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Old media dog turns new media trick

By Richard Stanton - posted Friday, 21 October 2011


Bloggers have been accused of being unrestrained by editorial instruments such as sub editors who act as a check and balance against poor or inaccurate journalism.

The media inquiry recommendations will try to bring bloggers under control - the terms of reference seek to strengthen the Australian Press Council "including in relations to online publications".

This could be interpreted as meaning control of new media as well as control of old media as they attempt to 'migrate' profitably to online.

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Which brings me back to the News Limited blog. It contains matter that has been sourced from bloggers.

A week before the launch News invited a number of bloggers and tweeters to a briefing session in Sydney. The briefing was attended by News media editorial heavyweights who provided a few bevvies and nibblies for the attendant bloggers and assorted media academics.

The briefing was set up and managed by Matthew Gain, head of digital communication with Edelman, a public relations firm. News people included CEO of News Digital Media Richard Freudenstein, Group Marketing Director Ed Smith, Australian Editor Clive Mathieson, Australian Digital Editor Nic Hopkins and Australian Director of Corporate Affairs Stephen Browning.

Before the briefing invitees were emailed a number of suggestions for making contributions to the new blog and, in what was strategic to the launch becoming a news story, were also allowed to use any or all of the matter provided without embargo.

The traditional public relations/client/media model is to provide media with background matter but to ask that it be embargoed until the product/event launch date. It's designed to provide immediacy and newsworthiness and to avoid leaking.

But bloggers don't generally play by the rules so in doing away with this tactic Edelman cleverly drew them into the process.

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Participants at the briefing began tweeting almost immediately using the inelegant #newsdigsub tag recommended by Edelman.

Laurel Papworth (33,000 followers), Ross Dawson (27,000), Gavin Heaton (22,000) and Tim Burrowes (30,000) led the blogger charge to provide relevant information while Newcastle academic Melanie James (author of The Melanie James Daily) posed questions relating to her earlier independent analysis of online modelling.

The #newsdigsub tag generated what could be described as strong activity that continued for a couple of days after the Monday briefing.

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About the Author

Richard Stanton is a political communication writer and media critic. His most recent book is Do What They Like: The Media In The Australian Election Campaign 2010.

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All articles by Richard Stanton

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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