Tag: journalism

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Jetstar, Powderfinger to exploit fan’s enthusiasm

Australian airline Jetstar and the managers of rock band Powderfinger seem to think that waving the magic word “social media” means free labour. Exploitative cunts.

As mUmBRELLA reported:

Jetstar is continuing its drive into social media, funding an official blogger on Powderfinger’s farewell tour which is sponsored by the budget airline.

According to Jetstar: “Over 50 days, Jetstar’s official tour blogger will ‘Follow the Finger’ and produce daily blogs, video diaries, fan photos and Twitter updates. They will interview the band and support acts, interact with fans and locals and become a member of the tour support team.”

As well as covering travel and accommodation, the blogger will receive an allowance of $100 a day.

Right.

So in other words, for more than a month and a half, the “winner” of the “competition” will work as a writer covering the tour — call it journalism or blogging or whatever you like, it’s all the same thing. They’ll work as a producer, curating fan photos. They work as a PR assistant and “interact with fans and locals and become a member of the tour support team”. That’s a whole bunch of different media skills, a pretty special person indeed.

In return they get paid less than the legislated minimum wage.

The federal minimum wage is currently $15.00 per hour or $569.90 per 38 hour week (before tax).

Casual employees covered by the national minimum wage also get at least a 21 per cent casual loading.

I reckon “become a member of the tour support team” sounds like an offer of employment, yeah?

“Jetstar has been making a growing investment in social media,” says mUmBRELLA, but clearly not enough to pay a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

Maybe Jetstar should try telling the roadies they’ll also get $100 a day “allowance” in return for the privilege of seeing all 34 concerts. To their faces. And I’ll sit back and watch…

Please insert a final angry sentence that includes the words “exploitation”, “unethical” and “pond slime”. And on Monday I’ll be phoning Fair Work Australia for an opinion.

Rock on.

Unless, of course, Jetstar get in touch before then to tell me they’ve decided to pay the winner the proper MEAA rate for freelance writers [PDF].

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Podcast masterclass at Walkley Media Conference

I’m doing a one-hour masterclass on producing podcasts at this year’s Walkley Media Conference in Sydney on Wednesday 11 August 2010. Well, more a tutorial, really.

According to the conference program I’m covering: “Recording and editing audio — and putting it out there in a podcast. What software/tools do you need?” In reality, we’ll look at the needs of the people who register and structure the session around that.

Next week I’ll post details of my own Mac-based toolkit and workflows for producing the Patch Monday podcast. Does anyone know of a good listing of Windows options?

There’s some great-looking sessions, and plenty of people I want to meet or catch up with again, so I’ll be staying around for as much of the event as I can. It runs for four days, from 9 to 12 August.

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Whaler failure: social media is rubbish

So, my old blog post about the Japan’s chief of whaling is just plain wrong. And it took you arsehats two and half years to notice! There’s a big pat on the back for social media, eh?

Here’s what happened. My original post quoted Japan’s commissioner to the International Whaling Commission and director-general of the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo, Minoru Morimoto. And that’s who’s pictured in the original post.

But I confused his surname with Hideki Moronuki, director of the Far Seas Fishery Division of Japan’s Fisheries Agency, who’s pictured here courtesy of a photo by Boyd Harnell.

Completely different people.

But hey, they’re both in favour of whaling and all look the same, right?

Thanks to credible Japan-based journalist David McNeill for politely pointing out the difference.

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Weekly Wrap 5

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I didn’t intend for this to be my only post this week, but that’s how it turns out sometimes.

Articles

Podcasts

Media Appearances

[Photo: “Waiting for Conroy“, taken at Senator Stephen Conroy’s ministerial media conference at the offices of NBN Co Ltd, North Sydney, 8 July 2010.]

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Viocorp Future Forum: The Future of News Reporting

I’m one of the panellists on Viocorp’s Future Forum The Future of News Reporting next Friday 9 July at midday Sydney time.

The other panellists are: Angelos Frangepoulos, CEO, Sky News Channel; Eric Beecher, publisher of Crikey; Mark Hollands, Chief Executive of PANPA; and Sam North, Media Director at Ogilvy Public Relations. The moderator is the redoubtable Mark Jones.

Now I’m a little worried about the topics listed, because some of them seem like we’re revisiting that tired old “bloggers are not journalists” (non-)debate. I thought we’d moved on from there. And “citizen journalism”? Haven’t we killed that term yet? Truly, I’ll end up stabbing someone. So I intend to derail proceedings at the earliest opportunity. Oh. Don’t read that bit, Mark.

In case you’re late to the party, some of my thoughts on this can be found in my presentation to Media140 Sydney and my Journalism in a hyperconnected world from late 2008. Maybe I need to do an update piece.

It’s a webcast thingy, so do please watch. And tell your friends. Unless they’re bloggers. Or journalists.

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Visiting Microsoft HQ to talk security: what should I ask?

I’m off to America! Some tin-pot little IT start-up called Microsoft has invited me to visit their headquarters in Redmond, Washington (pictured) to find out what they’re doing about security, and in particular their Trustworthy Computing initiatives.

Now if you’re a crusty old network administrator like me, you may think that “Microsoft” and “security” in the same sentence is an oxymoron. A decade ago I was building Linux-based firewalls and, like so many people doing the same, I referred to Windows-based computers as “the targets”. And certainly the vast majority of the world’s malware is targeted at Windows.

But I’ve always though that the simplistic “Windows is bad, m’kay” was a bit, well, simplistic. Information security isn’t just about the technology, it’s also about people. Human factors are also the weakest link. And over the years I’ve found that people who throw around those tired platform-wars slogans usually aren’t up to date when it comes to the things they love to hate.

So, I’m off to Redmond later this month to spend three days with some of Microsoft’s engineers and developers, including briefing sessions with senior executives from Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group.

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