With the eponymous country music festival in full swing, an ad in the programme suggests local print daily the Northern Daily Leader is the only place to look for the latest news and updates.
Tens of thousands of people are in town for what is claimed to be Australia’s biggest music festival, and performer movements mean gigs change. Right now, I’m listening to country-folk artist Clare Cowley (pictured), and wondering whether she’s related to former Murdoch lieutenants Ken and John… but that’s another story (she doesn’t think so, but she’ll let me know).
And digital media doesn’t cope with news and changes as well as you’d hope.
Time was when you’d even have been able to come out of Saturday’s ‘Golden Guitars’ presentation and be able to buy a picture-loaded paper covering the event, as you leave.
Not any more; a weekly freesheet has folded, and there are fears weekday editions of the daily paper are under threat, publisher ACM having already cut them back in eight cities. A third of Australian Community Media’s print staff may be shed if redundancies foreshadowed to the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance union go ahead.
Nine jobs are under threat, only three months after the jobs of 35 journalists in 11 newsrooms were cut.
MEAA has “expressed concern” that several of ACM’s daily print newspapers may soon appear on Saturdays only, after the publisher claimed that closures last September had been a success.
Peter Coleman
Pictured: Clare Cowley guests for Bill Chambers at The Pub in Tamworth today