Myriam Robin

Senior writer at the Australian Financial Review.

[myriam-robin]

Companies on edge as short sellers come out of the shadows

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Full piece at the SMH. 

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Economists join the war on cash

Could killing cash save the global economy? If cash didn’t exist, there’d be nothing to stop economic policymakers bumping interest rates into negative territory, charging people for holding money in the bank. In today’s low-growth, low-demand world, perhaps that’s just the trick.

That’s the argument made by two influential economists in recent months. The first of these is Kenneth S. Rogoff, whose book The Curse of Cash has been doing the rounds of the financial press (his name may be familiar even to those who avoid discussions of monetary policy — he was one of two high-ranking economists behind the widely cited “Growth in a Time of Debt” study, whose computational errors were uncovered by three decidedly less influential economists in 2013). The second is Marvin Goodfriend, who this weekend made an aggressive argument for the use of negative interest rates at the Federal Reserve’s annual retreat at Jackson Hole. A corollary of his argument is the necessity of abolishing paper money. It’s an attraction that forms a central plank of Rogoff’s book as well.

Read the full piece at Crikey. 

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Can't show this: exactly how the Olympics protects the value of its broadcast

Channel Seven is the only broadcaster to show much Olympics coverage at all. And woe betide anyone who tries to sneak a selfie after the event.

The full piece is at Crikey. 

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For the last time, Eddie did say 'bone': Llewellyn

Despite Eddie McGuire’s drug-addled revisionism today, the other man in the room remains unequivocal: McGuire said he would “bone” Jessica Rowe.

“He did not say ‘burn’,” Mark Llewellyn told Crikey this morning, rejecting a new account from McGuire in an interview with GQ magazine. It was Llewellyn who first exposed the blokey boardroom language around then-Channel Nine host Jessica Rowe in an explosive affidavit in 2006.

Full piece is at Crikey. 

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The little-known agencies selling 'exclusive' content to prestigious mastheads

When celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal prepared to open a temporary restaurant in Melbourne, he made a big splash in the Melbourne press. In February 2014, the Herald Sun’s Weekend magazine carried an interview with the chef written by British journalists Dominic Midgley and Shaun Curran. They are not Hun journos. But it wasn’t wire copy, either. So who did the interview?

When a media outlet publishes copy from a wire agency, it usually carries the agency’s acronym (AAP, for example) to say so. Same goes with syndicated copy. With the Blumenthal interview, though, there was nothing obvious to indicate anything external about the piece. It was an exclusive chat, the copy said. But Midgley and Curran’s interview didn’t just appear in the Herald Sun. According to Interview Hub, the British agency that sold the Herald Sun the piece, it also supplied specially tailored pieces for FHM, BBC Good Food and several other food magazines around the world. It estimates 100 million people saw versions of the piece it supplied — and that’s just counting print.

Full piece at Crikey. 

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What did 23-year-old Malcolm make of 20-year-old Tony?

In early 1978, a young Malcolm Turnbull, just a year into a short-lived journalism career, met the 20-year-old version of the man he would eventually knife. And his impression was particularly prescient.

Turnbull’s feature on the Australian Union of Students for The Bulletin begins with an anecdote about how vegetarian delegates objected to the use of a fly-swatting machine and ends with an impassioned lament about the impact of student politics on how influential Australians see politicians more broadly. It’s notable for cameo appearances by figures like Michael Danby, Peter Costello, Nick Xenophou (now Xenophon) and Michael Yabsley.

Full piece at Crikey. 

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Secrets of the BRW Rich List revealed

Just how do you determine who the richest people in Australia are?

Full piece at Crikey

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Rinehart's lawyers blow up House of Hancock's Hollywood ending

Gina Rinehart slowly walks through the Pilbara. She’s far heavier and older than she is currently. Around her, bombs explode in the red dirt landscape, as her father’s hope of achieving the cheapest, easiest way to mine is realised.

That was how Channel Nine’s House of Hancock, produced by Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder, was going to end — with an imagined future in which Rinehart triumphantly fulfils her father’s dream, even if it leaves her alone and unhappy. The scene was described to Crikey this morning as “probably the best in the bloody show” by somebody who has seen it. But that ending didn’t air, after the billionaire’s lawyers took action on Friday to force Channel Nine to let them see the final episode of the network’s two-part drama on Rinehart’s life. After being granted a preview, Rinehart’s legal camp and Channel Nine reached a confidential settlement to cut four minutes of the two-hour TV movie. A disclaimer was also added to the start, warning viewers that the program was a “drama, not a documentary”, where events were “fictionalised for dramatic purposes”. (Whether or not viewers needed the warning is unclear, as the program that aired last night featured at least two scenes of Rinehart talking with the ghost of her dead father.)

Full piece at Crikey. 

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‘They don’t control us’: Disney takes on News

The embattled chairman of the Press Council says he’d rather have an effective council with fewer members and less money than the alternative.

Julian Disney, who has been under fire in recent weeks as The Australian newspaper accuses him of being an out-of-touch activist keen on controlling the Australian print press, told Crikey this morning the biggest danger for the Press Council wasn’t losing the support of News Corp, but rather pretending to be something it was not.

Full interview on Crikey. 

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‘Condemn or be condemned’: the optics of responding to jihad

When it comes to acts of Islamic terrorism, Muslim community leaders feel they have no choice but to wade into a debate that has little to do with them.

Full piece on Crikey. 

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How power and journalism learned to coexist

Alain De Botton, The News: A User's Manual...

A contemporary dictator wishing to establish power would not need to do anything so obviously sinister as banning the news: he or she would only have to see to it that news organisations broadcast a flow of random-seeming bulletins, in great numbers but with little explanation of contest, within an agenda that keeps changing, without giving any sense of the ongoing relevance of an issue that had seemed pressing only a short while before, the whole interspersed with constant updates about the colourful antics of murderers and films tars. This would be quite enough to undermine most people's capacity to grasp political reality - as well as any resolve they might otherwise have summoned to alter it. The status quo could confidently remain forever undisturbed by a flood of, rather than a ban on, news.

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100 AIDS researchers on MH17? Why and how the media got it wrong

In the midst of generally careful, sensitive reporting on the MH17 tragedy there was one large misstep. For much of Friday and the next day, most of the Australian media gave its readers the wrong impression over the number of AIDS researchers travelling to Melbourne for an international AIDS conference onboard the flight.

Early reports said 100 researchers had died, a figure sometimes given as precisely as 108 deaths. It was reported in every major news outlet, and from there, relayed to the world. The figure was wrong — the number of confirmed dead who were heading to the conference was six, and while it’s possible further names will be released, it can’t get up to 100 or anywhere near that.

So where did the figure come from, and why did the media get it so wrong?...

Full piece on Crikey.

[myriam-robin]

The Oz birthday parties and Rupert makes a move on Time Warner: RN Media Report interview

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this week with two big shindigs, we ask whether the paper is as influential in the corridors of power as it likes to project. We also find out how The Australian's reporting on the media itself has changed over time.

Full interview here.

Image: Rupert Murdoch inked (joy garnett / flickr.com / Creative Commons)

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Coverage of World Cup 2014, News Corp accuses the Mail Online of plagiarism, Mashable the latest site to launch an Australian edition and the Hockey v. Fairfax lawsuit to go to court

With guests Crikey media journalist, Myriam Robin, Mumbrella reporter, Miranda Ward and The Australian sports columnist and senior reporter Simon King.

Full 2SER show here.

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How to spin a budget: leaks, drops and the age of no surprises

First the pension age was going up. And then it wasn’t. There would be a deficit levy. Then, a rise in tax rates instead. It’s all part of the intricate choreography of a budget media cycle.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott may imply journalists are making it up — as he did on 3AW yesterday  —  but the sideshow is mostly planned. Through a series of drops, a few unavoidable leaks, a studied refusal to rule things in or out, until the press conferences doing exactly that as we near the second Tuesday in May, governments control and shape the narrative around their books.

Read the full piece at Crikey.

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The new media cadets: older, more experienced, exhausted by the climb

In today’s competitive hustle for journalism jobs, you’re never too old or too qualified for an entry-level position. Crikey goes behind the scenes on Fairfax’s gruelling cadet application process.

Read the full piece at Crikey.

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Food fight: it’s forks at 20 paces for journos and bloggers

Food bloggers are becoming serious industry players and are crashing the party previously dominated by professional journalists. Without the editorial strictures and ethical guidelines imposed by news organisations, food bloggers’ integrity is being called into question — but is it just sour grapes?

Full piece on Crikey.