he had sent an apparently uninvited photographer into the village at 6.15am the previous day (when the Yamba air temperature was 7 degrees Celsius according to BoM and sensible folk were still inside eating breakfast in front of a heater) to take surreptitious photographs of one of the three dwellings that had already been scheduled for demolition years ago and what appears to be one occupied house.

Which seems to encompass the entire range of spurious help the editor offered.

Peter Chapman is indeed the ugly face of Australian journalism.

Update:

A letter to the editor (very similar to this post) was sent to The Daily Examiner, which published same on 16 June 2009, along with a lengthy Editor's Comment attached.

The comment was a laugh and a half as it stated in part; you are so far wide of the mark you couldn't find your way back with a guide dog, a compass and a map.

The editor rather strangely went on to say that this [my] attitude of indifference was what has caused all the problems at Ngaru Village.

However, what produced the greatest laughter was Peter Chapman's assertion that when publishing the letter in question he was not deleting any of your diatribe.

Poor man just can't help himself, as this was yet another extravagation - he had indeed deliberately deleted eleven words in the middle of a sentence; the Yamba air temperature was 7 degrees Celsius according to BoM and.

Apparently the rest of the Clarence Valley was not supposed to know that he sent the photographer out in cold weather!

Just as that Saturday's frontpage story and Page Four article have not been posted on The Daily Examiner website to date.

So this is what passes for NSW regional news these days?

Snapshot from The Daily Examiner, Grafton NSW

It wasn't that many days past since The Daily Examiner editor Peter Chapman was sounding off about ABC North Coast Radio's limited news coverage.
In fact I commented upon his views in this recent post Chapman uses Chaser blunder to hit back at Media Watch.

Well, Mr. Chapman continues to exceed himself, with blatant advertisement masquerading as reporting turning up in the newspaper under his stewardship yet again on 11 June 2009 at page 6 of a 32 page issue.

So enchanted is the editor with this no-brainer form of faux news that the article is also on the newspapers website, where one can happily learn that the principal dealer is committed to taking Clarence Valley Auto well into the future and that he will look after the local community and offer the best possible deals I can on Ford and Hyundai, as well as the best service.

One cannot help wondering if all these not so stealthy advertisements are paid for or if they are freebies for friends.

What they are definitely not is news reporting.

Chapman uses Chaser blunder to hit back at Media Watch

Image from The Daily Examiner

In this clumsy attempt to hit back at ABC TV Media Watch (for this item and probably this earlier item) under the guise of commenting on The Chaser's War on Everything's lapse in good taste, I particularly enjoyed Peter Chapman's silly jibes about ABC employees:

where many journalists go to retire

they prance around with an air of superiority and arrogance watching the clock tick from 9am to 5pm

They live in a world of their own where they believe their snobbish upperclass views are indeed the only views that have any merit

While his dig at ABC radio news coverage on the NSW North Coast begs the question as to why The Daily Examiner editor, who is notorious locally for his advertorials and product placement in supposed news articles, dares to point to journalistic failings in others.

One almost feels like echoing the comment of his young daughter; Zip it, Dad. [The Daily Examiner,"Slants on Life",6 June 2009]

Though comments on the ABC Media Watch website go further:

Bred and born in the Clarence :
18 Apr 2009 2:36:13pm
I've lost count of the number of people I have spoken to who no longer buy the Daily Examiner due to its degrading gutter journalism. Reports continually try to divide our wonderful coastal community on a variety of issues.
Perhaps the community should call for a "vote of no confidence".

clarence valley gal :
15 Apr 2009 9:44:15pm
Thank you for drawing attention to the pathetic attitude of the editor of the local paper [ Daily Examiner]. We have to suffer through his boorish comments on a regular basis.

Jen :
14 Apr 2009 6:53:26am
Well done Media Watch. This newspaper editor writes rubbish on a regular basis and it's good to see him called on this. Unfortunately he also writes articles with serious bias and disses local towns such as Yamba and South Grafton. The former apparently on the grounds that all its shops were not open on New Year's Day for the benefit of his relatives. In addition - one of his very early stories on the Clarence Valley almost lost it the services of Rex Airlines.

What gripe does the Daily Examiner have with PNG?

After Wednesday night's State of Origin the Examiner's editor, Peter Chapman, called for all NRL video referees "to be taken to the docks for a one way trip to Papua New Guinea".

Many people will agree with Chapman that the video referee in Wednesday night's NRL State of Origin went way too far when deciding 'No Try' after Blue's Jarryd Haynes had flirted with the touch line.

However, sending all the video refs to PNG is stretching things a bit too far. What on earth have PNGers done that caused Chapman to decide they should have to host the refs?

Chapman admitted that he "bunkered down at home for the match complete with freshly-ordered pizza and a cold drink by (his) side".

Perhaps, Chapman had one cold drink too many. Then again, perhaps the pizza was off.

Pollies and top public servants feel the pain (at least for another four months)

This week the Remuneration Tribunal announced it has deferred its annual pay review for federal politicians and government agency heads.
Before everyone goes "Oh, that's a shame!" remember that the Chair of the Australian Communications and Media Authority - which is never happier than when it is censoring the Internet - is still comfortably off on an annual salary package of $408,560 ("Mr Christopher Chapman will receive a personal loading .... while he occupies the office") as well as getting Tier 1 travel.
Christopher Robin was until January 2006 a director of Babcock & Brown Investor Services Limited.
ACMA's Deputy Chair gets $296,260 and an Member gets $272,690, with the same travel allowance.
Of course they are not among the highest salaries paid from government coffers as the Chair of APRA comes in at a cool $603,130 each year, with a specified superannuation loading.

Clarence Valley whodunnit

Snapshot from Media Watch

Courtesy of Clarrie Rivers

Ever since ABC TV Media Watch featured The Daily Examiner editor Peter Chapman's ill-fated foray into gender politics, some Clarence Valley residents have been wondering who sent off that copy of Chapman's "Comment" article.

One person caused a smile by suggesting that it would be impossible to tell whodunnit due to the number of those already annoyed with Chapman and that "the perp could've come from a cast of thousands".

While on the subject of The Daily Examiner, this was sent to me yesterday as an example of advertising thinly disguised as news. Something which appears to be cropping up too frequently under Chapman's editorship.

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Comic relief ... it's just not cricket

More about that "No penis, no microphone" business

ABC TV's Media Watch has hit The Daily Examiner commentator Peter Chapman, the bloke who started the business, for six.

Media Watch didn't buy Chapman's assurances that he's not a male chauvinist ["...as one of the first sports editors in Channel Ten to employ female sports journalists, I can't be labelled a male chauvinist (The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009)"]

Media Watch: The horror! Peter Chapman is a sports buff from way back - with views to match.

According to him, this female person didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

Instead she...

...tried to bluff her way through by explaining how we need more swing bowlers and the difference a hard and soft ball can make to scoring rates.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

She has a name, Peter. It's Natalie Germanos, and she's been calling cricket for the South African Broadcasting Corp since 2005.

She's a former player, and coach.

Here she is, bluffing away about swing bowling:

Natalie Germanos: What you've seen in this game that Wayne Parnell, a decent amount of swing and Dale Steyn as well, he hasn't got much swing over the summer, especially here in South Africa, but moved that white ball around quite a bit and was very effective.

— Fox Sports 2, Aus vs RSA ODI, 5th April, 2009

Funnily enough, right after the game, Allan Border seemed to think South Africa's swing bowling was quite important too.

...the way they struck with the new hard ball early, they swung the ball at good pace and our top order crumbled...

— Fox Sports 2 web video, 5th April, 2009

We got a long response from Peter Chapman, who now argues that it's Natalie Germanos's commentary he took issue with, not her gender...

I have no concerns should a female commentator arrive who can deliver the goods, I welcome her.

— Email from Peter Chapman (Editor, The Daily Examiner) to Media Watch, 9th April, 2009

Read Peter Chapman's response to Media Watch’s questions.

That's not quite what you wrote, Peter:

I don't mind female sports journos doing interviews and giving us the colour reports, but for blow-by-blow, it has to be a male.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

Mind you, Peter assures us:

...as one of the first sports editors in Channel Ten to employ female sports journalists, I can't be labelled a male chauvinist.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

Oh, I think you can, Peter...

Comic relief

No penis, no microphone

Herald journo Peter FitzSimons has this par in today's Sydney Morning Herald

Columnist for the Grafton Daily Examiner Peter Chapman on Tuesday: "While I hold no concerns about women reporting sport, I do not believe they should be handed a microphone to comment on major male sporting contests … I don't mind female sports journos doing colour reports, but for blow-by-blow, it has to be a male." His supporting argument? There wasn't one. Just, no penis, no microphone.

Pink shirts and pig ignorance on the NSW North Coast

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Sometimes it is hard to decide whether this The Daily Examiner journalist is simply obeying an editorial direction to create controversy at any price or if he actually is as developmentally delayed as his language suggests.

Like other ugly paper chauvinists in the media Graham Orams is careful to give himself what he obviously believes is a get-out-of-gaol-free ticket by telling the world that women deserve better, as he flaunts what he likes to refer to as my raw and unshakable masculinity (pause for readers to lift right hand and signal with little finger).

The opinion piece above appeared on page 11 in last Thursday's issue of this regional paper. Needless to say its editor is still Peter Chapman.

It's official - the editor's an ars#h@le

The Daily Examiner at Grafton celebrates 150 years of news publication this year.
It's circulation covers the Clarence Valley, with a supposed readership of around 28,000 from Monday to Saturday.
A somewhat unnatural number given that there are only about 50,000 people living in the Valley.
Still, it is to be congratulated for hanging in there when so many in the print media are living on what appears to be borrowed time as teh teev and teh net make inroads into 'audience' share.
So it's a real pity that in a year of celebration this local paper should be lumbered with such a tactless, insensitive tabloid hack like its johhny-come-lately editor, Peter Chapman.

His latest effort on Tuesday was to berate Yamba small business owners for taking either Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day off to be with their own family and friends.
Apparently everyone in Yamba should have been open comme la Gold Coast for the benefit of the editor, his extended family and friends (because not for one moment did I believe in the unnamed dissatisfied 'tourists' he was supposedly championing).
As an afterthought he also included Maclean and Grafton shopkeepers in his gripe - presumably the boofhead remembered that he currently resides in Yamba and has to face his neighbours once the paper hits the streets.

Map from APN

The Brand Names Gazette, Est 1859

Maud up the Street has been having a word in my ear about a local rag she calls The Brand Names Gazette.
At first I couldn't bring to mind the newspaper she was griping about - then she mentioned the number of advertising inserts falling out of the middle of most issues and I realised she was talking about The Daily Examiner out of Grafton.

Maud like most of us has noticed that the number of 'advertorials' seem to have increased since Peter Chapman became editor - to the point where he is no longer game to label his comment as an editorial.
What really galls however, is the number of news articles which contain clumsy attempts at brand placement or are naked puff pieces on behalf of local real estate agents, developers and businesses.
Though I swear that the birds are worse than the blokes on this moan - Clarencegirl is almost apoplectic when she talks about those puff pieces, although she swears that three retired blokes in Yamba beat her hands down when it comes to loathing how the newspaper reports lately.

While he's busy wrecking an historic regional paper, Chappie is also failing to win friends and influence people in his new home town as this little gem below shows.
What do they say about pets and their owners?

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At what point does a regional newspaper die, fade away or simply get killed off by its inept editor?

The Daily Examiner out of Grafton on the NSW North Coast has been around a long time. Since 1859 in fact.

It has had its ups and downs, but is still strongly supported and rather affectionately known as The Egg Timer - because local wags are convinced that you can always read it cover-to-cover in under three minutes.

If one local is any indication, that affection has begun to slip since Peter Chapman became this newspaper's editor.
With what could only be described as indignation, Tuesday's opinion page was pushed under my nose that day and, one of the many inconsistencies of the 'new' editor pointed out to me.

I have to say that I see the point.

The Daily Examiner had previously begun a juvenile, weekly name and shame file for DOI drivers convicted by the court.
Convictions, names, street addresses, and up until now professions or job descriptions if available, were published with gay abandon.
It seems that the editor subscribes to the notion that convicted persons should be punished twice - once by the court and once by his good self. All in the name of a supposed push to curb local drink driving.

So it was rather surprising to see the editor on that particular opinion page both defend his DOI file and at the same time encourage people to go forth and gamble at the Pacific Hotel in Yamba and "cheer on the long shots. Two hours of free booze is just as good as backing the winner yourself." [The Daily Examiner,Grafton,Tuesday October 21 2008,p.8]

Yes, there it was, the editor encouraging a booze up.

I wasn't surprised when my friend's observations ended with words to the effect that Chapman had been doing the rounds of the Clarence Valley in a meet and greet exercise obviously looking for positive strokes like 'you're wonderful, Peter', but that she was damned if she was going to go up and give him what he wanted.

This little incident occurred in the same week Chapman was being taken to task in the letters column for his 'advertorials', a recent downer on a Lower Clarence festival and for proclaiming the death of a village which knew itself to be alive and kicking.

But then, since Chapman arrived on the scene, proclaiming a death ahead of time is not unknown in The Daily Examiner.

Personally I'm looking forward to hearing the hiss of collectively indrawn breath when it is realised that, in defending yet another of his recent by-line pieces yesterday, Chapman incorrectly cited Clarence Valley Council rules and regulations regarding domestic animals as a justification for his little spit.