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Peter Coleman: Fun at the Forum, a feisty Zemiro, awards business and a waning moon at the Crescent, as Peter Coleman wraps it up We held publication of our print edition until after Australia’s The Newspaper Works had held its Future Forum, an event still known by the former PANPA brand. Invited down as a judge on the technical awards, I also had an opportunity to see the Newspaper of the Year process from the inside... popping up to North Richmond afterwards to take up an invitation extended by Bob Lockley at SWUG (see report). As it turned out, a majority (perhaps all, but I do not have this information) agreed the substantially-expanded Fairfax Media site should take this year’s inaugural ‘print centre of the year’ award. The new category is timely, and while I thought we chose the right winner, the efforts made by News Corp Australia in management (and cultural) development across a range of its sites is also worth recognising. The nominated Sydney Print Centre was a runner-up, but similar work has been done at other sites including Murarrie (Qld) which I wrote about last issue. The ‘big night’ of the NOY gala dinner is always a highlight, spiced this year by host Julia Zemiro, who used the event to attack her employer (News, with other major publishers, owns the competition) over what she claimed was a fanciful report of her Eurovision coverage. Always notable is how the awards rise and fall in stature according to the success of the publications reporting on them. The Australian dedicated a long piece to “outrage and accusations” when it was pipped by The Age for the metro/national Newspaper of the Year title a couple of years back But last year’s result – when what we thought a much-improved Oz was honoured – and this month’s accolade for the Weekend Australian, have obviously met with approval in Holt Street.
During the Forum, the CEOs panel was asked whether they would prefer a newspaper with a report of the Bledisloe Cup match to one without. No cross-Tasman slurs here, but a carefully pointed reference to print deadlines, which Julian Clarke (for the News titles, which did) happily took up In what I shall therefore call a Bledisloe Cup moment, none of the newspapers I saw the following day managed to report their PANPA successes in print. Whether they diss the success of others remains to be seen. Our recent delve into news printing history with the Cossar tales feature has brought interest, new contacts and this gem from Colorado, USA. It’s the story, told by CBS News reporter Barry Petersen,of the Saguache Crescent, of which Dean Coombs is all things… which means editor, proprietor, Linotype operator (and mechanic), pressman (on an 1915 sheetfed press) and delivery hand. The video – posted by Gold Coast (Queensland) mechanic George Finn on the Metaltype.co.uk forum – is on our website. Intriguingly, Petersen suggests there may not be another newspaper in the USA – and by his implication, the world – set on a Linotype, something we believe to be incorrect. It’s a good news paper – “I don’t do bad news,” he says, “everyone knows that” – and with no kids, succession is in doubt. There’s a vacancy here for someone with an equal level of commitment, since Coombs (pictured) says, “I don’t know anyone I dislike enough to give the Crescent to.” Not me, thanks... like Malcolm Turnbull at the Future Forum on media regulation, “I’ve seen that film.” |