One of the most gratifying aspects of journalism is the huge ripple you can cause as a result of a single piece of writing.
Good, bad or indifferent, reporting the truth is the journalist’s duty. And if other journalists deem something they read to be truthworthy chances are it will be quickly disseminated in a manner they see fit. After all, the media can be the media for the media, no?
Take today’s little gem as an example. One of my moles at Optus (every company has at least one, get over it) let me in on the company’s plans to make up to 450 positions redundant.
The story hit the Internet just shy of 1pm this afternoon. Within two hours it was copied by two other industry titles. The snowball then bounced into general business news terrain through News Limited’s newspaper Web sites. AAP also joined in so the story also made it on the ABC and Fairfax newspapers.
After close of business today, Google News had clipped 22 (some content repeated across different sites) instances of the original story. Not bad for about 20 minutes work 😉
The same way a single flap of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazon can trigger a London thunderstorm, the whispers of a simple news brief can trigger governments into unusual state of action.
Yeah, that’s the great thing about the job.
Rodney
Speaking of copying Rodderz, your doing a mighty good job of recycling other people’s job advertisements.
I seem to remember doing a rather a lot of that when I was at IDG … it was called Computerworld Careers. Still, credit where credit is due, the Job Ads butterfly flappeth.
But you could’ve at least made an effort to add a little spooky mystique to the story, like asking them if they will be able to name who the lucky person is.
BTW, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation doesn’t have a Z in it.
That’s a bit narky Jules…So Rodders scooped you on the ASIO story…Im sure there’s plenty of life in it yet for a bit of recycling….
Baj: bit of the pot calling the kettle black here. Maybe ASIO doesn’t have a “Z” in it, but the contraction for “you are” certainly isn’t your (it’s “you’re”, btw). I’d (note the apostrophe) suggest maybe using one of the crack Fairfax sub team but in your (note no apostrophe) most recent issue of MIS they’ve (note an apostrophe) managed “incite” when it should have been “insight” (that said, it makes for an interesting interpretation). Oh, and another thing: Electronic Data Systems (aka EDS) really shouldn’t (note the apostrophe) be done in lower case since it is a company name.