Taking the cake

[Member]

There's been a few questions asked of late on fishing media standards.

A recent state publication from a group that has a couple of media interests managed the following masterful strokes -

Misspelled the name of the fish on the cover and again on the Contents Page.
The spiel presented in the contents page was completely different to the actual story including author.
The referral to the cover shot misspelled the river
The article was six pages, all the pictures were either scenery or shots of the charter boat. No fish or fishing shots, that's part 2 apparently.
Most of the article matched word for word the Charter Company web site spiel.
The 300 or so words put in by the writer had a number of spelling mistakes and other typos.


(Now here's the punchline) The Editor in his Editorial put his hand up as scribbling the article.


Yes its fair dinkum, best entertainment I've had from a magazine in years

 

[Member]

is it wrong to name the newspaper .. sorry, magazine ............ hahahahaha, I know, even from here    cant believe things haven't improved since the first one.

[Member]

Dick, as a retired photo journalist I sometimes get quite horrified by the mistakes that often show up in the fishing publications. Even if the writer had sent it in with typo's (grilled for that) the sub editor should have picked it up anyway. If that was in reality a reprinted press release from the charter company a good editor would at least do a bit of a re-write on it. Simply reprinting a press release is considered bad form by the sort of mags that I worked for. I never did much for fishing magazines when I was working mainly because the money they paid was shyte and I had plenty of work for the other publications I did work for. Trouble with the fishing media is that there are very few full time writers that do it, again because of the money. Most of the people writing for fishing mags , while good fisho's have a day job and most lack the ability to put the words together as they should be. If there was more professionalism involved then we would not have to cart the red pen about every time we pick up a fishing mag.
Cheers mate,
John

[Member]

The Black Rat?

[Member]

is it wrong to name the newspaper .. sorry, magazine

It's A4 format now Mugs, think it used to be a broadsheet of sorts

The text was so over the top as far as an article goes John and with a few clues such as "Our chef will......" I just had to check the website and there it was word for word

How about were instead of where, quit instead of quite, using the word arriving instead of leaving and starting a sentance with And?  It goes on and on. 

I see it as inspired satire.  A brave editor having a go at what's wrong with the the industry    

[Member]

Dick you see good in all things mate, perhaps I've become a little cynical, but spelling and grammar seem to have been sacrificed somewhere.
John

[Member]

My tongue was well placed in cheek John

[Member]

Takrat,

I have to completely agree with you. As a film and journalism student I can understand where your frustrations are coming from. I was reading a fishing mag just the other day and i couldn't believe the amount of mistakes and typo's I found.

But then again I only paid $3.50 for it so I imagine the good blokes writing it may not be professionals, if that be the case, good on them for trying. 

[Member]

Dick,
I appreciate the tongue in cheek mate, fine bit of work actually. My remarkes were aimed at the goose (plural?) that put the thing together. Al my attitude is that if people pay money for it and the newsagent carries it, the least they can do is run the spell checker over it. Maybe I'm just getting crotchety because I'm down here and not up where Dick is catching Barra all the time.
John

[Member]

the least they can do is run the spell checker over it.

At the very least, some magazines specalise in picking up aticles from contributors that like to have a go.  No journalistic training, no reputation within the industry.  They can capture that 'home spun' appeal that tells the reader 'if they can do it I can too', particularly if it describes a popular fish/location or technique.  It's up to the editor to spend the extra time to ensure these contributions are presented in a decent format, good pics and good words.  Sometimes they have to get into it with a chainsaw, sometimes its just a quick run over for the odd typo.

In this case however the Editor was the only link in a weak chain that produced six pages of exposure for a charter company without considering what the readers wanted to see and read.

[Member]

You're right there Dick, I have no problems with anyone wanting to have a go at writing a story for a magazine or whatever. That's just one way to get started if that's what you want. You're also right about the editor being the weakest link. My biggest gripe was more about the cr@p money being paid because most fishing contributors have a day job. Many don't care how much money they get. That makes it tougher on the full time scribe who is trying to make a living. I call it the lowest common denominator. That's why we see so many well known writers getting sponsored by tackle company's.
Cheers mate,
John

[Member]

You're right there Dick, I have no problems with anyone wanting to have a go at writing a story for a magazine or whatever. That's just one way to get started if that's what you want. You're also right about the editor being the weakest link. My biggest gripe was more about the cr@p money being paid because most fishing contributors have a day job. Many don't care how much money they get. That makes it tougher on the full time scribe who is trying to make a living. I call it the lowest common denominator. That's why we see so many well known writers getting sponsored by tackle company's.
Cheers mate,
John

That's a good point John, I know you've mentioned it before but I just then realised exactly what you were saying. Expect to get no more than what you are prepared to pay for. 

[Member]

It sounds that bad that they may as well pass it off as a G-Up
like Bamasize from Sham-Wow.

I guess both products gave everyone a good laugh.

It might be the same mob that had a page from their last mag that appeared in the middle of an article in the very next issue.  If it was them, they are on fire... They might be drinking a bit too much of the sponsors product before editing.  About 4 cans an hour for the first 6 hours and 6 cans every hour after that may have been the prescription.  Poor guys i actually feel sorry for them.

Don’t be fooled, even after all this; they might not take out the award for the worst Barra article this year.  Has anyone spotted any others they wish to nominate for the gong?  Has anyone made a point of avoiding some mags and authors because they don’t like their articles anymore?

Cheers Lyndon.

[Member]

Thanks Dick, that was a bit of a thing I've carted about but when you are out there seeking axcellence and some knob who can't string words together gets the same on payday it's fairly ordinary. Modern Fishing has just been taken over by Express Publications. It was previously owned by Murdoch, and the quality was in decline. Some very senior contributors have voted with their feet there. Lyndon I guess we all have our favourite contributors usually based on how entertaining their writing is. I always edited my own stuff and have been known to still be making corrections right up to deadline. My attitude was "Would I pay money to read this?" If the answer was no I'd change it. People have to realise that to be a success in a very competitive industry you have to be able to communicate with your readership. If you are not taking them along on the trip with you, then you have failed them. There are some big egos in the publishing business, they need to realise they put their trousers on one leg at a time like the rest of us.
Cheers,
John