michaelwyres.com » Media

National News Program Spreading Racist Jokes?

Michael Wyres — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:30:51 +0000

The Project, the lighter news program broadcast six nights a week on Network Ten in Australia has gone through a number of changes of format and timeslot since its inception.

It has defied this instability – (usually a recipe for alienating fans) – and continues to improve its ratings position.

But it isn’t all improvement, it would appear, after the brace of racist jokes on Twitter this evening:

Really? Not really necessary. In fact, not necessary at all – particularly for a program trying to position itself as an alternative to the traditional news bulletins on Nine and Seven.

The three tweets – (here, here, and here) – have no place on such a program, or a Twitter account promoting it.

Or anywhere else.

Photo Cropping Fail

Michael Wyres — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:23:45 +0000

Loving the photo cropping fail currently currently on display on the Geelong Advertiser website:

The caption reads: “Harry Taylor at Geelong training yesterday.”

Harry must be a dentist now, because we can’t show you his face.

Metro Trains Melbourne: Live from 1995!

Michael Wyres — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:07:38 +0000

Melbourne’s suburban train operator Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) has copped a lot of flack in recent days over its decision to drop sending service updates on Twitter for anything other than “major delays” – which they are defining as “20 or more minutes”.

They are telling customers to “regularly check their website” for details of other less significant delays.

Just to rub it in, they have just tweeted this:

Frankly, it seems to me that nobody at MTM has travelled on a peak hour train in Melbourne of late, or if they have, they are not paying attention to what people do during their commute.

Ask yourself how many people are staring into their Twitter feeds, updating themselves on news, sport, weather, their friends, and up until recently, how long they can be expected to be jammed inside the overcrowded train they are on.

Getting timely updates, delivered straight to the device you are already staring at, was actually useful.

But MTM want us to “periodically” check their website just in case there is a problem – (reasonably likely anyway) – because they don’t want to send out tweets, unless it’s a major delay?

What is a major delay anyway?

A five minute delay to one service can cause someone to miss a connecting train somewhere else, creating a much longer delay for the customer. If they miss an evening connection to a V/Line train, that may cost their customer a delay of an hour or more.

Such an instance really late at night might make the next available train equate to the next morning.

This is customer service is it, Metro?

“No, no, wait – we have a website you can get information from, it’s really useful!”

Genuine 1995 technology. Welcome to the past!

People want information about their service delivered to them when it matters – they don’t want to have to go find the information in case it exists.

Take a look at the Yarra Trams Twitter feed Metro – that’s how it SHOULD be done.

They used to do nothing, and you guys did an okay job. They’ve started doing it far better than you ever did, and now you don’t do it at all.

Wake up and smell the future, Metro.

We’re in it – how about you?

Idea: Show Current Affairs on Current Affairs Shows

Michael Wyres — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:59:19 +0000

It really irks me that the two leading current affairs programs in Australia – Nine’s A Current Affair (ACA), and Seven’s Today Tonight (TT) – never seem to actually show any actual current affairs stories.

They generally show what often don’t seem like much more than paid advertorials.

Incidentally, these two programs finished fifth and sixth in the overall ratings for yesterday – so there are plenty of people watching their rubbish “journalism”.

Lets for instance take as an example, ACA’s fourth run of basically the exact same story:

Same salt therapy business, same interview subjects. Over and over again – and not really a bit of hard nosed journalism in sight, right?

ACA and TT often show almost identical stories, on the same nights, as ABC's excellent Media Watch has demonstrated.

Though still excellent, even the ABCs “7:30” has gone downhill a little since the departure of Kerry O'Brien.

The Ten Network came along in 2011 with veteran current affairs man George Negus, with a bunch of talented journalists, and we actually got a decent current affairs program on network television for a while.

Until it was cancelled, because not enough people were watching.

Because people couldn’t stop watching the drivel on Seven and Nine. They keep lapping it up.

I remember when Jana Wendt, Ray Martin, Mike Willesee and Mike Munro variously hosted ACA, and it was real journalism.

But that was long ago.

Maybe if people were actually told about the world around them, they wouldn’t be so ignorant to it. It’s not the viewers fault – they’ve just been hoodwinked into believing that ACA and TT have some journalistic merit.

It’s trash television.

I hope “7:30″ doesn’t disappear, because then we’ll have almost nothing left.

Optus Rewards Website Sexist Much?

Michael Wyres — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:05:01 +0000

I got a whiff of a really bad piece of work from Optus on Twitter this morning, in regards to the registration page for their Optus Rewards website (click image for larger view):

Really?

“Please select a title and the title should match with the gender.”

So a woman can’t be a doctor, according to Optus? Try and register on it for yourself and see.

Seriously, that’s worse than bad. That’s a dreadful look Optus.

Fail.

(UPDATE – 12:53pm): Optus have advised that they are looking into the problem, and have raised the issue with support:

“Thanks to everyone who let us know about the fault with our Optus Rewards form – we’ve logged this with Support & will keep you posted!”

Well and good.

However, I am still concerned that a form such as this was released into production in this condition. What happened to their User Acceptance Testing (UAT)? Why does ANYONE think you need to check the title against gender to go to the bother of programming such a check into the code?

Yes, fix it Optus – but improve your internal quality processes too.

(UPDATE – 8:15pm): Apparently it is fixed now.

While this is mostly likely a coding problem, rather than intentional or even unintentional sexism, as a programmer from way back, it seems strange to me that:

Someone would consider it particularly necessary to have a gender vs title check in the code;

That this was missed during acceptance testing of the code before it was released into production – or more likely – wasn’t thoroughly tested at all.

I’m quite sure it wasn’t intentional, but it just worries me – particularly with all the privacy leaks from telcos of late – that these organisations don’t have proper software engineering and testing practices in place.

Makes you wonder where the privacy leaks initiate.

Hacks, lazy programmers, or poor testing?

Either way, we deserve better.

F-Bombgate: Media Cares, Most People Do Not

Michael Wyres — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:08:59 +0000

The media circus arising from the Stephen Conroy F-Bomb continues today. The media seem to care a hell of a lot about it.

Problem is, according to a Fairfax online poll, it seems most people do not.

As of 2pm AEDST, December 14, 2011 – the poll which asked the question “How do you rate Stephen Conroy’s F bomb on TV?” saw 72% of people not thinking it was significant.

Indeed, the remaining 28% thought it would either “harm him”, or “not help him”.

The rest thought that it “won’t matter” (37%) or “made him look like a goose” (35%).

Which he probably is.

Maybe the public are becoming intelligent enough to filter out the usual crap from the usual media?

Hope so.

That Political F-Bomb

Michael Wyres — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:12:38 +0000

Stephen Conroy dropped the “f-bomb” at the National Press Club (NPC) today.

So what?

As much as I detest some of the policies Conroy holds dear to his heart – most notably his mandatory internet filtering plan – it is actually interesting that much of the media has gone on the attack because he showed that he is human.

More politicians should be more “real”. So he said “fucking”?

As Tony Abbott would say, “shit happens“.

Move on people.

Kyle Sandilands: Girl?

Michael Wyres — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 06:15:46 +0000

Seems in the wake of Kyle Sandilands calling a news.com.au reporter a “fat slag”, and Holden pulling their sponsorship from Sandilands’ radio show as a result, that someone at News Limited may have wanted to subliminally call him a girl?

Freudian?

Maybe.