Random thoughts and observations
I wrote earlier this month about the lawnmower story. The story has “travelled” and even come to international attention. I never published it on The Border Watch website, largely because I didn’t want to fuel a negative perception of the town. Someone scanned the story from the paper and started an email chain which is [...]
The Advocate in Burnie has advertised for journalists. Nothing unusual in that, except they have pitched the ad at non-journalists. I find this intriguing and refreshing. I’ve employed some mature people before who weren’t trained journalists and I saw a couple come through earlier in my career with mixed results. Mostly though, they were successful. [...]
I’ve started a new blog called Australian Newspapers. It’s not as though I’ve got plenty of spare time to invest in this, so I’m currently questioning my sanity. The aim is to discuss industry issues and trends. I’m not aware of any similar site so there should be some interest if the site gets discovered. [...]
The language is constantly evolving with a trend towards brevity. Waggon has become wagon and to-day has become today. Some Australians cling to what they believe is English spelling for words like “programme” and anything that potentially ends in -our like “colour”. I think they are mistaken. Researching newspapers from the 1890s for my family [...]
Quirky stories are popular on newspaper web sites. When a man ran down Hannan Street in a mankini on a Saturday morning, it was published to the Kalgoorlie Miner and became one of the most viewed articles. Today, I found a couple of stories involving penguins and seals which would never cut it in the [...]
