Sludge Report #25 – More Mistakes From INL

Wednesday, 9 August 2000, 1:35 pm
Column: C.D. Sludge

In Today's Edition: More Mistakes From INL – Scoop Was First – Not That Face Again!

NOTE: Authors of this report will be anonymous and wide ranging and occasionally unhinged. Indeed you are invited to contribute: The format is as a reporters notebook. It will be published as and when material is available. C.D. Sludge can be contacted at sludge@scoop.co.nz. The Sludge Report is available as a free email service..Click HERE
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More Mistakes From INL

Sludge finds INL’s glee at discovering an internet audience for Lord of the Rings content today soaked in irony. Stuffed (see http://stuff.co.nz ) is clearly INL management’s pride and joy – even if it won’t make a profit for five years) and the Evening Post is doing its best to help the site gain some good ratings stats shortly after its launch.

Only it might pay to look at the details a little closer. The Gandalf – snapped by a Post Photographer being impaled - is not, according to Scoop’s reliable Hobbit sources in fact Gandalf. He is Saruman.

Not letting the facts get in the way of ratings has become something of a habit at Newspaper House. Earlier this week The Dominion republished a Times of London (She is in Wellington!) article on Cate Blanchett which it turns out has become an internet cause celebre because the Author was duped into using a hoax plot line. (See…Hook Line And Sinker – Dominion Ring Winked)

Scoop was the first

Internet pages devoted to the Lord of the Rings are – to be sure - kind of common…. And now Scoop has one too

http://www.scoop.co.nz/frames/onering.html

This one, however, is kind of special.

On October 12th last year Scoop was the first media in the world to publish a picture of a Lord of The Rings set. The pictures of Bree –

http://www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/45/18/199910120920.9f865be1.html

published shortly after filming began - rated through the roof receiving over 2000 accesses an hour for over 24 hours and tripling traffic for a week. Since then Scoop has served what might be described as an insatiable desire by web viewers to images and news of the production providing several more world exclusives including the famous Bag End picture

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9911/S00092.htm

and pictures of Smokin’ Ring Wraiths with Liv Tyler….

http://www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/c9/0f/200001131642.34564fdb.html

Scoop has now brought all its coverage together for you to enjoy!!!

That Face Again

Sludge wishes he had a copy of the Haden files on Mike Robson. Somewhere among the notes recorded by Dominion Newspaper sub-editors of quotes from Haden there is a line warning of the dangers of publishing pictures of INL boss Mike Robson.

Unfortunately it appears the warning is now being increasingly ignored.

Yesterday there was Mike Robson’s face again, beaming out from the Editorial page. He appeared in a far larger than needed photo to launch Stuffed a few weeks earlier.

The picture was accompanied by pictures of the dapper new Mexican President Vincente Fox and a feature article by Mike on “democracy”.

After loudly blowing the free trade trumpet Mike remarks on the previous President, Zedillo, who is credited with enabling free elections for the first time since student uprisings in 1968. (Mike was there at the time for NZPA it appears).

Mike says…

“Though this has gained him respect from a majority of Mexicans, it has earned him the undying hatred of the hardline ‘dinosaurs’ in the PRI who see the end of a gravy train that has travelled the tracks for more than 70 years.”

And then you look at the pictures. Find the nearest dinosaur. Sludge agrees with Haden. No picture required.

© Sludge 2000

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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