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May 30, 2009
If newspapers do end up charging for access to online content they'll have a hard time coming up with stuff people would be prepared to pay for that isn't freely available. Mark Day says
"If the Government makes a press statement, that's going to be free. If a corporation gives its annual report, that's going to be free. If there is a debate in Parliament, that's going to be free.
"But investigative journalism, the kind of information that does have value, can be charged for."
No mention of commentary and 'analysis'. How much of that sort of content would people pay to access? I'd probably pay for George Megalogenis, but not if it meant a subscription would also support Christopher Pearson.
Pearson regurgitates Gerard Henderson, Andrew Bolt and American pro-life releases. No great challenge in that.
Megalogenis makes original and worthwhile contributions.
Why are we being bombarded with brawls over laminated A3 images of nation building and debt graphs out to 2022? Why can't anybody just calmly explain what's going on? Why, if we're in such deep economic trouble, is the prime minister gadding about in hard hats and devoting all his attention to Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey?
George says,
Pity the voter who is seeking a simple assurance that the Government knows what it is doing and the Opposition has an alternative policy worth considering.
To listen to Rudd now is to hear an advertising guru brainstorming campaign themes.
Rudd should be concentrating on explaining the medium and longer term logic of his plan, the way Keating used to when he was treasurer. There should be more of the kind of explanation we saw earlier that produced the 'shitstorm' episode. He took the time to explain the global nature of the mess and forestalled attempts to make it a local issue. Rudd may be a dull, clever pants wonk, but he's also shown he's good at the direct pitch, eliminating media noise and other distractions.
Megalogenis says "Rudd spins because he hasn’t figured out how to translate", but the shitstorm program suggests otherwise. That the media went into nutsville mode over whether he used the term deliberately or not probably worked in his favour, as did the Scores thing.
You could also argue that while running about the country in a hard hat and fluoro safety vest makes for dull media, it's also local campaigning. We see Rudd standing around in front of the cameras, but he's also meeting the locals in the process.
George is right to say that the current messages are garbled, confusing and lack any kind of internal consistency or vision, but he's wrong in thinking Rudd is incapable of doing anything else. He's just not doing it right now.
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I read somewhere that the news and reportage will happen on the internet as it happens and that newspapers will be more commentary and anlysis of the news. Was that Mark Day?
If so newspapers will have lift to their game as there is better informed commentary on the blogs.