Saturday 26 July 2008

Where's our news?


During my talk at the Design on Toast breakfast the other day, I spoke about the importance of maintaining our local voice in films, ads etc.

This comment now seems especially pertinent given the axing by Channel #9 of their current affairs flagship Sunday Program.

Long a favourite of former network boss Kerry Packer, Sunday was a great example of Australian current affairs broadcasting.

Now it is no more.

Who knows what will replace it. Some cheap US imports I'd imagine.

Channel #9 is also involved with Australia's most popular web portal NineMSN.

Which is why I shouldn't be surprised to see a headline on todays news feed proclaiming 'Neil Young releases anti-war tour film.'

People clicking through to the story would be able to read about Neil's concert film Deja Vu which "opens in theatres this weekend."

Problem is, it doesn't. Well not in Australia anyway!

The film premieres locally at the Melbourne Film Festival on Tuesday. I know because I have tickets.

No cinema release date has been set at this stage.

Why oh why does Channel #9 persist in feeding us overseas content?

And more importantly, don't they have any fact checkers working in their news room?