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It matters when an obvious right wing twitter user decides he can act like a 3 year old and tell tales.  ( Media Watch 30/9/2010)

What then irritates me even more is when Media Watch and Fairfax take what is obviously a political agenda and run with it.  Like vexatious litigants taking up our time, this complaint falls into this category.

I fail to see how a person that doesn’t interview politicians, has nothing to do with them or their reporting cannot express a political view.  Perhaps the language was not the best, but the sentiment was well agreed with by those with similar political views.

Yet for some reason the label of “Journalist” means that the person is no longer entitled to a political view no matter where within an organisation or even external to that organisation.

More so, if anyone who is any Journalist now makes any comment even when obviously not on the job (at 11pm) expresses any political view on Twitter a precedent has been established to rake them over the coals.

Gloating about telling tales is plain childish, certainly doesn’t further any arguments about the reasoning behind what was nothing more than a blatant biased political attack.  If Julia Gillard had been called bad names, would he have complained.  I doubt it. ( e.g saying  Paul Howl is talking shit )

Why also did Media Watch deem this newsworthy is also questionable.  700 followers and an account which clearly stated Freelance Tech Journalist making political statements is not that big a story is it?

The fallout from Media Watch will be for at least a while people will keep a little quieter.  Managers will look at the noise that was generated and tighten the noose a little more. And a few people will just go underground, well at least until they are found out again.

A vexatious complainant with an obvious political agenda gets to wield influence that could have cost someone a sizeable chunk of their income ( I presume). Yes the language was a bit harsh, and yes on reflection he shouldn’t have said what he did, but remove one or two harsh words and you are left with the tone.  The tone is now what is endangered not only from Journalists, but all those that work in any corporation that is worried about its public image.

The lines between public and private are blurring, but that does not mean that only your employer is how you are defined, nor should it.

Tags: Annoyances, General, twitter by Me
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The funny things about the television is that people seem to forget the remote control. This can be used for a number of startling features including changing channels and even more radical feature, turning the device off.

Why am I rating this, well, due to the various levels of outrage over the live coverage of the hostage drama in Manila on Monday night Australian time. Like 9/11 this was uncensored TV that showed life and death in all its brutal reality. This was no Speed where Keanu would save the day, this was real people caught up in one man’s madness by being nothing more than in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Was it hard to watch, yes, did I watch it, yes I did. Was I watching as some sort of voyeur I would say no, but that may well be for others to judge.  Was it right for it to be shown on TV, that is the trickery moral question.  For me it is like “Bearing Witness”.  Albeit from the safety of my living room.

Certainly no one can argue that it was not news worthy. 25 innocent hostages on a bus with a deranged gun man wanting his job back is news worthy. Whether or not it is in Australia it was always going to be a major story. Cutting to live feed as it came through was most probably what most 24 hour news channels would do, both Sky and Abc News24 did. Sky I believe did switch to at least a 10th second delay giving them a “kill” switch if anything to horrific came through. The ABC did not.

But like 9/11 the drama unfolded live. Yet unlike the footage of the people jumping from the towers all we saw were slumped bodies and the eventually the dead body of the gun man hanging on the bus window.

Perhaps with so much life and death violence on TV we have all become desensitised to this level of violence. I think not however.  Perhaps I have more faith in humanity, but even the outrage that I saw on Twitter last night about the coverage in a strange way gave me hope.

At the end of the day though, it is still YOUR responsibility to change channels or turn off.  That power will always lie with you, not with the broadcaster.  Everyone watching it unfold knew it could be bad, if you kept watching that was your choice.

Tags: Annoyances, General, twitter by Me
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At 5pm on the 13th of August 2010, 2 people are slain in Lygon Street.

From ABC News ( 7:30pm)

“The shooting happened in Lygon Street, Carlton, and police received a call about 5:00pm (AEST) that shots had been fired.
One witness said shots were fired at or outside the Players on Lygon bar.
Police have confirmed two people are dead.
The victims are believed to be in their 60s or 70s.
One man, reported to be in his 50s, has been taken into custody.
“Details are very, very sketchy,” a police spokeswoman said.”

Yet despite this… the @DocklandsMelb think it is o.k to capitalise on this for their own gain. Now I have seen a few jokes around already, mostly referring to Underworld XXV or Richard Wilkins and Jeff Goldblum.  These jokes while yes in bad taste are quite removed from the situation and what for at least three families will be a day that they will never forget.

“Come to Docklands for dinner tonight. We promise this wont happen #LygonShooting about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck”

There are jokes and there is just stupidity.  Twitter lets you just blurt shit out.  People do ( even I do ), but if you are reflecting a company…  pause, take a breath and think about everything you say.  Even when the tweet is deleted and the apology is sent, the damage has been done. To say this is in bad taste does it no justice, it is wrong on some many levels and reflects badly on the company.  Remember in the real time world, you can’t afford to be stupid.

( Update: Don’t send a tweet and then not look at your account over the weekend as well….   Monday morning and Docklands sent 1 tweet over the weekend and nothing in the form of an apology for shear tastelessness )

Tags: Annoyances, General, twitter by Me
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Poor Andrew Bolt… he really has been kept in the dark.  You’d think that someone in the last nearly two years would have told him that there was a fake twitter account.  Surely.  But no, no one did.  This also shows that people like Bolt and even those around him in News Limited have no idea about brand management either.  People like Bolt are a brand unto themselves.

Of course I try very hard to avoid anything he says on the grounds that I might need to have my gall bladder removed, I am still well aware of him and his views.

The @andrewbolt account was started on February 11, 2009 or 538 days ago  and he is only just writing about it now!

@jason_a_w managed to find and write a very detailed interview with the person behind the account in August last year! (faking-on-twitter-fake-andrew-bolt/)

And yet 12 months after this post was written he has only just found out, or at least has only just started complaining. Of course like most right wing commentariat he is demanding justice and claiming this is the worst crime in history.

From his own blog:

“This is only a small instance, but as I’ve so often noted among Leftist activists from the French Revolution to the Internet revolution , many have a curious belief that their moral cause entitles them to act as barbarians. It’s this loss of conscience in the collective that makes them such a menace.”

“For at least a year, it’s been guilty of identity theft and defamation. And I would expect that the employer of this person might have something to say about that,” he said.” Source : Source: News Ltd

From his own blog

“I’ve been given names, and at some stage may use them. Parody is perfectly fine, but identity theft is low.”

Seriously WTF.  Either he knows who it is or he doesn’t.  I suspect he doesn’t, that is why he is using these bully boy techniques which work very well in old media, not so well in these new and rapidly changing social platforms. And of course the readers of his blog coming running to his defence with 183 comments, most of which seem to blame the ABC for reasons that totally escape me.

So when twitter discovers that Andrew Bolt has finally discovered that there is a fake twitter account, he encounters the Streisand effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

Now we have @LordAndrewBolt @AndrewBolt_PR @AndrewBlotMP @andrew__bolt @andrew_bolt_irl @mrsandrewbolt @lordandrewbolt @IamAndrewBolt @andrewbolt @AndrewBoltMP @MrAndrewBolt @anandrewbolt @andrew_bolt @anbrewdolt @fakeandrewbolt @TheAndrewBolt

And I am sure I have missed some, and all the while the account that started it all has gained over 800 followers in one day.

The more he complains the more he adds fuel to the Streisand Effect.  Sit back and enjoy the ride people… this will only get funnier I promise.

Tags: General, Redbubble, twitter by Me
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Wow, I’ve really made it.  One of my tweets made page 8 of The Age (31/72010).  Pity I haven’t brought the paper in years and it was a friend (with a free copy) who found my name in it.

First point, and really it is so small as to be trivial, The article reads “But worse has followed. On ABC TV’s Q&A political panel The Worm was replaced by a series of idiot remarks from the Twitterverse and began less than a minute are the panel was introduced.” Pity really that Monday 26 April was the first episode of Q and A to have live tweets,  so I wouldn’t infer that this is brand new.  So I am going to draw the conclusion that Lawrence Money is not a regular Q and A watcher.

“Great panel” was the pointless first tweet from emilybweeb.”

Sure, it may have been pointless, but why is her opinion any less valuable than anyone else’s.  She may have genuinely thought it was a great panel, why is she not allowed to have and yet more importantly share this view.

On the Q and A Website they state..  “Q&A is about encouraging people to engage with politics and society.” But Lawrence seems to be of the opinion that if it is not funny or relevant to him, it should be derided.

…  “ A minute later came wolfcat: “Based on last night’s debate has anyone woken up yet?” Hilarious, huh?”

The Panel was taking about the debate and how boring it was… so yes it was funny.  Why was it funny, because it was in context and timely.  But I guess when you are writing a static column a week after the event you’re going to miss the joke.  (Don’t worry I am laughing at you now if it is any consolation)

Well see this is the thing, like the worm, the tweets are a sentiment tracker, but unlike the worm tweets add context and meaning as well.

“and this from unsongsongs:” Obviously the cut backs in The Age mean that they can no longer afford proof readers, the username is @unsungsongs.  (Hint for your style guide as well. You should refer to users including the @ symbol)

By the end of the evening that episode of #QandA 14,492 Tweets from 2,941 contributors.  (Source: @tweeveetv), so it is an active community trying to participate in democracy.

Also it is not the first time the ABC has had tweets on live TV, that honour goes to News Breakfast, which has been doing them (off and on) for the last two years.  But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a rant. Nor should we look at places like Current TV who ran live moderated tweets during the Obama campaign debates.

Now of course, social media isn’t for everyone. Nor is it the solution to all the world’s problems, but it is a tool, (yes even sometimes tools use it), but it is a tool never the less.

Times have changed and Twitter and other Social Media platforms give people a chance to interact across the country and often the world in real time when talking about serious issues or even trivial ones.  Both issues are what makes us, us.  Not everyone is highbrow all the time, nor are we serious all the time.  Even when it comes to serious issues a joke can be a way of breaking through the static of disinformation and disinterest.  Perhaps if more people interacted this campaign wouldn’t be so dull after all.

Tags: Annoyances, Funny, General, twitter by Me
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