For the first time ever, News Ltd staff have posted a no confidence vote in the company’s floundering management, after metro photographers were sacked across Australia this week. Repercussions for the Townsville Bulletin yet to hit.
But The Astonisher is facing it’s own ‘no confidence’ vote from what’s left of its readership, after a week of showing callous disregard and a greedy marketing ploy to exploit cyclone ravaged communities.
Kevin Gill and Queensland Airports still trying to pick the pockets of Townsville travellers … but Qantas stands firm
Domestic violence cannot ever be tolerated, but a video The ‘Pie has found can, as they say in court, ‘explain but never excuse’ it …
… and just for laughs, peeing and pooing all the rage in TV ads … the poo one is guffaw funny
But first …
America’s child President has found his toy box, and is playing war games, as he ducks, weaves, shadow boxes and flinches at his own changing policy-by-tweet. Bentley is on an Easter break, but Paul Zanetti sat in on a Trump briefing to try and keep up with the minute by minute policy changes.
So saieth the Mother of all Dingbats.
Messagebank’s Example Leads The Way For All Councillors
We’ve all heard of the power behind the throne, but have you ever come across The Invisible Council? Yes, bit hard, I know, cos they’re … well, invisible.
Two or three times a year, the TCC prints and delivers to all households The City Update pamphlet, council’s 4-page skite about how wonderful they are. The information is mostly redundant and has already been covered by TV, radio and the Astonisher. We have Mayor Mullet is prominently simpering at us on the front page with ‘A Message From Your Mayor’, a rehash of matters already circulated in the mayor’s other regular pamphlet, The Townsville Bulletin.
But the only handy column has disappeared from the council’s Update. For reasons unknown (I’ll let you guess?) it no longer carries the handy column naming and listing contacts for individual councillors and their divisions, should you wish to contact them about issues in your neck of the woods..
But don’t you go fretting about this now. Several commenters have found that knowing how to contact your councillor is of little use. Mark Molachino , the foul-mouthed angry ant Paul Jacob and several others those elected to represent out interests have fielded requests for various bits of information or action, and all have responded that the inquirer should contact either the mayor, the CEO, Adele Young or the media office.
It seems that the councillors are under orders not to say anything beyond perhaps getting some weeds attended to. Seems there’s a whole lot of weeds that need attending to in Walker Street, but The ‘Pie won’t be calling the mayor or the CEO about it . Such a breathe of fresh air to have a truly independent council, ain’t it?
Con Air – The Local Version Of The Movie Not Likely To Take Off
We have all observed – and sadly some have been the victim of – con jobs over the years, some political, some in business, the overweight, the under bright and a some with an unfathomable weakness for rich Nigerian princesses.
And yes, sometimes, even the conned stand back ruefully and admire the cleverness of how they were taken.
But that will definitely NOT be the case the in the biggest con job of the many that have been foisted on Townsville over the years, even eclipsing the CBD stadium (a good but incomplete and expensive idea without the money-making entertainment and convention centre components).
The ‘Pie speaks here of the campaign underway to hold the Townsville travelling public to ransom and fund a private company’s multi-million dollar upgrade of its key asset with a proposed ticket tax. Indeed, it is an hilarious Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight scenario, when Queensland Airports local marionette Kevin Gill and a dying newspaper defeat their own argument in black and white with selective reporting.
In Tuesday’s paper, the Astonisher again scolded Qantas for refusing to impose a ticket tax and maintaining its principled stand to keep prices down and to ensure that a private, unlisted company didn’t use its monopoly power to pickpocket Townsville travellers for its own enrichment.
But they’ve again tripped themselves up in their headlong rush to pursue yet another wrong-headed ‘campaign’, and in the process have won the ‘No shit, Sherlock Trophy’ for the bleedin’ obvious. when reporter Domanii Cameron began her story with this:
‘A proposed $3 levy would not deter people from flying via Townsville Airport, two local travel agents have said.’
Accurate but just a touch obvious …. first because what else would you expect a travel agent to say, bugger all will change for them ,,, but more tellingly, we’ll still all use it because Townsville Airport is a bloody monopoly, in this day and age there is no alternative to air travel. So in fact, ignoring the fallacious argument that a new shiny upgrade will increase traffic, things will remain as they are (slow growth, about one per cent at the moment) upgrade or not, swindle tax or not.
Escape Travel’s Debbie Rains, one of Townsville’s premier businesswomen and the up-coming Chamber president, did not address the actual controversial question whether Queensland Airports Ltd (last annual profit $25million) should pay for the upgrade which will greatly enhance their bottom line, or the much put-upon Townsville traveller, already being hit with the highest regional rates in the country.
Jenny Hill is all for the latter idea, not that it is anything to do with her or her puppet council. But Qantas, god bless ‘em, have said bollocks to that, let QAL pay.
But the Bulletin is determined to show that it is part of the problem not the solution squeaking away at this issue championed by Townsville Enterprise (TEL) chairman Kevin ‘Rhymes With’ Gill. Tel, you ask? That’s the – ha ha – peak marketing body that is supposed to promote Townsville as an attractive and affordable place to visit. And beyond quoting Qantas, the other side of the argument hasn’t and won’t be explored in the paper.
No wonder TEL known as the Dudley Do Nothings of Wishing Well House.
And while we’re here, anyone ever heard some one say ‘Townsville? Great place but I won’t go there, I don’t like the airport’, or ‘ I really wnat to go for a holiday, but I’m not using that bloody airport’. No, me neither.
The Worm Has Finally Turned At News Corpse
… but it’s more a full blown, smoking, screeching wheelie than a turn.
In an astounding first, Queensland staff of News Corpse led by the Courier Mail troops, have sent a letter to News HQ in Sydney, announcing they have lost confidence in the company’s executive management. But they weren’t that polite about it. An editorial meeting in Brisbane during the week voted unanimously that they ‘believe Sydney no longer have a vision to rebuild a viable company’.
As you can see in this Mumbrella report, the meeting (which may or may not have included a hook-up with Astonisher staff … probably not), the letter to Holt Street got straight to the point, saying: “Senior News Corp management needs to be held accountable for its poor business decisions, lack of vision and inability to consult with their employees.” Thank God … The Magpie hasn’t been wrong all these years!!!
This unexpected bolshiness is the result of the company restructuring (their word for sacking) almost all their metro photographic staff to cost cut by using cheaper freelancers. The inevitable ripples will also be felt here in Townsville, along with Mackay and Cairns soon enough.
This is the first time News has experienced such an insurrection, not that it’ll do much good against the bumbling arrogance of Holt Street. But suddenly, media life has just got a whole lot more interesting. The ramifications are huge. Including here in Townsville.
Time For A Similar Vote On The Astonisher’s Editorial Management?
This week, it was proved beyond doubt the paper is in panic, going into full blown headless chook mode.
The signs were already there. The strange obsession with a mildly interesting murder case – the Hutchinson killing and trial – somehow morphed into blockbuster coverage going on for days and included a six or eight page spread about what was by any measure a good yarn worth a page or so. For some reason, Iditor Ben Bogan English thought this would reconnect with his lost readers. With no disrespect to the victim or her family, for those not involved this quickly became old news, and a bit of a yawn, but the Bulletin was obsessed, the coverage just went on day after day
But while that was one of the many of the Astonisher’s mysterious misjudgements, along came another killer to get the iditor all warm and moist – her name of Debbie.
Although a local laughing stock for its mapped prediction almost a week out of a cyclone bullseye on Townsville, the paper gave as good as coverage as possible, although easily outpaced by other more professional publications and sites. But this story too, despite being well away from the core readership region of the Astonisher, went on and on, from all sorts of mostly irrelevant angles. De-feathered bird, bloke stayed in his caravan (complete with atrocious punning headline), unedifying interviews with what seemed like the entire population from Bowen south, and some good and some awful reporting. And this too went on and on, with a puzzling insistence.
But then, this week – yes, they were still going on at length about it … the Townsville Bulletin twice showed they have no shame, sense of decency or a clue about this town. First there was this thoughtless and callous cartoon directly comparing the destruction, heartbreak and chaos of Cyclone Debbie with a minor injury to a millionaire football player.
That, put simoply, is disgusting.
But worse was … and is … to come.
This is how a commenter to this blog expressed his disgust of the second matter in no uncertain terms, when the paper went into cynical ‘hero’ posture .
Simon and Garfunkel April 14, 2017 at 1:02 pm (Edit)
I believe it’s crucial we have a local newspaper but I can’t swallow the blatant exploitation within this story.
This is the worst article I’ve ever seen published in the Bulletin on so many levels.
Not only are we all winners, we are now all ‘heroes’.
Within the same universe are the people running a sausage sizzle (where?) and the drowning mother (yep, she drowned) near Tweed Heads.
For a start Debbie missed Townsville. None of this is even local. Bizarre.
Ben English’s concept is: We want to suck this event for everything we can get. So we want you to send us your story and photos, we’ll put it into a ‘book’ (aka liftout), get advertising support (our main aim), maybe sell a few copies to the ‘heroes’ in the ‘book’, and if there’s any money left (doubtful) we’ll give some of it (no idea how much) to someone (unspecified).
And just for the record, a fundamental mistake: The circumference of the Earth is 40,075 kilometres. Can’t see how Cyclone Debbie could stretch over HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF KILOMETRES.
The writer is a respected voice and highly successful businessman in the ‘Ville, and no doubt spoke for many who are increasingly fed up with this sort of naked venality and juvenility. The Townsville Bulletin’s race to irrelevance is almost done, the finishing post is fast approaching .
Not Only Did The Worm Turn In Brisbane This Week, But The Grub RE-turned To Cardwell.
Although you have NOT read about it in the Astonisher, crooked grub Craig Gore has returned to these shores … and is likely to unwillingly stay here for a while. Brisbane newspaper the Courier Mail reported from Cardwell – which is in the Townsville Bulletin’s reporting area – about a little kerfuffle that led to rather larger outcomes.
Last week, he stacked on a drunken blustering turn in the Hinchinbrook Resort restaurant in Cardwell, ranting away and chucking fishing trophies into the harbour. New resort owners, yank outfit Passage Holdings, to whom Gore is a consultant, weren’t amused.
Big story in the Courier, with a lame follow-up in the Astonisher a day or two later, although Cardwell is it’s patch. The ‘Pie was surprised to know Gore was back in Australia, given he skipped out after getting a damning judgment against for financial rorting on a scale that would make Clive Palmer blush. He’ been living in Phoneix Arizona, and at his wife’s place in Sweden, one imagines to avoid the rigors of Aussie law.
His presence here thus being widely reported attracted the beady eye of the wallopers, who were just as surprised, but they caught up with him late yesterday in Brisbane, as he was about to board a flight to Sweden. After a night in the lock-up, he was bailed after being charged with 12 counts of fraud and three of operating as a director while disqualified.
Craig Gore – the grub returns
Now he has to stick around to see have a chat with a Brisbane magistrate. He’s been ordered to stay in his Cardwell home … as if that poor bloody town doesn’t have enough problems.
And here’s a tip from a Magpie mate in the know. While the bluebags took his passport, he might try to skip again using his American alias, Jackson Morgan Phoenix. Doubt he’ll be able to rise again, though. Let’s hope a striped suntan awaits a most deserving recipient.
To Lighter Matters
… like peeing, pooing and well trained dogs.
A couple of TV ads came The Magpie’s way this week which showed that anything will be used to sell stuff.
First there’s this one selling what is – in one way at least – a complete mongrel of a car.
Then there’s this incredibly clever one that sends up the current reality TV fashion for mawkish bachelor/marriage shows … with the happy couple being, would you believe … oh, just watch it and ROTFLYAO, as the youngsters say.
And some say the dog in this popular YouTube offering is dumb. The ‘Pie disagrees, he thinks this pooch is very sensible, and well trained enough not to bite the arseholes who tease him.
Domestic Violence Is No Laughing Matter ...
… but let’s show you one way it can start.
……………………
That’s it for the week, comments are getting to be real fun, join us if you haven’t already throughout the week. And if you can help out with a donation to make the blog even better, check out the donate button below.
