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Weekly Wrap 137: Excess heat, excess dodgy cocktails

The rain begins...: click to embiggenThe week of Monday 14 to Sunday 20 January 2013 wasn’t quite as productive as I’d hoped, due to a combination of too much drinking and too much heat.

But there was plenty of time for reflection, and I managed to ramo up my blogging as planned, so I’m happy.

On Monday I wrote about the death of Aaron Swartz, and it proved difficult. Not because I was affected by his death — truth be known, I wasn’t a fan — but because I knew that the fans would be upset if I was seen to be too critical too soon. Plus I had to write something new, when eleventy bazillion words had already been written. After filing the story, I was exhausted.

I then made mistake of heading off for a drink or a dozen, and ended up at the The Haymarket Hotel on the promise of a cocktail bar, except “Martinis” isn’t open on Monday nights. So I had the pleasure of choosing cocktails from their dodgy girly cocktail list, and having them made by a waiter who was new to the bar and doesn’t normally make cocktails anyway. He did OK.

When the manager arrived back from dinner, I complained that the cocktails were too girly. “Mate,” he said, “this is George Street. That’s the point.” Oh yeah. Fair enough. It’s a mating signal, or something.

At the other end of the week, Friday was a write-off because it was Sydney’s hottest day on record. Maximum temperatures of 46C across the city. I escaped to Cronulla with the intention of having fish and chips, but I was distracted by a baby xenomorph and local customs, strange rituals and their cosmopolitan cultural experiences.

Anyway, to business…

Podcasts

None. I did say that I was going to write something about that, but yeah. Productivity. Tomorrow.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

Still none. I’d thought that Australia would have returned from its summer break this week, but no. It seems far quieter than the same time last year, and several taxi drivers agree.

The Week Ahead

Buggered if I know. Well, on Monday I’ll help Bunjaree Cottages set up their email marketing, and on Tuesday I’m being a guest on someone else’s podcast. But nothing else has been planned out, either for the working week or the Australia Day long weekend. I should probably do something about that.

[Photo: The rain begins… in Cronulla. Well, there were a few drops, just before I took the train back to the city.]

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Five questions and no answers about my media work

With a blog post to write, I now have everything I need: click to embiggenAs my first full working week for 2013 draws to a close, almost, here’s an update on how I’m thinking this year might unfold for me. At least as far as work goes.

(If you’re not up to speed on this, please read Doing the business on Stilgherrian’s journalism and Death of a Freedom Fighter, a writing challenge before continuing. The second one includes an explanation of my focus on how the internet is changing power relationships.)

First, there’s a tidy-up of my arrangements with mastheads I currently write for. That’s already delivered two changes. Crikey has given me a pay rise, to a level they now describe as “slightly less pathetic”. I’ve started pitching more stories, and that’s resulted in three stories this week. And there’s this as-yet unnamed sky-shouting column in the works, which will start soon.

Second, I’m thinking of doing a few self-funded projects — or at least projects for which I directly arrange funding — rather than through someone else’s masthead. There’s all sorts of ideas rolling around in my head, though I haven’t reached any firm conclusions yet.

Continue reading “Five questions and no answers about my media work”

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Sydney Harbour “giant gambling den” bullshit reportage

Map showing "giant gambling den in relation to Sydney Harbour: click to embiggen“Is A Billionaire Former Scientologist Shaping Sydney Harbour Into A Giant Gambling Den?”, asked the headline in an email this morning from The Global Mail. Is he? Let’s see!

The story in TGM, the philanthropic media project of Graeme Wood, also a key investor in The Guardian’s forthcoming Australian edition, is obviously about plans by James Packer to build a casino at Sydney’s Barangaroo development.

The proposal is controversial, certainly. But Sydney Harbour becoming a “giant gambling den”? FFS! If it’s not immediately obvious why this is complete bullshit, I’ve drawn a picture for you. A special kind of picture called a “map”.

The black bit is Sydney Harbour, traced from Google Maps. The red bit is the entire proposed casino complex, assuming this report in the Sydney Morning Herald is still roughly correct. You might have to click through to the full-size map to see the red bit.

Sydney Harbour is clearly not becoming a “giant gambling den”. Sydney Harbour will be changed in a way that will be barely noticeable, at least if your global perspective manages to make it any further west than Glebe Point Road. And I’d have thought that the intelligent, well-educated people at TGM would be able to figure that out for themselves.

We were told that The Global Mail was about “quality journalism”, but apparently it’s just another in a long series of comfortable colour supplements for Sydney’s whining middle class, with bonus points for waving the good ol’ Scientology scare-stick.

The story itself is by Nick Bryant, whose work I like. He’s got a biography of Packer coming out, so I assume the article — which I haven’t read yet — is an extract from that book and somewhat better than the promotion it’s been burdened with suggests. I’ll let you know once I’ve read it.

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Guardian Australia not the droid you’re looking for

The Guardian masthead: click for media releaseThere’s something weird and creepy about the way journalists and other media tragics have been fawning gape-jawed over this morning’s official announcement that The Guardian is launching an Australian edition. Mummy England will save us from the evil Mr Murdoch!

What, like some weird hybrid lefty combat nanny droid, constructed in the UK’s finest media laboratories out of the Queen, Sigourney Weaver (as Ripley) and Brooke Vandenberg, strapping itself into the drop ship to bring quality journalism back to the colony planet?

I even saw one highly-experienced media professional say it was great to see people trying new things. “New”? Which bit about this is “new”, exactly? Words and a few pictures on a website, written by the same kinds of people that have always written them?

It’s all being spun as a positive thing, of course, and the reporting so far seems to be swallowing the party line. The Guardian expands, challenges existing operators, media diversity quality journalism democracy commitment innovation groundbreaking unique take blah blah effing blah fuck it kill me now.

Knowing nothing more than what’s in the media release, let’s do a bit of old-fashioned follow-the-money…

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Sky-shouting, yes, but what to call it?

Old Man Yells At Cloud screenshot from "The Simpsons"Discussions with editors about what I’ll be doing in 2013 continue. One discussion is about the title of a new column that the editor in question has described as me shouting at the sky. I need your help.

“Shouting at the sky,” you ask?

We mean the analysis and opinion pieces that result from me cutting loose about something that’s pissing me off, or that quote people who are in the same frame of mind.

Here’s half a dozen near-random examples, chosen from a variety of mastheads so I don’t reveal where this column will appear.

I should also mention that this is for a technology-related masthead, and the topics will include that key focus that I’ve identified in my work: changing power relationships.

Yesterday I asked for suggestions on Twitter. Here’s what you’ve come up with so far.

Continue reading “Sky-shouting, yes, but what to call it?”

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Death of a Freedom Fighter, a writing challenge

Boy Genius: Aaron Swartz at the Creative Commons Salon, 9 March 2006, photographed by Buzz Andersen: click for original on FlickrThis photograph by Buzz Andersen has been haunting me for the last hour. It’s Aaron Swartz, seen at the first Creative Commons Salon in 2006. And over the weekend we heard news that Swartz is now dead, aged just 26, from an apparent suicide.

My challenge for today is writing something about the meaning of this bold and bright young man’s life and death. Something new to add to the whirlpool of words that has been devouring the internet from its geekier nether regions all the way to the mainstream press.

This is why, despite my expressed intention to write more last night about my slowly-evolving plans for 2013, I wrote no such thing. Having slept on it, though, I have an answer to both problems.

Continue reading “Death of a Freedom Fighter, a writing challenge”