So on Saturday I was standing in a newsagents in Melbourne, scanning the magazine racks while I was drinking a Coke during a break in my stencil art course, and I spot Australian PC Authority magazine’s cover story “The New Web – Create Your Own Podcasts, Blogs, Video”.
So I flick through it to the podcast section, skim it and read:
“Of course, just like blogs, anyone can do it. That means there are a lot of podcasts out there that air to five people, and a lot of poor-quality podcasts alongside the very good ones,” said Ewan Spence, executive director at The Podcast Network (www.thepodcastnetwork.com), which produces over 60 different shows.
The first thing I think is “Where the hell did he get THAT title??”, then I start wondering why an Aussie magazine is quoting Ewan and not yours truly.
So when Ewan and I were on Skype tonight I asked him and he said he didn’t remember ever giving them a quote. I googled his words and found the entire story was lifted from the Dec 2006 edition of PC Pro magazine in the UK. It’s a shame an Aussie magazine (selling for $9.50) couldn’t even research their own story. Ed Dawson, the editor of PC Authority, should feel free to contact me for any future stories on podcasting. Not that I’m complaining about the free press. It’s all good!
I think this is the first time someone from TPN has been quoted in the mainstream press without us knowing about it. Surely that’s a turning point in any company’s timeline?
Have you checked they aren’t sister publications and share stories?
Oh I assume they are Tony. I still think they could have written a truly Australian story though. You think I’m being harsh?
Maybe a little bit but your also correct that an Aussie mag should use Aussie sources as their “spokemen” in said stories.
But if a sister mag has already written a story a lot of the time they will just use that. I know it happens a lot in the computer mag industry as I have read the same articles in 2 different mags before.
From memory a fair lot of the content of that mag is pulled from other mags run by the same company overseas. (Ah, the MSM at work!)
This is why Australian mags like APC make such a big thing of their “all-Australian content”.