In a blatant attempt to bury potentially embarrassing material, the Victorian state government has today tabled over 200 reports in Parliament.

With criticism-worthy nuggets of gold almost certainly hidden somewhere in the reports, you’d be forgiven for expecting Victoria’s broadsheet to do some — um, how you say? — journalism for us. You know, a bit of reading, analysing, questioning and reporting. But this is The Age, remember. That’s not how Fairfax rolls anymore.

You want journalism? Do it yourself.

The work experience kid was too busy writing tomorrow’s editorial to read all 200 reports

Accidental fucktardery or a Mac-hating graphic designer’s subversive prank?

Apple’s Mac Pro running malicious crippleware

Little things go wrong all around the world, in all sorts of situations, every single day. Some are newsworthy but the vast majority are rather trivial.

For instance, sometimes commercial flights are delayed for a short time due to unforeseen circumstances. There might be a flight between Sydney and Christchurch that takes off less than two hours late due to a broken down tow truck and incorrectly secured baggage. Then the flight crew might chuck on some television entertainment to keep passengers occupied, and in the lamest of ironies they happen to play an episode of Fawlty Towers which features a character who bungles things.

All of this would be a bit annoying for the passengers, I’m sure, and it’s not exactly the best look for the airline, but is it newsworthy? Let alone headline worthy? Apparently The Age thinks “yes” on both counts.

After a series of blunders that kept one of its aircraft stranded on the tarmac for about two hours this morning, Qantas tried to calm passengers by screening an episode of Fawlty Towers.

“The irony was not lost on us,” said one passenger, Jock, who telephoned the Herald while waiting on the aircraft as it sat idle at Sydney airport this morning.

I hope I never meet “Jock” in real life because he sounds like a wanker. Imagine the kind of dipshit you’d have to be to call the newspaper to express your indignation that your plane has been delayed. Mind you, he’s exactly the class of braindead knob at which The Age seems to be pitching their newspaper (sic) these days.

Piss off, you’re gone.

Fairfax Media must search for a new editor for its main Melbourne newspaper after the abrupt departure of current editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan.

The announcement was made to Age staff late this morning by Don Churchill, Fairfax’s chief executive for Victoria. Mr Jaspan’s senior deputy, Paul Ramadge, has been appointed acting editor-in-chief.

There’s absolutely no question that the quality of The Age dropped drastically during Jaspan’s tenure, along with any semblance of balance. At the same time there was a noticeable increase in sensationalist and style-over-substance journalism, as even the main “serious” section of the paper tended towards an over-reliance on content-neutral, parochial and lifestyle-ish filler.

If the new editor steers The Age back on track and shifts the focus to serious, quality journalism I might just start buying it again.

UPDATE (1.00pm): Will points out in comments that the summary of this story on The Age’s website tells a slightly different story.

Whoa! Would you tap (or peg) this?

Carn git me, laydeez!

UPDATE II (1.15pm): Andrew Landeryou’s pathetic new attempt to make some money post-bankruptcy, VEXNEWS, has hilariously claimed to have the Jaspan tapping story as an exclusive.

Check out them gnarly Landeryou Photoshopping skillz

I bet that’s news to all of the people who have also exclusively revealed the news, The Age itself included.

Attaboy, David Kirk … you just carry on slashing your workforce and delivering Fairfax shareholders short-term dividends on an organisation whose reputation and long-term prospects you’re flushing down the shitter.

In the meantime, we’ll enjoy seeing more of this and this:

Cockhead.

Attention Fairfax — this is what happens when you overwork reporters, make sub-editors redundant and then funnel the savings into the hands of miscreants, charlatans and buffoons at the company’s “executive” level:

That’s only the first three paragraphs! And I’ve said nothing about the bowel-twistingly tortured “lightning” puns stinking up the lead.*

David Kirk, Ron Walker and all you other corrupt, myopic, semi-literate corporate-bot arselickers who have played a part in tearing the guts out of a once-fine media organisation (I’m looking at you, Fred Hilmer) — take a bow. 

* Until now.

(From ‘The Age’ Online)

Um, no thanks.

UPDATE: Is that hypercolour t-shirt in the front row being worn by a dude or a chick?

GrodsCorp’s favourite Age “journalist” Chris Johnston has written about sport.

The sun will beat down. The little bouncy balls will rocket around. And the players — the greatest players — will leap across the hard green of the court with their straining racquets to reach them. As the roar goes up. Then the hush. The tennis hush.

He has written written about Heath Ledger.

The result, though, was a sick and sad and talented boy who stopped breathing.

He has written about designer terror-porn.

What exactly is the purpose of these remarkable, disturbing pictures?

[...]

The setting is unmistakably an airport customs station. Two officers flank her, watching. Voyeurs; and we watch them watching her. One is only identifiable by his hairy arm and wristwatch. She looks at him, stern but impassive. He is dominant, she submissive.

[...]

It’s sexual, and odd, but also quite mundane, quite familiar.

And he has written about Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The flagship doughnut, the Original Glazed, is sweet but not cloyingly so, and light, very light, almost fluffy, in the middle. The outside is fried crisp and the yeast-raised inside is contrastingly buttery, which is appealing.

But now he has written about his favourite Australian album of all time.

Since I Left You — the Avalanches

It’s common for bedroom producers to scour the history of recorded music to grab bits and pieces and reprocess their findings into something new.

It’s been a central angle in the newest wave of popular music since the electronic uprising of the late ’80s. What they did in 2000 with their first and so far only album was reset those rules once again. Here was a beautiful piece of musical art made entirely from samples;

Since I Left You was a jigsaw of Kid Creole, Madonna, Jimmy Webb, Sergio Mendez, Mandrill, De La Soul and the Osmonds, stolen and then rearranged by a loose-fit, encyclopedic crew of musicians into, between them, everything from turntablism to Hawaiian steel guitars.

Look at me, kids! I’m cool!

Andrew Bolt has spent the last couple of weeks valiantly defending Channel Nine’s bigot-in-residence, Sam Newman, against an overwhelming tide of public opinion. Bolta doesn’t like they way them evil lefties at the network have told Newman he can’t return to The Footy Show unless he attends counselling for his wimin-hatin’ ways. According to Bolt, Newman is being brainwashed and “re-educated” by teh left.

It is absurd to now have people hauled off to reeducation for sayings things to which some powerful others take exception. Not just absurd, either, but deeply concerning.

Andy conveniently leaves out the simple fact that Newman doesn’t have to attend counselling — he can tell his bosses at Channel Nine to go fuck themselves if he so desires — but he must attend counselling if he wants to continue appearing on The Footy Show. Most other TV personalities would have been escorted from the studio for lesser offences than Newman’s, and certainly wouldn’t be given the dozens of chances over a decade that Newman has had. If anything, he should be incredibly thankful for the chance of continued employment.

But Bolta doesn’t get any of that because he’s too busy being infuriated by how terribly shameful it is for Newman to have to attend counselling.

This “counselling” of wrong-thinkers as if they were diseased is not just a grave insult but a kind of authoritarianism best left buried with the KGB’s psychiatric hospitals for political dissidents.

Evil, evil PC-brigade leftists. But just when you thought it couldn’t get any more farcical, Andy tries to ramp up the guilts by referring to an unrelated injury of Newman’s that requires the use of crutches, and makes this bold statement.

Pictures like this, of Newman hobbling to his deprogramming, should shame us all:

No it shouldn’t.

Look, don’t get me wrong. I’ve come to expect nothing less than lifestyle filler in The Sunday Age (with only a slight increase in the quantity of news in the Monday-Saturday version) which is why McBec and I cancelled our seven day subscription to Melbourne’s broadsheet tabloid a few months ago. But cruising The Age’s website just now I notice that nothing has changed since I last had a physical copy of the paper with which to line Napoleon’s litter tray.

THE next time you order an iced quad venti sugar-free vanilla non-fat with whip caramel macchiato at Starbucks, ask yourself what you’re really after.

According to Victoria University researcher Po-Tsang Chen, coffee-drinkers who flock to chain cafes are craving brand recognition as much as the arcane combinations of caffeine.

Dr Chen has completed a four-year study of Melbourne coffee-drinkers, revealing a divide between those who go to chains, such as Hudsons Coffee or Gloria Jeans, and independently run cafes.

Gotta hand it to The Sunday Age because they’ve really identified their target audience and they’re giving those inner city, aspirational latte lefties exactly what they want: confirmation of their eliteness based on their preference for trendy independent cafes.

And if I ever meet the sub-editor responsible for this headline I’ll freakin’ glass him or her: “Well, latte-da – your coffee shop says things about you”.

Remember how Jim Schembri slagged off bloggers and then started a blog? You may also be aware that last week he slagged off jazz and then within a few days became a jazz fan.

Jim yesterday announced that he is taking a “short break” from his “journalism” and blogging duties. Let’s hope he makes it a long break. A really long break.

Jim Schembri wearing his trademark smug, shit-eating grin

Remember Fairfax’s plans for a totally gnarly website (codenamed Kwerky) aimed at “free-spending hedonists desperate to have their say”? Well it’s here and it’s even worse than I thought.

What those groundbreaking and envelope-pushing folk at Fairfax have done with The Vine is simply take the website template used for The Age and the SMH, change the background image, remove the political stories and replace them with more advertising masquerading as content.

“How is this going to attract those hedonists?” I hear you ask. Well, the uberfunky writers at The Vine say crazy and zany things like “Adelaide: so much more than murder and churches.” Oooooh, dark satire, mang!

And what’s a mainstream media outlet’s attempt at Web2.0 without a Web1.3 outcome? The Vine’s interactive interface starts and ends with a chance for readers to comment and some news stories presented as “blogs” (even though they’re clearly not blogs.)

Basically the whole site stinks of try-hard and pathetic. It’s a poorly built and conceived attempt to attract younger people to existing Fairfax advertising using pissweak graphic design and by paying lip service to social networking. It will decompose faster than a turd in the hot summer sun.

(Thanks to Damian for discovering the rebranded Kwerky that I’d spent weeks looking for.)

Andrew Jaspan and The Age salivated over it then, and Melbourne’s leading gutter-tabloid broadsheet is still salivating over it now.

The way that this supposedly respectable newspaper shamelessly uses sex to try and attract readers is pathetic. Andrew Jaspan has a lot to answer for.

(Also, I bet that poor woman had no idea that she’d end up being used as soft-core erotica and reader bait for the rest of The Age’s existence.)

UPDATE (12.55pm): Someone at The Age obviously thought the same as me.

What an age we live in. Today people aren’t content with merely reading the news, they also have a weird urge to crawl up out of the ground and soil the news with idiodic comments. Consider this comment about the 2020 Summit from The Age’s website:

In my view the most pressing issue of our time in terms of Australia’s identity is stopping the downward socialist spiral we are on, and preventing Chairman Rudd’s attempts at making Australia the 34th province of China.

His socialist bent is disturbing at the very least, most recently his universal childcare program that is obviously intended to imprint his socialist doctine (sic) on children straight out of the womb.

All hail Bolt!

I found this delicious line in The Age just now:

The scariest interview subject is in Saudi Arabia. An imam who has just led a prayer calling for the destruction of America gives Spurlock the crazy eyes.

Crazy eyes? Just who is responsible for that crap?

Looking up I see it’s Roger Moore.

Sorry, Roger. Love your work.