CMail: more money, same errors. Under the cloak of an election, The Courier Mail has quietly upped its cover price by 10% as of today, with no explanation as to why. At a time when more and more news is freely available online, and as readers’ habits begin to change as a result, this seems to be a curious move. The Sunday Mail continues to be an exorbitant $2, which appears to give the privilege of putting tonnes of Harvey Norman and Rebel Sports sales catalogues in the recycling bin.
Brisbane’s only daily paper has continued to slide in readership as a proportion of population, and in the credibility stakes, with Brisbane business still openly pining for a feasible alternative. The much-vaunted Brisbane Times, the Fairfax online alternative, is doing well in the news-breaking stakes, and as an online publication is a far superior product to the clunky, old school News Limited web version of The Courier Mail.
But in what is still a small advertising own, The BT is struggling to compete with the muscle of News, much to the frustration of quality-starved south-east Queenslanders. But then, News can’t even get the treasurer’s name right — a page-five story today mentions “Wayne Swann”. — Brisbane media watcher Terry Towelling
Sunrise special needs comments. Controversy continues to rage over comments made by social commentator Prue McSween on Channel Seven’s Sunrise last week, when she implied that children with special needs should be segregated from “normal” kids. McSween, who was appearing on the popular morning show’s regular ‘All Stars’ segment, has since been chastised by the online community, who have set up a Facebook page in an attempt to extract an apology from the controversial talking head. In one week the page has grown to more than 2000 members and has led to an apology of sorts from McSween on Twitter:
But it looks like the anger won’t subside until Channel Seven and McSween issue a formal apology. The video of the remarks have since been removed from the Sunrise website, however those who want to see McSween in full flight can do so via YouTube. — Tom Cowie
Mark Day: can freedom fighters bring down Fiji dictatorship?
“The internet, Rupert Murdoch famously declared in 1993, is “an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere”. It was a comment that caused the Chinese to slam shut the door to Western media. Now, almost two decades on and in a much smaller pond, Murdoch is being invited to back up his words with deeds.” — The Australian
As the paywall descends, Murdoch loses a two-thirds of readers
“Visits to The Times’ website have dropped by two-thirds in the weeks since News International, the media group controlled by Rupert Murdoch, began to implement its paywall strategy …” — Financial Times// < 
Do you reckon terry….you don’t think more thought goes into a price increase than bunging one on during the fortuitous announcement of an election? Come on Terry, you say you know about media….
re. the Masterchef comment … I don’t watch the show and I think highly of Neil Perry, his entrepreneurship and his recipes alike. But nobody is “a nobody”, and Perry is a w*nker for saying so.