Abbott thoroughly photographed
News Corp Australia photographer Bradley Hunter has been hired by the prime minister’s office to be Tony Abbott’s official photographer. The Daily Telegraph snapper will replace Josh Wilson – aka “Hot Josh” in the press gallery – who has quit the PMO’s office and gone to work for Channel Nine where he was once a cameraman. Wilson, who was hired from Channel 7 in 2013, filmed the PM’s visit to Iraq in January as well as many other official announcements which were then distributed to the media. You can see dozens of the PM’s slick in-house videos here.
We think it is the first time the prime minister’s office has hired a full-time professional newspaper photographer to document life in the nation’s top job. It’s also a clever way of controlling the message, as the images and videos can be packaged and distributed on social media, by-passing the traditional media.
The Age massively apologetic
When a mistake is published on the front page of a newspaper the victim is often heard saying they want a front page correction. It almost never happens. But on Wednesday the Age made history by publishing an enormous front page apology and photograph as part of a settlement with a Melbourne teenager who was wrongly identified as a terrorist.
Last September Abu Bakar Alam was incorrectly identified as Numan Haider, a terrorism suspect who had been fatally shot by police in Melbourne. The apology “Fairfax Media says sorry” was also carried in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times. In a statement from Alam’s lawyer it was revealed the paper had also donated $20,000 towards the construction of an Afghan mosque and paid Alam an undisclosed amount in damages.
But wait there’s more. Age editor-in-chief Andrew Holden also wrote a letter to the top brass in the police force in support of Alam’s bid to become a police officer and a letter to the Afghan community apologising for the mistake.
“To have my face connected with an act of terrorism on the front pages of major Australian newspapers, and all over the internet, was devastating for me and my family,” Alam said. “This was a terrible mistake that damaged my reputation and my family’s good name. We were forced to defend ourselves against the worst kind of accusations while being placed in potential danger.”
Pump up the Janz
HuffPost Australia has made its first big hire before setting up shop in Australia later this year. The joint venture between the Huffington Post and Fairfax Media appointed former Allure Media boss Chris Janz as its CEO on Wednesday. The good news is Janz is hiring and there are quite a few jobs on offer: editorial director/editor-at-large, editor-in-chief, deputy editor, associate editor roles, blog editor, engagement editor, and video editor. That’s a lot of editors and no reporters, it has to be said.
Janz: “I’m excited to take on this incredible opportunity to make HuffPost Australia an engaging and influential platform for Australians to voice their thoughts, opinions and commentary – whilst leveraging the Huffington Post’s global footprint.”
Happy times at the Australian
The Australian was not happy when we reported last week that six senior journos quit in 2015 and managing editor Helen Trinca wanted us to know that staff numbers at the Oz overall remained the same.
“The energy and commitment of all staff on the Australian is very high and staff remain excited about breaking stories and continuing to take share from the AFR and Fairfax in terms of print circulation, digital traffic, digital subs and ad revenue.”
Unfortunately for the Oz another senior staffer took a redundancy package on Friday. Stuart Kennedy the IT editor of the Australian was made redundant, leaving just Chris Griffith and Fran Foo to run the section.
I’m God’s First Alleged Human Creation Get Me Out of Here!
Earlier this year Channel Ten dropped 12 celebrities into a very basic camp site in South Africa and every night you can watch them as they struggle to survive in a reality show called I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! But now SBS is going one further. For a show called Adam and Eve a man and a woman were dropped on a tropical deserted island accompanied only by a camera crew. Not only did the couple have no shelter or food, but they had no clothes. While the Youtube footage has fig leaves covering bits, the original TV show will be the full monty. No pixels.
No limits
Months of speculation came to an end this week when US streaming video giant Netflix announced it would launch the service in Australia on 24 March. The arrival of Netflix is a huge challenge to Australian streaming services Stan, Presto, and Quickflix who will have to work hard to provide as compelling an offer as the US service. Netflix is available on more internet-enabled devices with a more sophisticated platform. Of great interest was the announcement that customers of iiNet, Internode, and Optus would be able to use the service without it contributing to their download limits.
