.:|| HIGH TIDE REPORT ||:.

I know, I know, it's late, I know (I have a feeling that I'll start every HIGH TIDE REPORT with those words), the HIGH TIDE REPORT is supposed to come out on Thursdays.

God I've been busy though... better late than never. __________________________________________

As I reported last Sunday, long-standing TV journalist Richard Carleton has died of a heart attack. I really liked Errol Simper's piece in last week's Media liftout; he says Carleton would deliver - politician or not;

In the same edition, Mark Day provided some level-headed comment about the Beaconsfield Mine situation... fiasco?.. disaster?.. miracle?.. sell out? I don't know what to call it;
Well, I'll eat my words... some at least. Despite my ridicule of News Limited's failing readership in the last HIGH TIDE, it turns out News has had a record year in newspaper sales. Maybe there's some hope for dead-trees after all;
`An unsightly cross between a Winnebago show yard and a gypsy camp`, that's how Amanda Meade and Matthew Denholm described the scene at Beaconsfield;
The Age and Crikey wrote interesting articles about journalistic bribery at the mine, it seems Nine's still the one for underhanded tactics;
Ramona Koval looked at war, propaganda, and the role of the reporter: what kinds of writing tell us most about what we want to know, and what lasts through time;
The world’s largest, most representative survey found that the internet reached 694 users worldwide, and some of the stats are little unusual - Israelis spend the most amount of time online;

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Carleton Would Deliver - politician or not; Richard Carleton was one of the few remaining journos who believed vehemently in the public's right to the truth and wouldn't settle for anything less, despite the uneasy feeling he sometimes gave the interviewee. In Errol Simper's piece, he wrote that Carleton taught him `if there was something to say, then say it, regardless of the absence of convenient quotations or willing interviewees`. What a classic philosophy - don't rely on the interviewee to give you a neat little package of words, say them yourself, and say them with opinion. Through this technique, `Carleton, consciously or otherwise, used the absence of a political protagonist to flavour the story with his own opinion. Thus many a politician must have watched Carleton go to air, then wished they'd done an interview`. It makes me laugh to think what Carleton would have said in the famous Bob Hawke interview if Hawkie didn't turn up...

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Level-headed comment about the Beaconsfield Mine situation; It's Tuesday night, and, two miners have just emerged from two weeks trapped 1km underground and the federal budget - generally the most hotly reported news topic all year - is being released tomorrow. You're the editor. The question is: What do you put on the front page? As it turns out, if you're a tabloid, the mine miracle, if you're a broadsheet, the Budget. Or, if you're the West Australian or The Australian, you just whack in two wrap-round front pages. One for each. Mark Day had a justified stab at self-appointed celebrity Bill Shorten. He was the guy who had so damn much to say about the rescue, but had so little to actually do with the situation. I think the media just clung onto him because he said lots of 'stuff'. Day said Shorten `dished out slick grabs for TV and radio. Some worked, but I thought others sounded contrived, convoluted and inappropriate. Talking about the hardness of the rock, he said the miners' tools were "like throwing Kleenex at a rock". Huh?`. Throwing a Kleenex at a rock.. there's your future frontman, Labor.

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There's hope for dead-trees after all; despite poor performance in the last survey, News Limited newspapers attracted a record number - 10 million - readers in the year to March. The Daily Tele was the `good boy`, increasing it's Saturday readership to 1 009 000 readers, and its M-F readership is up 2.1% to 1.2m. It's bad news for broadsheets, as the Sydney Morning Herald's circulation dropped by 1000 weekday readers and 12 000 on Saturday. Are people turning away from broadsheets? I don't think so. Since the Courier Mail went tabloid (`compact` my butt) in March this year, readership has dropped. News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan said it's reassurance that news websites are not stealing readers away from dead-tree editions. I think the only person John is reassuring is himself.

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Photo courtesy of Greegpeace.org