OK. OK. That planned MediaMook relaunch date of 1st June was a tad optimistic.
However, Mook will return shortly.
May 31, 2009
March 9, 2009
MediaMook’s new mission
It’s been a month or so since I decided to take MediaMook offline to reconsider where to from here. When I first launched this little blog back in Feb ‘08, I intended it to be an outlet for my frustrations at the state of modern Australian media from an outsider’s perspective.
Mook would be an alias to launch ‘rants about media’ enabling me to rage against the big, bad media machine. And it was fun. For a while.
And then something strange happened. I had, as alcoholics say, a moment of clarity.
Reading the excellent Flat Earth News by Guardian and ex-Age reporter Nick Davies I came to realise that yes, modern media publishes untruths and frequently stuffs up or treats its customers with contempt, but most journalists are doing the best they can. It’s not their fault massive budget cuts have made their jobs impossible. This makes taking cheap shots at their work rather less enjoyable.
Why would they spend time writing in depth investigative pieces when under pressure from editors to turn out ten or so articles per day? Who wouldn’t just decide to turn to ‘copy and paste’ churnalism without fact checking? There’s just no time to check stories in the relentless 24/7 media cycle. And forget about following up on interesting subjects. Who’s interested? Most topics burn brightly for 24 hours and then disappear without trace while we’re all keen to know about the next thing.
Well, I’m a little tired of all that.
Bloggers are not journalists. They don’t have editors. But they also don’t have advertisers to keep sweet. And they have one precious commodity most mainstream journalists lack nowadays — time (with no set deadlines).
So, MediaMook will be revamped and relaunched shortly. Its aim will be to follow up on issues and people that deserve a little more coverage, rather than just suffering the full glare of a media that no longer has the inclination to dig deeper before the circus moves on.
I hope you’ll find it interesting. I know I will.
– Neil Walker (mediamook@gmail.com)
