Published The Advocate, September 18, 2004
I WAS born in Geelong and since you cannot help where you were born, I follow Geelong in the AFL.
I was there at the MCG when the Cats won the ’63 flag. I can remember the first bounce. I can tell you the Geelong lineup and the numbers they wore on their backs. Number 5 will always be Polly Farmer, never mind Gary Ablett Snr.
I know a little tacker named Max, a mad Sydney fan, who can barely count to five but if you hold up the number 19 he will yell, “Mickey O’Loughlin!” … 37 – “Adam Goodes!” … 1 – “Big Bad Barry!”
You should have seen the pure, shining joy on Max’s face when he was given a footy last Christmas. It does not get any better than that.
Nor are there many better pleasures than standing on the boundary with a saveloy and sauce in one hand and a bag of hot chips in the other, unsure which to eat first, and watching the under-8s chase the football from one end of the ground to the other like a pack of dogs.
One of the other things I love about footy is how it embraces people with intellectual disabilities. There are no more devoted fans. They may not understand the subtleties of the trading table and are unaffected by the convoluted backroom deals but they sure know their footy.
They wear the team colours with pride, collect the posters and spend their week making banners and yakking about the game. Footy provides them with excitement and a sense of belonging in a world where yelling and carrying on like a two-bob watch are perfectly normal.
Even grown-ups need a chance to relive simple childhood passions, of winners and losers, heroes and villains. And even those who have not embraced the great game can still appreciate the important role a footy club plays in a community.
Footy provides a focal point of community pride, for the ageing club stalwarts whose playing days are golden memories and for the mums and wives who serve in the canteen, as much as for the players themselves.
And winning is not everything. Having a team that rarely wins is better than a town having no team at all.
Last Sunday, I went to the presentation of the NTFL Darrel Baldock Medal. In the car park beforehand, there was a lot of last-minute straightening of ties by girlfriends, with mums hovering ready to lick down any unruly hair except I swear the boys were wearing more hair products than the girls.
Darrel Baldock, seated at the next table, was smaller than I remembered him in his glory days, and older. And I haven’t changed a bit.
So here we are again at the “business end” of the footy season: Devonport versus Burnie – East versus West – in the NTFL grand final today at Latrobe.
Victory will go to the coach who put the cones in the right place at training this week.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Published The Advocate, September 11, 2004
ALL public monuments are sites of memory.
They contain selected elements of our past that we value, whether they are the surreal giant opium poppies on the banks of the Mersey River at Devonport or, not far away, the bronze busts of Joseph and Enid Lyons … although their sons say the woman looks nothing like Dame Enid.
Other structures are erected more with an eye to making a wacky statement and possibly a dollar - the Big Tassie Devil, of Mole Creek; the Big Platypus, of Latrobe; and the Big Penguin, of Penguin.
But for sheer over-the-top bravura, nothing I have seen so far compares to the Ulverstone War Memorial.
I came upon it suddenly on the approach from Devonport, around the corner into Alexandra Rd, and was left astonished and agape.
Three giant concrete pillars, painted battleship grey, linked by shiny chains a third and two thirds of the way up, topped by four clock faces and crowned by a perspex minaret that glowed like a torch flame at night to guide mariners in Bass Strait. Wow!
Guessing now, how high is it … 10 … 20 … 30 metres … even as tall as the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?
The Four Ways Shell service station squats in the shadow of the memorial. Standing alongside the friendly Shell man as he filled the tank, gazing up at the memorial, I mentioned it was rather big.
He looked up too. ``Don’t really notice it,’’ he said, ``suppose I’ve got used to it.’’ Were the citizens of Alexandria just as blasé about their lighthouse?
A nearby sign explained how the memorial was erected in 1953 near the site of Happy Harry’s hamburger stand, at the highest point of Ulverstone, as a World War II Memorial.
It was designed by Cvetko Florian Mejac, from Slovenia, who offered to prepare the plans for free, which the organizing committee, recognizing a good deal, accepted.
As I stood there taking notes, the clock began to chime the hour in an eerie harmonic pulse that made me think of the movie E.T. and wonder if the memorial may one day roar into the heavens, the three pillars really rocket boosters.
The memorial also serves as a traffic roundabout, which poses a problem for anyone wanting to take a closer look because there is no safe way to cross the road since the columns block the view of approaching vehicles.
I was nearly run over twice by the same woman who went around again after missing me the first time.
What the memorial lacks in subtlety it makes up for in fascination. I keep being drawn back there and each time I am astonished anew, and photograph it.
I also think it is a fine tribute to the war dead, which is the whole point.
A last thought: Ulverstone’s other claim to fame is it hosted Australia's first axeman competition in 1874.
So where is the Big Axe?
ALL public monuments are sites of memory.
They contain selected elements of our past that we value, whether they are the surreal giant opium poppies on the banks of the Mersey River at Devonport or, not far away, the bronze busts of Joseph and Enid Lyons … although their sons say the woman looks nothing like Dame Enid.
Other structures are erected more with an eye to making a wacky statement and possibly a dollar - the Big Tassie Devil, of Mole Creek; the Big Platypus, of Latrobe; and the Big Penguin, of Penguin.
But for sheer over-the-top bravura, nothing I have seen so far compares to the Ulverstone War Memorial.
I came upon it suddenly on the approach from Devonport, around the corner into Alexandra Rd, and was left astonished and agape.
Three giant concrete pillars, painted battleship grey, linked by shiny chains a third and two thirds of the way up, topped by four clock faces and crowned by a perspex minaret that glowed like a torch flame at night to guide mariners in Bass Strait. Wow!
Guessing now, how high is it … 10 … 20 … 30 metres … even as tall as the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?
The Four Ways Shell service station squats in the shadow of the memorial. Standing alongside the friendly Shell man as he filled the tank, gazing up at the memorial, I mentioned it was rather big.
He looked up too. ``Don’t really notice it,’’ he said, ``suppose I’ve got used to it.’’ Were the citizens of Alexandria just as blasé about their lighthouse?
A nearby sign explained how the memorial was erected in 1953 near the site of Happy Harry’s hamburger stand, at the highest point of Ulverstone, as a World War II Memorial.
It was designed by Cvetko Florian Mejac, from Slovenia, who offered to prepare the plans for free, which the organizing committee, recognizing a good deal, accepted.
As I stood there taking notes, the clock began to chime the hour in an eerie harmonic pulse that made me think of the movie E.T. and wonder if the memorial may one day roar into the heavens, the three pillars really rocket boosters.
The memorial also serves as a traffic roundabout, which poses a problem for anyone wanting to take a closer look because there is no safe way to cross the road since the columns block the view of approaching vehicles.
I was nearly run over twice by the same woman who went around again after missing me the first time.
What the memorial lacks in subtlety it makes up for in fascination. I keep being drawn back there and each time I am astonished anew, and photograph it.
I also think it is a fine tribute to the war dead, which is the whole point.
A last thought: Ulverstone’s other claim to fame is it hosted Australia's first axeman competition in 1874.
So where is the Big Axe?
Published The Advocate, September 4, 2004
BETWEEN Queenstown and Strahan, the rain became heavier and heavier and heavier, like being bombarded by ball bearings.
The car wipers were going flat-out wack-wack-wack-wack revealing a featureless grey world. Just gone noon and the car lights were full on.
I had come to the West Coast to get a better sense of the community covered by The Advocate’s circulation, on a trinity tour of Queenstown, Strahan and Zeehan, in that order.
The CD player was loaded with Gregorian chants. I am not religious in a churchy sense these days but I still have a spiritual side and this type of music appeals to me, especially when communing with nature.
Or, in this case, communing with forestry and mining. The area is either being chopped down or dug up.
My pre-tour impression of the West Coast had come from people more familiar with the area than I was. They said it rained a bit.
Per omnia saecula saeculorum, sang the monks, as it rained even harder. Queenstown has its attractions as, indeed, does Strahan but sunshine is not one of them.
Turning the CD up four notches to elevate the chanting above the downpour, I pushed on until aquaplaning the bend into Zeehan, the rain ceased, the clouds parted to reveal the sun, Gloria in excelsis Deo, and God was in his heaven.
A sign, a sign, and I immediately booked a room at the Hotel Cecil and went for a walk in the cold air smelling of damp and wood smoke, past daffodils, their heads bowed under the weight of rainwater, and the distant sound of wood being chopped.
The drainage grate in the Catholic churchyard was deep under water where the saturated ground could no longer cope. Across the road, the public swimming pool was empty and a shade cloth was strung mockingly over the toddlers’ pool.
One household garage was stacked with firewood and the car was left outside. It’s important to get your priorities straight in Zeehan.
As the day darkened for the final time, the low cloud and the smoke fires combined to envelope Zeehan in a thick fog.
Yet, directly overhead, the full moon was as bright as a button. Woooooo.Weird.
Zeehan is a declared heritage mining town, which must be a mixed blessing because it means someone is obliged to keep it in good nick as a reminder of the time when it had 10,000 people living there, not a few hundred.
Old buildings such as the Gaiety Theatre must be nigh impossible to maintain in good condition, even with a lick of paint, in a place where it rains for six months and the trees drip water for the other six.
Later on, drying out my boots and socks, I was told the clouds over the West Coast were often seeded to make it rain to ensure the hydroelectric dams were full of water. Uh-huh.
Tell you what, it seems to be working. Strahan had 654mm of rain last month _ an August record.
BETWEEN Queenstown and Strahan, the rain became heavier and heavier and heavier, like being bombarded by ball bearings.
The car wipers were going flat-out wack-wack-wack-wack revealing a featureless grey world. Just gone noon and the car lights were full on.
I had come to the West Coast to get a better sense of the community covered by The Advocate’s circulation, on a trinity tour of Queenstown, Strahan and Zeehan, in that order.
The CD player was loaded with Gregorian chants. I am not religious in a churchy sense these days but I still have a spiritual side and this type of music appeals to me, especially when communing with nature.
Or, in this case, communing with forestry and mining. The area is either being chopped down or dug up.
My pre-tour impression of the West Coast had come from people more familiar with the area than I was. They said it rained a bit.
Per omnia saecula saeculorum, sang the monks, as it rained even harder. Queenstown has its attractions as, indeed, does Strahan but sunshine is not one of them.
Turning the CD up four notches to elevate the chanting above the downpour, I pushed on until aquaplaning the bend into Zeehan, the rain ceased, the clouds parted to reveal the sun, Gloria in excelsis Deo, and God was in his heaven.
A sign, a sign, and I immediately booked a room at the Hotel Cecil and went for a walk in the cold air smelling of damp and wood smoke, past daffodils, their heads bowed under the weight of rainwater, and the distant sound of wood being chopped.
The drainage grate in the Catholic churchyard was deep under water where the saturated ground could no longer cope. Across the road, the public swimming pool was empty and a shade cloth was strung mockingly over the toddlers’ pool.
One household garage was stacked with firewood and the car was left outside. It’s important to get your priorities straight in Zeehan.
As the day darkened for the final time, the low cloud and the smoke fires combined to envelope Zeehan in a thick fog.
Yet, directly overhead, the full moon was as bright as a button. Woooooo.Weird.
Zeehan is a declared heritage mining town, which must be a mixed blessing because it means someone is obliged to keep it in good nick as a reminder of the time when it had 10,000 people living there, not a few hundred.
Old buildings such as the Gaiety Theatre must be nigh impossible to maintain in good condition, even with a lick of paint, in a place where it rains for six months and the trees drip water for the other six.
Later on, drying out my boots and socks, I was told the clouds over the West Coast were often seeded to make it rain to ensure the hydroelectric dams were full of water. Uh-huh.
Tell you what, it seems to be working. Strahan had 654mm of rain last month _ an August record.
Published The Advocate, August 28, 2004
SOUTH of the Tropic of Capricorn there are not many locations in Australia that face the sun north over the sea. The North-West coast of Tasmania is one such place.
It makes a big difference. The light is a happy buttery-yellow even on the stormiest day. Hobart is blue-grey and miserable - appropriate for the seat of government.
The locals who have lived all their lives in the North-West cannot see the yellow. I come from
elsewhere and, believe me, it is stunning. Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see the light.
After a night of shrieking wind and rain, of whitecaps in the toilet bowl and frozen roll-on
deodorant, the sun rises over Bass Strait and the world is awash in a lemonwater dawn.
Recently I attended a meeting to discuss Burnie Shines, an annual festival that runs through
October and, this year, into November. Having endured my first August here, the name Burnie
Shines brought a wintry smile to my lips.
Those at the meeting told me one of the aims of Burnie Shines was to make people feel better.
Better than what?
They repeated an old putdown that Burnie was a blue-collar industrial city: ``No cafe socciety ... not particularly appealing ... Philistines ... this is the North-West, the best and the brightest have left, there's no future here for our young people.''
Now where have I heard that before? Ah, Adelaide, where I spent most of my life.
Where some people see a blue-collar industrial city, I see character. I love the fact that Burnie is an around-the-clock port. I do not sleep well and like to supervise the activity down on the docks at 3am from my bedroom window.
All stereotypes have an historical truth - a one-dimensional, exaggerated version of the truth -
although their coded messages, with the implied putdowns, are rarely uplifting.
Every day on the way to work I pass a fence daubed in Aboriginal motifs in red, yellow and
black paint, with the message 200 YEARS OF STRUGGLE in big black capitals. True enough.
But if I were an Aboriginal kid, having to start my day faced with that message glaring at me, I
would not feel especially optimistic or good about myself. It would not change my mood for the better. Black Shines might work.
A measure of a self-confident community is one that can laugh at jokes told against itself.
Adelaide, for example, was once described by the comedian Gerry Connolly as ``Dubbo with
poofters''. It made me laugh anyway.
I have yet to hear a good North-West joke. There is plenty of rivalry, however.
One mob won't shop in the other mob's city; one side refuses to use the other side's medical
services; and everyone wants their own aquatic centre. Yada-yada-yada.
Our corner of the world is an out-of-the-way place unless you happen to live here. The other day I rode my bike along the coast bathed in that remarkable yellow light, the ocean glittering like crinkled aluminium foil, and counted my blessings.
SOUTH of the Tropic of Capricorn there are not many locations in Australia that face the sun north over the sea. The North-West coast of Tasmania is one such place.
It makes a big difference. The light is a happy buttery-yellow even on the stormiest day. Hobart is blue-grey and miserable - appropriate for the seat of government.
The locals who have lived all their lives in the North-West cannot see the yellow. I come from
elsewhere and, believe me, it is stunning. Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see the light.
After a night of shrieking wind and rain, of whitecaps in the toilet bowl and frozen roll-on
deodorant, the sun rises over Bass Strait and the world is awash in a lemonwater dawn.
Recently I attended a meeting to discuss Burnie Shines, an annual festival that runs through
October and, this year, into November. Having endured my first August here, the name Burnie
Shines brought a wintry smile to my lips.
Those at the meeting told me one of the aims of Burnie Shines was to make people feel better.
Better than what?
They repeated an old putdown that Burnie was a blue-collar industrial city: ``No cafe socciety ... not particularly appealing ... Philistines ... this is the North-West, the best and the brightest have left, there's no future here for our young people.''
Now where have I heard that before? Ah, Adelaide, where I spent most of my life.
Where some people see a blue-collar industrial city, I see character. I love the fact that Burnie is an around-the-clock port. I do not sleep well and like to supervise the activity down on the docks at 3am from my bedroom window.
All stereotypes have an historical truth - a one-dimensional, exaggerated version of the truth -
although their coded messages, with the implied putdowns, are rarely uplifting.
Every day on the way to work I pass a fence daubed in Aboriginal motifs in red, yellow and
black paint, with the message 200 YEARS OF STRUGGLE in big black capitals. True enough.
But if I were an Aboriginal kid, having to start my day faced with that message glaring at me, I
would not feel especially optimistic or good about myself. It would not change my mood for the better. Black Shines might work.
A measure of a self-confident community is one that can laugh at jokes told against itself.
Adelaide, for example, was once described by the comedian Gerry Connolly as ``Dubbo with
poofters''. It made me laugh anyway.
I have yet to hear a good North-West joke. There is plenty of rivalry, however.
One mob won't shop in the other mob's city; one side refuses to use the other side's medical
services; and everyone wants their own aquatic centre. Yada-yada-yada.
Our corner of the world is an out-of-the-way place unless you happen to live here. The other day I rode my bike along the coast bathed in that remarkable yellow light, the ocean glittering like crinkled aluminium foil, and counted my blessings.
Published The Advocate, August 14, 2004
Excuse us while we mind our own business
ALL government is naturally inclined to do its business in secret but only in Tasmania has local government raised secrecy to a dark art.
This past week The Advocate has run stories showing how impossible it is for the public to double-check if council members have a conflict of interest.
The registers of interest that members are required to lodge with council are simply not available for public scrutiny.
Instead, members must be taken on trust to declare an interest if a relevant matter comes before a council meeting, and immediately leave the chamber.
Whatever happened to trust?
Which begs the question: How is the public to be assured that potential conflicts of interest do not exist if the register of those interests is kept secret? And how does such secrecy serve the community interest?
A member of the public can gain a fragmentary insight into the register only by asking the council’s general manager whether a particular member has a particular interest, which suggests to me the questioner most probably already knows the answer.
In any event, the general manager need only reply “yes” or “no” and provide no further details.
Soon after the first stories appeared in The Advocate, the phones rang. Accusations were made that certain council members with undeclared interests had voted on matters that rewarded them financially. We will look closer at those allegations.
No doubt the overwhelming number of council members are honest, decent folk, acting in good faith in performing their civic duty.
But I am not so much concerned with identifying good faith as I am in exposing bad faith, and while the registers remain closed, suspicion falls equally on all members including the scrupulously honest.
Local government makes much of its claims to be transparent and accountable but it is actually much better at keeping things secret.
Council meetings can be closed to the public for many reasons, ranging from complaints against staff to the ridiculous ‘‘information provided to the council on the condition it is kept confidential’’.
In one case, the announcement of a new pedestrian crossing was kept secret by a council for a month at the request of a Cabinet Minister.
The Minister, who was due to officially open the crossing, asked for the matter to be treated confidentially for fear the news would leak out and steal her thunder. It leaked anyway.
The Local Government Act is currently being reviewed by the State Government. Among the reforms being suggested there is nothing dealing with those secret registers – a missed opportunity for the State Government to show decisive leadership on the issue although it is still not too late.
There can be no public confidence in a process of government to which the public is not admitted. Nor can ratepayers fulfill their responsibilities as voters without having free access to vital information.
If councillors are unwilling for their assets to be checked, they should be prepared to have their pockets turned out for missing cutlery as they leave the chamber.
Excuse us while we mind our own business
ALL government is naturally inclined to do its business in secret but only in Tasmania has local government raised secrecy to a dark art.
This past week The Advocate has run stories showing how impossible it is for the public to double-check if council members have a conflict of interest.
The registers of interest that members are required to lodge with council are simply not available for public scrutiny.
Instead, members must be taken on trust to declare an interest if a relevant matter comes before a council meeting, and immediately leave the chamber.
Whatever happened to trust?
Which begs the question: How is the public to be assured that potential conflicts of interest do not exist if the register of those interests is kept secret? And how does such secrecy serve the community interest?
A member of the public can gain a fragmentary insight into the register only by asking the council’s general manager whether a particular member has a particular interest, which suggests to me the questioner most probably already knows the answer.
In any event, the general manager need only reply “yes” or “no” and provide no further details.
Soon after the first stories appeared in The Advocate, the phones rang. Accusations were made that certain council members with undeclared interests had voted on matters that rewarded them financially. We will look closer at those allegations.
No doubt the overwhelming number of council members are honest, decent folk, acting in good faith in performing their civic duty.
But I am not so much concerned with identifying good faith as I am in exposing bad faith, and while the registers remain closed, suspicion falls equally on all members including the scrupulously honest.
Local government makes much of its claims to be transparent and accountable but it is actually much better at keeping things secret.
Council meetings can be closed to the public for many reasons, ranging from complaints against staff to the ridiculous ‘‘information provided to the council on the condition it is kept confidential’’.
In one case, the announcement of a new pedestrian crossing was kept secret by a council for a month at the request of a Cabinet Minister.
The Minister, who was due to officially open the crossing, asked for the matter to be treated confidentially for fear the news would leak out and steal her thunder. It leaked anyway.
The Local Government Act is currently being reviewed by the State Government. Among the reforms being suggested there is nothing dealing with those secret registers – a missed opportunity for the State Government to show decisive leadership on the issue although it is still not too late.
There can be no public confidence in a process of government to which the public is not admitted. Nor can ratepayers fulfill their responsibilities as voters without having free access to vital information.
If councillors are unwilling for their assets to be checked, they should be prepared to have their pockets turned out for missing cutlery as they leave the chamber.
Published The Advocate, August 7, 2004
WAITING at Burnie airport for another storm to clear Bass Strait, I bought The Advocate and the old chap standing next to me said to the woman at the kiosk, “S’pose I’d better have an Aggravate, too.”
Aggravate? I loved that.
As the new editor of The Aggravate, any pretensions I had about the paper, here was my comeuppance.
Never mind. If people nickname it The Aggravate, to me they are really saying: We live here, this is our local paper and because it is ours we are entitled to call it what we like. Good on them.
As editor, I obviously want The Advocate to be valued, to be welcomed by readers into their homes, to be counted on as a friend with their best interests at heart.
So here, nailed to the masthead, are a few guiding principles:
we will cover the news accurately and fairly;
we will be relevant, useful and timely;
we will avoid excess and sensationalism;
we will listen to our readers' interests and needs;
we will write in ways that people can understand;
we will deliver information they can trust;
we will watch the powerful on behalf of those who are not; and
our journalists will take responsibility for the impact of their stories on the local community, without sacrificing the public’s right to know.
Soon after arriving in town, the other passing remark I heard was The Advocate had developed a “green tinge”, meant as a criticism, through its coverage of the pulp mill saga.
No-one I know wants to live in a place that is poisoned or degraded but my gut instinct also tells me that if a pulp mill can bring jobs and economic benefits without pollution, then I ought to support it. Discuss and feel free to disagree.
With the pulp mill, as with any other contentious issue of local significance, the proper role of The Advocate is to engage the community in an open conversation with itself.
In all cases, our function is to present the facts fairly, in context and let the chips fall where they may. Journalism is not a popularity contest.
Newspaper readers are generally people who are also actively involved in their communities, whether through local government, education, environment, sport or volunteering.
It is in all our interests as a community to encourage those people in their activism by providing them with the information they find relevant to their concerns. That is The Advocate’s job.
Journalists do not tell people what to think but what to think about. On the issues of the day we must keep asking ourselves: Is it good for our readers?
And what is good for our readers also tends to be good for our advertisers. It is in an advertiser’s best interests to share space with high editorial quality.
The Advocate’s mission is simple: to be the primary source of local news and information. These are matters of consequence, not aggravation.
WAITING at Burnie airport for another storm to clear Bass Strait, I bought The Advocate and the old chap standing next to me said to the woman at the kiosk, “S’pose I’d better have an Aggravate, too.”
Aggravate? I loved that.
As the new editor of The Aggravate, any pretensions I had about the paper, here was my comeuppance.
Never mind. If people nickname it The Aggravate, to me they are really saying: We live here, this is our local paper and because it is ours we are entitled to call it what we like. Good on them.
As editor, I obviously want The Advocate to be valued, to be welcomed by readers into their homes, to be counted on as a friend with their best interests at heart.
So here, nailed to the masthead, are a few guiding principles:
we will cover the news accurately and fairly;
we will be relevant, useful and timely;
we will avoid excess and sensationalism;
we will listen to our readers' interests and needs;
we will write in ways that people can understand;
we will deliver information they can trust;
we will watch the powerful on behalf of those who are not; and
our journalists will take responsibility for the impact of their stories on the local community, without sacrificing the public’s right to know.
Soon after arriving in town, the other passing remark I heard was The Advocate had developed a “green tinge”, meant as a criticism, through its coverage of the pulp mill saga.
No-one I know wants to live in a place that is poisoned or degraded but my gut instinct also tells me that if a pulp mill can bring jobs and economic benefits without pollution, then I ought to support it. Discuss and feel free to disagree.
With the pulp mill, as with any other contentious issue of local significance, the proper role of The Advocate is to engage the community in an open conversation with itself.
In all cases, our function is to present the facts fairly, in context and let the chips fall where they may. Journalism is not a popularity contest.
Newspaper readers are generally people who are also actively involved in their communities, whether through local government, education, environment, sport or volunteering.
It is in all our interests as a community to encourage those people in their activism by providing them with the information they find relevant to their concerns. That is The Advocate’s job.
Journalists do not tell people what to think but what to think about. On the issues of the day we must keep asking ourselves: Is it good for our readers?
And what is good for our readers also tends to be good for our advertisers. It is in an advertiser’s best interests to share space with high editorial quality.
The Advocate’s mission is simple: to be the primary source of local news and information. These are matters of consequence, not aggravation.
Published The Advocate, August 7, 2004
WAITING at Burnie airport for another storm to clear Bass Strait, I bought The Advocate and the old chap standing next to me said to the woman at the kiosk, “S’pose I’d better have an Aggravate, too.”
Aggravate? I loved that.
As the new editor of The Aggravate, any pretensions I had about the paper, here was my comeuppance.
Never mind. If people nickname it The Aggravate, to me they are really saying: We live here, this is our local paper and because it is ours we are entitled to call it what we like. Good on them.
As editor, I obviously want The Advocate to be valued, to be welcomed by readers into their homes, to be counted on as a friend with their best interests at heart.
So here, nailed to the masthead, are a few guiding principles:
we will cover the news accurately and fairly;
we will be relevant, useful and timely;
we will avoid excess and sensationalism;
we will listen to our readers' interests and needs;
we will write in ways that people can understand;
we will deliver information they can trust;
we will watch the powerful on behalf of those who are not; and
our journalists will take responsibility for the impact of their stories on the local community, without sacrificing the public’s right to know.
Soon after arriving in town, the other passing remark I heard was The Advocate had developed a “green tinge”, meant as a criticism, through its coverage of the pulp mill saga.
No-one I know wants to live in a place that is poisoned or degraded but my gut instinct also tells me that if a pulp mill can bring jobs and economic benefits without pollution, then I ought to support it. Discuss and feel free to disagree.
With the pulp mill, as with any other contentious issue of local significance, the proper role of The Advocate is to engage the community in an open conversation with itself.
In all cases, our function is to present the facts fairly, in context and let the chips fall where they may. Journalism is not a popularity contest.
Newspaper readers are generally people who are also actively involved in their communities, whether through local government, education, environment, sport or volunteering.
It is in all our interests as a community to encourage those people in their activism by providing them with the information they find relevant to their concerns. That is The Advocate’s job.
Journalists do not tell people what to think but what to think about. On the issues of the day we must keep asking ourselves: Is it good for our readers?
And what is good for our readers also tends to be good for our advertisers. It is in an advertiser’s best interests to share space with high editorial quality.
The Advocate’s mission is simple: to be the primary source of local news and information. These are matters of consequence, not aggravation.
WAITING at Burnie airport for another storm to clear Bass Strait, I bought The Advocate and the old chap standing next to me said to the woman at the kiosk, “S’pose I’d better have an Aggravate, too.”
Aggravate? I loved that.
As the new editor of The Aggravate, any pretensions I had about the paper, here was my comeuppance.
Never mind. If people nickname it The Aggravate, to me they are really saying: We live here, this is our local paper and because it is ours we are entitled to call it what we like. Good on them.
As editor, I obviously want The Advocate to be valued, to be welcomed by readers into their homes, to be counted on as a friend with their best interests at heart.
So here, nailed to the masthead, are a few guiding principles:
we will cover the news accurately and fairly;
we will be relevant, useful and timely;
we will avoid excess and sensationalism;
we will listen to our readers' interests and needs;
we will write in ways that people can understand;
we will deliver information they can trust;
we will watch the powerful on behalf of those who are not; and
our journalists will take responsibility for the impact of their stories on the local community, without sacrificing the public’s right to know.
Soon after arriving in town, the other passing remark I heard was The Advocate had developed a “green tinge”, meant as a criticism, through its coverage of the pulp mill saga.
No-one I know wants to live in a place that is poisoned or degraded but my gut instinct also tells me that if a pulp mill can bring jobs and economic benefits without pollution, then I ought to support it. Discuss and feel free to disagree.
With the pulp mill, as with any other contentious issue of local significance, the proper role of The Advocate is to engage the community in an open conversation with itself.
In all cases, our function is to present the facts fairly, in context and let the chips fall where they may. Journalism is not a popularity contest.
Newspaper readers are generally people who are also actively involved in their communities, whether through local government, education, environment, sport or volunteering.
It is in all our interests as a community to encourage those people in their activism by providing them with the information they find relevant to their concerns. That is The Advocate’s job.
Journalists do not tell people what to think but what to think about. On the issues of the day we must keep asking ourselves: Is it good for our readers?
And what is good for our readers also tends to be good for our advertisers. It is in an advertiser’s best interests to share space with high editorial quality.
The Advocate’s mission is simple: to be the primary source of local news and information. These are matters of consequence, not aggravation.