Grant Hackett was dumped as Channel 9’s weekend news sports reporter recently.

But he shouldn’t feel too embarrassed. No matter how bad it got, he was still better than this guy.

Didn’t 2GB’s Chris Smith read any of the articles published at this time of year about the dangers of misbehaving at office Christmas parties?

Smith has been suspended indefinitely from his afternoon show on Australia’s most famous and popular talkback radio station due to ‘incidents’ that occurred at 2GB station owner Macquarie Radio Network’s Christmas party.

The Daily Telegraph was onto this Christmas tale quickly, asking ‘Who is the 2GB Christmas party groper?’. Station owner John Singleton initially attempted to dismiss it all as a bit of festive fun by claiming it “sounds like every Christmas party I’ve ever been to”. Not this time.

2GB’s Ray Hadley told listeners he wasn’t the mystery ‘groper’ with the Sydney Morning Herald naming Chris Smith as ‘Little Lord Fondle-roy’. Smith was immediately suspended indefinitely by 2GB management.

This isn’t the first time Chris Smith has been in strife for such sleazy behaviour. As the SMH reports, there was a notorious incident in the Channel Nine boardroom a decade ago. Following a boozy lunch, Smith, who was chief-of-staff at A Current Affair at the time, unzipped his fly and ”unfurled his member” to several shocked women in the room. On a separate occasion a senior newspaper journalist once had her breasts fondled by Smith while she was talking to a television identity at a corporate event.

Some people never learn and continue to blame other factors for their disgraceful antics. In this interview today, Smith claims he is a bipolar alcoholic.  So familiar – booze and mental issues used as an excuse instead of taking responsibility for actions.

We all know the sort. The egotistical alpha male (in their own mind) who seems to think that ascending to the heady heights of middle management gives them the right to sexually harass female colleagues at office functions. They’re usually given nicknames like “the grope” or “the pest” and everyone (male and female) is too frightened for their own career prospects to protest. Let’s start naming and shaming these sleazebags. Any corporation worth working for will realise such sad individuals destroy staff morale and their behaviour should never be tolerated.

Chris Smith would agree. He remarked in May this year, “If you carry on like a lunatic, full of grog, and have disrespect for women, you should be fired”. Indeed.

Oh dear.

The front page of The Age claims today’s date is Friday November 11. It’s only wrong by one month.

Usually, I’d mercilessly mock such a mistake (how many people would have proof read/seen the front page before publication?!) but now I work ‘in’ newspapers I feel a little sorry for the person responsible for this stuff up since I know how easily it could occur. As Tony Abbott says, “shit happens”.

If you’re in a newsagents today do The Age a favour on a bad day for them (it’s Friday, December 11 despite what they claim) by buying it. It’s a collector’s edition…

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Be careful what you put out there on Twitter. It could end up being reported as news.

When Tony Abbott became Opposition Leader I snarkily* remarked on Twitter:

Weirdly, this comment subsequently appeared on The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, Canberra Times, NineMSN and – last but not least – The Coff Coast Advocate’s – websites as an AAP syndicated article.

The things you find when indulging in a bit of megalomaniacal self-Googling.

*Snark. It’s what Twitter was invented for.

In 1974, Rolling Stone music journalist Jon Landau boosted a then little known musician’s career by declaring, “I have seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is Bruce Springsteen”. Fast forward to 2009 and the future of rock and roll isn’t a person. It’s not even a band. It’s an online music service called Spotify. It isn’t just a game changer for the music industry. It’s a first glimpse of the future of all home entertainment.

Spotify is a music streaming service without the need to buy songs to listen to them. It’s basically Apple’s iTunes, except it’s free. 4 million songs are available and it’s legal since major music labels - Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI Music, Warner Music – are shareholders. Spotify is an attempt to beat music piracy and it seems to be working.

There is a catch. Australia doesn’t have access to Spotify’s delights yet. The UK, France, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden are the current lucky countries. The USA and China will soon have access. However, it’s easy to bypass this tricky geographical problem.

I’ve been using Spotify and it‘s terribly addictive. Remember when you used to make mix tapes for friends, lovers and friends you desperately hoped would be your lover? Spotify allows you to build music playlists and share them with friends/lovers/others who can marvel at your impeccable taste in music. Playlist links can be sent via Twitter and/or Facebook. You can even allow friends to add or delete songs on shared playlists. Recently, Apple approved an application allowing Spotify music to stream directly to iPhones.

The future is now. Some luddites will cling to vinyl records. Some may even persist with CDs. But the majority will listen to music this way once it goes mass market. To be commercially viable, it’s likely all users will eventually have to subscribe. Reliability, convenience and legality means most won’t begrudge paying the approximate $20 monthly subscription Spotify’s premium service costs. I’d certainly subscribe if it was available in Australia.

We won’t own music but will be able to listen to anything any time we want. Movies will be next. And, if Rupert Murdoch and rivals are able to build a similar single point user friendly ‘pick and mix’ delivery system offering a compilation of their individual content, people may be willing to pay for online news. Unfortunately News Corp’s own foray into a similar music system – MySpace Music – is frustratingly clunky so you have to wonder whether they could build a seamless and intuitive integrated online news service that people would be willing to pay for.

However, if the notoriously antagonistic music labels can work together to sell their collective wares surely media companies can see sense in a little collaboration? Better to get a little money from most readers than no money from all.

This new Hungry Jack’s ad is totally freaking me out.

Basically, a sinister serial killer-type loiters outside Hungry Jack’s restaurants leering at young metrosexual boys. Then he somehow paralyses them (by slipping something into their burgers?), stacks them onto a trolley and sets off with them to do god knows what (I have a horrible feeling it involves removing the first ‘r’ and ‘k’ from Hungry Jack’s UK namesake - Burger King).

It’s creeeeepy, Hungry Jack’s. I’m staying away – just in case.

What to make of Hungry Beast? It’s pitched right at media geeks so I should love it. Trouble is, it’s mostly cringeworthy stuff. And it got off to a bad start by being totally pwned by Media Watch before the first episode aired.

Hungry Beast is founded on the best of intentions. It’s Andrew Denton’s latest project and aims to give new media talent a chance to shine and “tell us something we don’t know”. All very laudable.

Unfortunately, Hungry Beast consistently demonstrates something I do already know. 90% of media students are smug, arrogant, worthier than thou arsehats.

It’s all here, folks. The balding bloke who insists on having a wacky hairstyle to show how frickin’ crazy he is. The earnest “somewhere in the world right now something bad is happening and you’re too lazy to do anything about it” preaching and worst of all, Dan Ilic - a man who has the self satisfaction gene so deeply embedded in his DNA it fixes a permanent irksome smirk on his face.

Also, how the hell did Marc Fennell get a gig? No disrespect but is he really new talent?!!

There has been one diamond in the rough. Interviews with the families of servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were deeply affecting and are worthy of a documentary in their own right.

If Hungry Beast provides the opportunity for one or two people to launch a successful TV and/or media career, then great. I wish all who sail in her the best of luck. But why should viewers sit through their taxpayer funded audition tapes? If this show was on Channel 31 it’d be OK. But it’s not. It’s on our ABC and it’s simply not good enough to warrant the air time.

Denton admits “I expect it’s going to be quite rough around the edges to start with”. It’s a few weeks into the series and there’s no discernible improvement in quality. Hungry Beast better find its feet if a second season is to be commissioned. Quickly.

Apple’s invention of the iPod and iTunes in 2001 revolutionised the music industry. While music companies – still sometimes quaintly referred to as record labels – struggle to sustain profitability due to illegal downloading, Apple has got very rich indeed by selling the hardware (iPods/iPhones) and providing the distribution means (iTunes) for music without having to worry about the risky time consuming and expensive business of paying for musicians to record music and promote their wares in the hope something may be commercially successful enough to turn a profit.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation wants to be the new Apple. The Australian’s Caroline Overington couldn’t resist boasting about News Limited’s “cool new toy” to her company’s rivals at last week’s media140 conference in Sydney. All the signs point to News Corp launching that much vaunted – but never successfully implemented – holy grail of a user friendly device that enables consumers to read online news they want, when they want it, on a relatively cheap subscription basis. Basically, an iPod for news with an iTunes-like gateway allowing users to pick and mix the news they’re interested in reading.

Two possibly insurmountable obstacles stand in News Corp’s way.

The first is the free availability of public taxpayer funded news services, hence the reason James Murdoch launched an attack on the UK’s “dominant” BBC last month claiming that “dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market makes it incredibly difficult for journalism to flourish on the internet. Yet it is essential for the future of independent journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it.”

The second is, in some ways, even more problematic for News Corp. They’re just not very good at the internet thing. Sure - Rupert may have learned a few new tricks from selling financial news from his newly acquired Wall Street Journal to those who invest in the stockmarket but News Corp still shows signs of just not being able to deliver the goods online. And there’s been a recent example right here in Australia.

A few weeks ago MySpace Music was launched in Australia. Rupert Murdoch, the man who has been slammed by so many for having the audacity to try to make money from online content he’s paid people to write (with some exceptions…), suddenly decided to give content away for free. We can all now listen to an extensive selection of music via News Corp’s MySpace social media website. Initially this seems to be a fantastic proposition but there’s a problem. Far from being user friendly, MySpace Music’s interface is horribly and frustrating clunky. It’s not anywhere near as good as the likes of Spotify (unfortunately not available in Australia yet).

The promotion of the concept has also been dire. Despite the local News Limited newspapers dutifully trying to spruik the *ahem* cool new toy that is MySpace Music by publishing a survey of politicians’ listening habits (Joe Hockey likes Nickelback?! Say it ain’t so, Joe!) and laughably claiming politicians are “scrambling to join the site” (way to get down with da kidz…), it’s pretty much sunk without trace. Two (2!) fans turned up to a free Wes Carr MySpace Music gig recently. Wes Carr may not be everyone’s favourite singer but when only two people turn up to a free gig you have to wonder how competently it was promoted. MySpace Music has appointed Australian independent agency Bulldozer Inc for strategic communications with the account said to worth US$3 million in media and marketing. But it doesn’t matter how much money they spend to sell the sizzle. A shit sausage is still shit.

But here’s the really scary part. News Corporation is possibly every other commercial media companies’ last, best hope to save their own skins. Rupert has hinted he’s happy to speak to his rivals about forming an alliance so their content can also be made available via the iRupe (or whatever it’s eventually called).“We should be talking to Fairfax about a structure for charging for content online,” states Rupert in an interview published in today’s Herald Sun (ironically, not available online!). It’s a smart move. Fairfax is interested. The ACCC may protest but what’s wrong with media companies collaborating on a delivery model to benefit all and provide a service that will allow consumers to decide what news they want to read?

It’s just worrying that News Corporation’s reporting, especially its political analysis, is so biased. And it’s so antagonistic toward anyone who questions their motives it’s possible they’ll stymie their rivals’ content by not offering a level playing field. With great power comes no responsibility.

Let’s hope News Corp is successful in its bid to save the media industry from itself by being so innovative and kind enough to ensure everyone profits from providing online news.

I, for one, welcome our new media overlords.

Today Tonight’s Matt White is alright. Seems like a cheery and decent (well, as decent as a host of Today Tonight can be) sort.

So why does the ominous voice introducing Matt White each evening on Today Tonight make him sound so…sinister?!

In the highly unlikely event you don’t watch Today Tonight regularly (!), check out this little montage of TT intros I made especially for you:

If you don’t like Kerri-Anne Kennerley we can never be friends.

Sure, KAK’s beat is mostly inane advertorial fluff – just like all morning TV shows – but every so often she comes up with moments of insanely inspired television. As Joe ‘Shrek’ Hockey knows.

Check out this morning’s efforts. While you were down the local TAB picking your horse for the Melbourne Cup based on its name and/or colours of the jockey’s guernsey (or by form if you’re a loser punter), KAK was giving this novel method of tipping a whirl.