21 October 2010

Is there a story here?


It's been a while since Jason Koutsoukis was dispatched to the Middle East to get over his infatuation with Peter Costello and discover what real news is. After this piece, and a few others, it could well be that Katharine Murphy is the next candidate for a news hound with no nose for a story, no understanding that a story isn't just whatever some journalist feels like writing.

Read the Murphy piece linked above and tell me what the story is. Yes, it would appear that the former owner of one television network has bought a share of a different network. It would appear that some politicians who might have been expected to comment on this event declined to do so. That's it, really. No real insight about what Packer may or may not do with Network Ten were he to control it, no real insight about broadcasting policy or the media generally.

No news at all. No story worth writing, let alone reading. If I ran ads with the SMH I'd want a discount so I could claim honestly that "none of our revenue supports Katharine Murphy", and not just because the Audit Bureau of Circulation is a joke. So long as pap like this gets written and published, so long as you can find a blog with consistently more substance and better writing, never believe the self-serving bullshit from the journosphere about the "24 hour news cycle".

2 comments:

  1. Hear hear.

    When journos comment about body language, you know they are already scraping ...

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  2. Andrew,
    The media no longer care about reporting "news". It's pretty much all gossip cloaked in a veneer of respectability.
    The newspapers are all basically New Idea in newsprint...none more so than the Opposition Oracle itself. And as for the broadcast mob...the inanity they determine to be newsworthy is just staggering.

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