I thought I’d be too busy today to pay much attention to the new quality Australian news outlet The Global Mail. But then around 2pm I got a call from Radio 2SER in Sydney asking for a comment.
And so it was that at 2.30pm I was interviewed for the station’s current affairs program The Wire by Calliste Weitenberg, along with The Global Mail’s managing editor Monica Attard.
If you haven’t caught up with this yet, The Global Mail has no advertising and no subscription fees. It’s funded entirely by philanthropy — in this case $15 million over five years from Wotif founder Graeme Wood, a man I previously called an arsehat over another matter.
The radio story includes my approval of the new masthead’s long-form journalism and the experience of the editorial team, and notes that it’s easy to differentiate between Wood’s open philanthropy or the similar position held by Al Jazeera and the more power-hungry approach of Rupert Murdoch or would-be media magnate Gina Rinehart.
What it omits is my observation that despite Attard’s claim that everyone is their audience the staff seem almost entirely white middle-aged middle-class types, that you can’t possibly be everything to all people, and that I’m hanging out for things like database journalism and innovative storytelling techniques.
And don’t get me started on the custom sideways scrolling that simple doesn’t respond to trackpad gestures on my MacBook Pro.
But all that said, it’s only Day One for The Global Mail. I wish them well.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.4MB)
The audio is ©2012 2SER-FM 107.3, and you can download a podcast of the entire episode. But as usual I’m archiving and mirroring the relevant segment here.
Residents of the depressingly tight-sphinctered Melbourne suburb of Prahran torture their dogs. True. And it’s ugly.