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SELL-OUT MAKES SELL-OUT CLAIM
The Age’s Margaret Simons reports, after a fashion:
Tim Blair, one of Australia’s outspoken right-wing bloggers, has recently taken a full-time job with The Bulletin, owned by Kerry Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press. His blog now runs under its banner - the old site abandoned. Mayne describes Blair’s move as “a sad sell-out. I would never have sold my soul to Packer.”
Would it have killed Simons to make one phone call? This site doesn’t run under The Bulletin’s banner; that “banner� is merely a link to The Bulletin’s site, just as the 4BC “banner� links to a Brisbane radio station for whom I provide some commentary every Sunday. The old site was abandoned following an upgrade, as were previous sites; Simons seems to think something sinister has taken place.
As for “selling my soul” ... I’m an assistant editor at The Bulletin. This is called “being employed”. Unlike Mayne, I haven’t sold anything. This weird criticism follows recent, pointless mentions in Mayne’s Crikey.com.au subscriber service:
Unlike Tim, we’ll never have to admit web failure and become a Packer wage slave. Sad, really.
A few days later, Mayne admitted web failure and sold out to Eric Beecher: “After five years of struggle, including moving house five times in 30 months, we really couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel ... It is time to get a life again rather than literally working every day of the week on Crikey, including 6-8 hours every Sunday.�
It’s a bit disappointing when Australia’s best known blogger completely gives up his independence and becomes a wage slave for our biggest media company.
Oh, please. How have I “completely given up my independence�? Is Margaret Simons also a non-independent failure because she’s a Fairfax “wage slave�? Meanwhile, Mayne has completely given up his site to someone who’ll alter it; in Beecher’s words, “We’ll do it in our own way.�
Which, incidentally, should be an improvement. Mayne is incompetent, and a hypocrite:
“Crikey’s philosophy is to ‘disclose, disclose, disclose’,� according to Stephen Mayne, proprietor of watchdog web site Crikey.com.au. “If you put all the facts on the table, the punters will be better informed. Information is power in this modern world and we are all about distributing both as widely as possible.�
Then why hasn’t Crikey disclosed, disclosed, disclosed the fact that one of its more prominent columnists is a staffer at the ABC’s Media Watch program? Punters who are curious about Mayne’s unusual praise for the tame show – David Marr “is without doubt the best Media Watch host we’ve had yet” – deserve to be better informed.
Full disclosure: I’m a former Mayne friend, who has contributed to and talked up his site in the past. Things turned bad a couple of years ago when Crikey published items suggesting I’d been fired from various appointments. Afterwards, this note arrived from a Crikey functionary:
Hi Tim,
Stephen wanted me to let you know that he has been away for the last few weeks and had no input into the stories involving you.
On his return he was mortified to hear what had happened and would like to give you a free twelve month subscrition as an olive branch.
Cheers,
Kate
Offer declined. Interesting that someone who presumes to lecture people about accuracy and ethics should allow his site to be run by blundering idiots. There was more trouble when Crikey published a strange account of a speech I’d given for the magazine Quadrant. Organisers had declined to invite any Crikey correspondents, concerned that events would be misrepresented. This turned out to be the case when a Mayne hack did, in fact, turn up. Here’s my subsequent e-mail:
Dear Crikey,
Regarding your anonymous correspondent’s coverage of the Quadrant dinner:
My speech did not mention any camps set up by the Red Cross.
I did not “rejectâ€? the argument that the cost of commercial radio is in advertising and in goods bought—I explained how consumer decisions determine that cost.
I did not say that I “could elect to participate in payment by buying or not buying the products advertised�.
I was one of the minority in the room who did not indicate that I regularly choose to listen to the ABC.
I did not say that “most people disregard� the ABC as the cricket station; the word I used was “regard�.
The quote your writer attributes to Conrad Black is actually from Jonathan Miller.
The person your writer names as “Ian Cook� is, of course, Ian Moore.
I did not say that “the lunatics were in charge of the asylum�.
Your writer claims: “As the beer and wine flowed, the rhetoric became more pejorative as Tim spluttered ...â€? I did not have a single drink.
I did not say that “we are fondly looking at a breakup of the ABC�, which sounds delusional; I said we were “fondly imagining� the breakup.
Otherwise, congratulations on an excellent piece. My faith in Crikey is completely restored, and I cannot imagine why Mr. Kelly would ever have sought to ban you.
Yours,
Tim Blair
Mayne’s reply:
Nice response Tim, will give you a prominent run tomorrow. Must say I would really have enjoyed to report on your speech directly rather than relying on an unknown, first-time contributor.
Go well, SM
How extremely professional of him. Congratulations on your purchase, Mr. Beecher.
UPDATE. I’ve sent a letter to The Age. Likely nothing will come of it:
Margaret Simons writes (“Crikey Sells Outâ€?, Feb. 5) that my website now “runs under [The Bulletin’s] banner - the old site abandonedâ€? subsequent to my employment as an assistant editor at that magazine. The implication—that my site is owned or controlled by The Bulletin—is inaccurate, as Simons may have learned had she bothered to make a single phone call; my site merely features a graphic link to The Bulletin. As well, my former site was abandoned following an upgrade, as I would have explained to Simons had she contacted me.
Simons also runs, without allowing me opportunity to challenge, Stephen Mayne’s comment that I am “a sad sell-out. I would never have sold my soul to Packer.” Unlike Mayne, however, I haven’t sold anything; I simply work for a major publisher, just as Simons works for Fairfax. My independent website continues.
All of which is beside my main question: why didn’t Simons phone or email me prior to publication? The MEAA’s code of ethics, which The Age supports, urges that journalists “do [their] utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply.�
I wasn’t given any such opportunity. What is The Age going to do about it?
Yours,
Tim Blair
There is obviously a massive resentment here that you’ve added assistant editorship of Australia’s oldest and best-known news magazine with blogging. There’s nothing people resent more than a man who approaches his life and career on his own terms and succeeds in doing so. I thought Mayne was of the same stamp. Not so, it tuns out.
I’m scratching my head at all the “wage slave” nonsense from these staunch supporters of the working class. Actually, no I’m not. It’s pretty well-known that if you scratch a leftie you generally reveal a trust-fund baby, a frustrated lord/lady-of-the-manor, or a natural parasite who thinks of the world as his private yacht and all the rest of humanity as his crew. Technological ineptitude is also par for the course for this crowd, as is evidenced by Ms. Simons’ apparent inability to follow a link.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 02 05 at 02:38 AM • permalinkStephen Mayne is no leftie or defender of the working class. He has been playing down the $1 million he is getting for Crikey by saying that after expenses, he’ll be left with only $500,00 clear, and will only be able to buy a “modest” house in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Of course, the suburbs he must be referring to are wealthy inner suburbs like Hawthorn, or Camberwell, rather than suburbs in the outer east like Mitcham or Ringwood where he could buy a mansion for a lot less than $500K.
I’ve always hated the term “wage slave” - how can you be a slave if you’re getting money for your work?
I paid one subscription to Crikey, which expires in a day or so. It will not be renewed.
I averred to Henry Thornton that Crikey seemed a tad left, but having had the unsettling experience of a reading emails from Owen Outsider (the vile ones about me sent to Henry, and the far more polite ones to myself after I reacted) I find that Crikey does not need my support.
So where’s your Bugatti? Damn, a clean, hardly-used Australian soul ought to be worth at least a Bugatti…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 02 05 at 05:26 PM • permalinkGosh, it’s great the way Maggie is so Web-savvy! I hope she’ll alert us if she ever finds the clue phone.
Posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher on 2005 02 05 at 10:03 PM • permalinkhey tim, what’s big kezza’s plan for the first quarter this year? if you spill i may be able to opt in and cash in with the great right wing conspiracy . ‘nudge nudge!! say no more!! R/
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 02 06 at 03:46 AM • permalinkThe Age did print your letter, (edited for space no doubt) as below.
At blogger heads
Margaret Simons writes (“Crikey sells out”, Insight, 5/2) that my website “now runs under (The Bulletin) banner - the old site abandoned” subsequent to my employment as an assistant editor at that magazine.
The implication - that my site is owned or controlled by The Bulletin - is inaccurate, as Simons may have learned had she bothered to make a single phone call; my site merely features a graphic link to The Bulletin.
As well, my former site was abandoned following an upgrade, as I would have explained to Simons had she contacted me.
Simons also runs, without allowing me opportunity to challenge, Stephen Mayne’s comment that I am “a sad sell-out. I would never have sold my soul to Packer.”
Unlike Mayne, however, I haven’t sold anything; I simply work for a major publisher, just as Simons does work for Fairfax. My independent website continues.
Tim Blair, Bondi Junction, NSW
Posted by Indy Media Watch on 2005 02 06 at 08:09 PM • permalink
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The note from Kate pretty much tells one all they need to know about this Mayne character. What, the little bitch couldn’t strap it on and personally apologize? I would be ashamed to have ever called such a person a friend…