Also, how they get you to read crap – the industry calls it ‘click bait’, The Magpie reports on the rise and rise of what is better described as ‘prick-tease publishing’. And The Astonisher causes a social media firestorm over a ‘sexist’ headline …
Bentley gets on the turps with Bazza O’Farrell – that and all the usual irrelevant claptrap and larfs in this week’s nest.
Seems the political demise of NSW’s premier Bazza ‘Mr Cardigan’ O’Farrell might not be the result of a ‘noble mistake’ after all. Turns out a job offer was floating around for the donor of the now infamous $3000 bottle of plonk just a couple of weeks after the goodies were delivered.
Bentley reckons the whole thing is on the nose in more ways than one.
Seems that smarter – maybe – political moves are afoot on the local scene.
Looks like Mayor Mullet has made a clever(ish) swerve in her never-ending re-election campaign, probably on advice from her political gofer Patricia Schluter, who came north from the Canberra office of Senator David Feeney to help out a floundering Mullet.
The question is being asked if Mayor Mullet has found a stalking horse for her supposedly secret budgetary proposals.
The mayor seems to have pulled back a bit, accepting the folly of promoting divisive issues of self-interest as media campaigns in a compliant Astonisher. The negative reception of such hijinks around town was becoming all too apparent and damaging. It would appear that both Mayor Mullet and Astonisher editor Lachy Heywood have told Anthony Simpo Templeton to take a cold shower, so both his reporting and his armpits are noticeably less on the nose of late.
With just a few soft mewings to placate the dwindling band of the faithful about such issues as Strand building heights (five storeys high rise? Oh, purleese!) and the Pinnacles proposed development, the mayor has fallen into step with reality, and is finally working with the council majority. The penny appears to have dropped that in the democratic process, the tail cannot wag the dog.
At least that’s impression on the surface, although The ‘Pie hears that there are still some sneaky skirmishes away from the public eye. (That admittedly comes from a biased observer, and is mentioned only because our gal has form of that nature. Mind you, Townsville Firsters aren’t as pure as the driven snow is this area either, now they’re getting imbued with the hubris of local government politics).
But an interesting article in the Townsville Sun this week has a few other observers thinking our gal has found a stalking horse in those lovable laughables, the Townsville Ratbags Association.
Specifically this time around party animal and perennial sleeve tugger David Moyle, who has put forward the Ratepayers Association wish-list for the forthcoming council budget.
That would be amusing and of supreme irrelevance except for one thing.
One breathy caller down The MagpieFone has suggested that Davy boy got his ‘wish list’ from confidential details leaked by some unnamed councillors, such was the nature of some of his budgetary desires. The more outrageous of The ‘Pie’s (obviously biased) staff informants suggests that local government rules of confidentiality have been breached. And they finger the mayor as the instigator, since Messagebank and BooHoo Doyle wouldn’t say dicky bird without their boss’s say so, and no one else knows what madam is has in mind.
Well, naughty maybe, so it will be interesting to see just what is put forward – and what is knocked back – when Mayor Mullet’s budget proposals are voted on in June. A comparison with the Ratbags pompous wish list will be an entertaining exercise. Just why Madam Mayor thinks she would get any useful credibility from the backing of a heavily Labor leaning association whose co-founder Paul Jacob is a former president of the now gutted Thuringowa branch of the Labor Party is anybody’s guess.
Watching closely.
The Pie cannot let this day pass without a nod in the direction of Will and Kate and their little blood-sucking burden on the public purse, the actually quite ugly Georgie Porgie. If the world of the photoshoppers is anything to go by, Will will have a better time of it in Queensland than in NZ.
That is unless Clive Palmer starts his infamous jiggling dance … a front-end loader, Prince?
Rolling along.
There’s an old lament from diehard blokes that suggests there was a time when you couldn’t say ‘f#ck’ in front of a girl –nowadays, you can’t call her a girl without being told to get f#cked. Well, that’s progress of sorts one supposes, but obviously not an observation taken to heart at the Astonisher.
This headline drew both ire, derision and mirth from the social media mob. Seems that well respected ex-Astonisher staffer Andrew Strutten hit a nerve by calling the paper out on the headline. Among others, that got seasoned snapper and all round general media clever clogs Cam Laird to follow up the high dudgeon.
But wait, there’s even more.
All good fire-breathing fun but a couple of the comments are revealing.
Galloway might think it a joke to ‘blame’ Rupert, but the old boys’ paternalistic culture of News Corpse (as Mike Carlton now calls them) actually does come back to Murdoch. And you can’t half tell Lendl Ryan is leaving the Astonisher – does one detect a little personal venom in his comment there, a bit of payback for being professionally overshadowed since Sparkes’ arrival? And hey, Lendl, wouldn’t that headline have passed your eyes as night editor, mate, or is that position so exalted it doesn’t include the web version? That would let you off the hook, and allow you put the boot into an unnamed colleague. Or was your Facebook comment prompted by the undoubted disapproval from your colleague and intended Emily Macdonald who maybe – not for the first time – threatened to cross her legs until you changed your tune.
But everybody seemed to miss one major point.
What has gender got to do with this story in the first place?
Why not simply ‘Local Gets Port Job’, as Tony Raggatt probably would’ve written (maybe). Surely ‘Local makes Good’ is the essence of the yarn, so ‘girl’ does sound a bit gratuitous. Even ‘woman’ would seem irrelevant.
There are probably casual yarns that allow some familiarity when ‘girl’ is acceptable, but this isn’t one of them. You’re dicing with death using it in a business story about female success. If Sparkes – generally a good journo on evidence so far, or is that just by comparison – was trying to appeal to the feminist lobby with a headline about a female making it to the top spot, then his nuts really are on the chopping block.
NOTE TO old Magpie mate LINDA SOUTER BENNETT: Noting your comment in this matter, The Pie will accept that you’re indeed a gal, but confesses he has no solid empirical knowledge of the fact. Since The Pie always likes to check his facts (ha!), when you’ve got a moment, pop around for the Bangkok Back Bar ‘lady boy test’. It’s free – and easy, heh, heh, heh.
A footnote on Ranee Crosby’s appointment, from the Where Are They Now Dept.: former Townsville Port boss Barry Holden, who was unceremoniously shafted in a bit of the inevitable LNP political payback of Labor appointments (bit unfair, Holden was a political neutral professional), has happily fallen on his feet – and mercifully not into the water. He is now in charge of tugboat operations in seven Tasmanian ports. The ‘Pie is told he still has family ties with Townsville and will make the occasional visit back to the city to which he made a major contribution over the years of his tenure at Townsville Port.
Like Bazza, moving on.
In the distant and dusty rural youth of The ‘Pie, there were many colorful expressions to mask and soothe the growing pains that haunted the Clearasil-clotted minds of we spotty adolescents. Chief among these was the term ‘prick teaser’, a term aimed at friendly girls who somehow failed to perceive or appreciate the rampant sexual attraction of blokes who wanted to ‘go all the way’.
Oh still my beating heart.
Female friendliness – yes, it was often flirting – was always interpreted as secretly being mad with sexual arousal and desire – or so we liked to think. Labeling someone a ‘prick teaser’ – leading someone on and then not ‘delivering’ – became the desperate balm for many a wounded ego.
Winging forward to 2014, we can now observe the full emergence of a new technical type of ‘prick teasing’, in the web world of news sites around the globe … and even here in Townsville as you will see in a sec. The industry calls it ‘click bait’, enticing readers to click on deeper into a story with come hither headlines and ingenuous questions (‘You won’t believe what happened next – click here to find out’ and so on ). The obvious perceived wisdom is that ‘clicks’ equal reader numbers (they don’t actually, but we’ll leave that for the moment), and the greater the quoted number, the greater the justification for advertising rates.
London’s Mail Online is the champ in this area, getting tens of millions of clicks each month with stuff like Chinese Trombonist Cuts off Own Member To Choke Noisy Panda or some such. The Sydney Morning Herald indulges in a more genteel ‘baiting’, but as usual, there’s no holding back at News Corpse.
And given the homogenous nature of the News behemoth, the Astonisher has recently come up with a double whammy advance on the technique.
Even today we have the bait of ‘Judge Tells Convicted Killer ‘I Hope You Die’. Strewth, ,had Johnny Baulch lost it on the bench? Was Stewie Durward into the turps after an All Blacks loss (if there is such a thing)? That’s tough stuff. Click through and it turns out to be a very unremarkable story about a female killer who back chatted a judge … in bloody Michigan, U s of A.
Christopher Lanning
A few weeks back, we were treated to a pic of this unsavory character, with the come-on that he drove 2000kms in the expectation of having sex with a 14 year old girl he’d groomed on line.
Click.
Turns out he was an American, one Christopher Lanning, and he drove halfway across the US for an illegal sexual assignation which turned out to be an undercover sting. His photo and the come-on ranked equally prominently in the Astonisher with the approaching Cyclone Ita – so much for priorities. We got all the loving detail, including the stench in his car, because in his panting frenzy, he didn’t stop even for a pee, and used a bottle as he drove – so much for the morning breakfast table read.
BUT even this story wouldn’t have made the grade except for one thing – Mr Lanning is a dwarf!
People who find this stuff entertaining and adding to the sum of their lives should pray for an early painless death.
But The Astonisher has come up with a ludicrous extension of the ‘prick tease’ . The Pie was sucked in with a come on that said something along the lines ’13 year old court appearance – you won’t what he’s charged with’.
Click.
We then get the low down on a kid in a Cairns court for stealing a few bucks worth of lighters. Everybody huffed and puffed with outrage , and right at the end of the story – which had carefully avoided mentioning any outcome, you’ll see readers were invited to yet again ‘click’ through to see what the magistrate had said.
So … click.
And even then, that was inaccurate, the magistrate wasn’t quoted, it was just reported that he’d dismissed the matter i.e. ‘threw the case out’ in journalese. All this puffery was lifted holus bolus from the Cairns Post into the Astonisher.
Ah, sigh, the Astonisher’s irrelevance continues at a gathering pace, because this sort of tripe is alienating the local and very parochial market big time.
Enough now, it is away to Poseurs’ Bar, which at least isn’t 2000kms away – the ageing bird should make it without the aid of a bottle. Not that The ‘Pie is, on form, likely to have any more luck than Mr Lanning. Bloody hell, they’re all teasers. (sigh). Maybe this is the problem.
