Wednesday 19 April, 2006

Fire

Something stinks, and it's not just the smell of burning mattresses. Yesterday Melbourne had one of its worst firesfor ten years, in a mattress factory in Moorabin. This made front page of the online edition of the Age but only p. 7 of the print version. The hard copy of the paper's front page? An alarmingly thin Michelle Leslie. I can't provide a link because the photo is just part of the photo gallery at the bottom of the online edition, alongside an article about robots built for sex. We were prepared for Michelle Leslie's return to the catwalk by a piece in the Sunday AGe, no doubt orchestrated by her 'people' about the sadness and loneliness she's felt since Bali. I suppose it's cheaper to buy a story from an agent than actually send reporters out to investigate actual news. I don't blame Leslie for wanting to improve her image, but I do think the way the Age has taken up the story is apart of the paper's increasing emphasis on celebrity rather than news. It's enough to make a girl want to write a story on 'How to edit a newspaper'. In point form, with break-out boxes of course.

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