Mood:
quizzicalTopic: big media
This week we took a cycle around the new Fairfax base at 1 Darling Island Pyrmont, just over the water from old digs at Sussex St, Darling Harbour.
We also took quite a few pictures above and below looking for visual metaphors - like the giant ship propellers from yesteryear meaning whatever. It was sunny but we felt a chill all the same perhaps because the sleek dark lines reminded of Governor Macquarie Tower home of the NSW ALP Govt.
We met a senior media figure Bruce Wolpe out front catching a taxi and asked his view on the USA election 'will Barak beat Mr McCain?' "Yes Tom he will.". And was politely told to shove off by front desk security in case we were a foreign copyright stalker of some kind:
We first got interested in the new building when we realised the first stop out of the CBD for a new $12 billion (!) North West Metro by 2015 or so would be ... to Fairfax at Pyrmont. That's one way for the ALP to curry favour with one sector of the Big Media.
Then it got more interesting when rival News Ltd veteran John Lyons was monstered by Federal Police security in a cramping of the freedom of the press. It was always advertised as only a picfac says Labor but Rudd did more than pose for pictures inside the building evidencing media favouritism. As if to smooth over the whole sour grapes the provincial ALP machine took an expensive 1/4 page advert in rival News Ltd broadsheet which they cutely placed right next to the report about their man Lyons getting the shove: p3 9 May 2008 The Australian here;
