michaelwyres.com » Media

Another Channel Ten F1 Fail

Michael Wyres — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 08:45:48 +0000

Hot on the heels of Network Ten’s latest shafting of Australian Formula One fans, comes another F1 fail from the network.

Here’s a screen capture of the EPG for tonight’s coverage of the Bahrain Grand Prix:

…which reads:

“At the 2012 Formula One, fans will get to see all of the action, excitement and drama on TEN. This season boasts two Australian drivers for the first time in history, Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo.”

Ignoring the poor grammar, two Australian drivers for the first time in history?

Sorry, what?

Let’s go all time machine back to 1974, shall we?

The 1974 Monaco, Dutch, and British Grands Prix all had two Australian drivers competing, Tim Schenken – (currently the race director with V8 Supercars) – and Le Mans winner, Vern Schuppan.

Further, the 1974 German Grand Prix had three Australian drivers competing. Schenken, Schuppan, with the addition of future V8 Supercars legend, Larry Perkins.

There would be other races where multiple Australian drivers were involved, but I looked only at 1974.

Ten already treat the coverage of the sport with apparent nonchalance.

Maybe they should treat the history of the sport with a little more respect too?

Herald Sun Too Weak To Admit Screw Up

Michael Wyres — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:12:43 +0000

Much hilarity ensued tonight when the Herald Sun apparently “inadvertently” revealed the winner of the Gold Logie award.

At 11:40pm, they released a statement:

“At no time did the Herald Sun publish the name of the winner on its website, iPad app or in Twitter.”

Oh really? What about this screen capture at 10:08pm?

Sure looks like you published the name to me!

Of course, the statement goes on to blame Google:

“However, during the live testing, a link to an embargoed story naming the winner was momentarily created and published by Google.”

Seriously Herald Sun, just have the balls to admit you screwed up! You’d look a lot better right now if you weren’t inventing a very weak cover story.

Fail.

UPDATE: The original URL – (now broken) – was here.

UPDATE: Simon Pristel, editor of the Herald Sun has made further statement this morning:

“It turns out that Google had somehow searched into our system and found the story that was published in the paper but had never been published on the website and ninemsn.com.au – which is the official website of Channel 9, the broadcaster – has run it up fully on their website.”

Is Simon actually saying that Google can now read the actual printed newspaper – which wouldn’t have been on the presses yet?

Google can search physical newspapers that haven’t been printed yet?

And you know, it WAS on their website.

Give it up Herald Sun. You’re digging a bigger hole for yourself, and looking stupider and stupider all the time.

As stated by Mark Newton, it’s pretty simple:

“”Google somehow searched into our system.” No @theheraldsun, you put it on your website and they indexed it. #liars #logies #notcomplicated”

Future News!

Michael Wyres — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:37:42 +0000

Found this this morning on the Herald Sun website. That’s this morning, Monday April the 2nd, 2012:

April 3rd?

Why can’t they do this with the Tattslotto numbers?

And The Media Think Journalism Is Doing Okay?

Michael Wyres — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:29:49 +0000

In September last year, the Australian Federal Government announced its Independent Media Inquiry, appointing former Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, Ray Finkelstein QC to carry out the review.

The results of the inquiry were reported recently, and have been controversial to say the least.

While the review was not designed to address the age old question of what is and isn’t news, damn, after what I just saw on the website of The Age newspaper, one wishes the review did cover it:

“After 28 years and 5000 issues, German newspaper Bild is dropping its nude page one girl.”

Seriously? This is the banner article on the front page of the website of one of our leading news outlets?

Who in Melbourne – (or anywhere else in Australia for that matter) – actually gives a damn about that a newspaper on the other side of the planet, that they are almost certainly never going to read, has dropped nude women from their front page?

Come on media, we are a bit more intelligent than fronting us up with this kind of droll suggests you think of us.

Fail.

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.