Friday 13 January 2012

Right news website - wrong story

A few days after I posted up about the Arnotts Australia Day Shapes, I sent a message to News.com.au asking if I could submit an article for the 25th Anniversary of the Original Transformers Movie (including a link to my article on this blog as an example of what I could write about).

They ignored that Transformers submission request, but it looks like something else on my blog caught someone's eye there.... as my posting on the Australia Day Shapes was now getting the most hits so far on this young blog, and the News.com.au article posted today on those new Aussie shapes is focussing on the same thing I highlighted - the missing Tasmania. Something I only mentioned to make the article more interesting, but coincidentally was the same thing their article featured.
It's what journalists would call a hook... a mostly insignificant, yet colourful, element of an otherwise ordinary story, that is blown up out of proportion for its novelty "gossip" factor.
In this instance, there's no news in a random snackfood brand releasing a new cracker. No. The "news" has to be "created"... Magnified or revealed from within all those "so what?" elements.

Coincidence, that the one (and likely, only) news site that has visited this site, would then post up an article similar to one of my own a few days earlier? You decide.  And if true... credit on their article for the inspiration, would have been nice.
(They even make mention of Australia Day, which I don't recall being on the packaging... it was something I mentioned in my posting)

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