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aus.media-watch charter
This group was created by Rev Doc Phil Herring on the 21st of April,
1997.
RFD: aus.media-watch
NAME
aus.media-watch
ONE LINE
The quality of journalism and media in Australia
STATUS
Unmoderated
PATRON SAINT
Stuart Littlemore
PROPONENTS
Robert Atkins (ratkins@osix.com.au) and
Rev Dr David Gerard (gerdw@cougar.vut.edu.au)
CHARTER
This group is for discussion and critical analysis of the media
in Australia -- broadcast and print.
Inspired by the ABC TV show "Media Watch", hosted by the aforementioned
Stuart Littlemore, the purpose of the group is to cast a cynical eye
(and ear) over the print and broadcast media and basically rip the shit
out of them when they screw up (which is frequently).
Even though the group is inspired by it, it's not an arm of "Media
Watch" and is not intended merely to be a fan group of "Media Watch" -
although discussion of media-watch shows and publications, and of
satires of the media such as "FrontLine", are certainly on-topic.
Other appropriate topics for discussion in the group could include (but
are by no means limited to):
* Sightings of inaccuracies and incompetencies in local and
national media.
* Plagarism-spotting
* Poking fun at headline cliches, innacurate columnists and
illiterate subeditors (Apostrophe Man was a net.cop!)
* Criticism of Stuart Littlemore or other media-watchers
* Conflicts of interest between media owners and their other
businesses
CROSSPOSTS
Some crossposts aus.tv, aus.radio.broadcast and like groups may
be appropriate. Although it may sometimes be appropriate, crossposting
to groups such as aus.politics is probably a Bad Idea, it tends to
attract loons.
If crossposting, please make sure threads stay on the topic of
media-watching -- ie, in a post about "Frontline", discussing the real
life incident a given plot element is based on would be on topic; asking
who plays the security guard probably isn't and would be better suited
to aus.tv on its own.
There would sometimes be cause for a crosspost to an Australian
regional group (such as syd.*, melb.* or a local University newsgroup
if the post was about something that appeared in a University
newspaper). There may be the odd occasion where a post to one of the
big 7 groups is relevant. Therefore one crosspost out of the aus.*
heirachy is acceptable for a post into aus.media-watch. If crossposts
get out of hand, robocancelling may be considered as a solution.
_________________________________________________________________
Robert Atkins
[1]ratkins@osix.com.au
[2]http://www.osix.com.au/~ratkins
_________________________________________________________________
References
1. mailto:ratkins@osix.com.au
2. http://www.osix.com.au/~ratkins
The above graph is a moving average of the number of articles posted into aus.media-watch per day. The top of the green area counts the number of articles posted in the last 24 hours, whereas the blue line counts the number of articles posted in the last 2 hours, times 12.