Sydney Morning Herald journalists were caught a little unawares this afternoon when aussietheatre.com broke a story about the Sydney closure of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.
Arts Journalist understands that the the announcement broken by Troy Dodds, a local publicist and writer for aussietheatre.com, was around 48 hours before the intended announcement by producers. Diana Simmonds stagenoise.com also quickly got in on the act today.
The Herald's arts newsroom, who regularly pops into blogs and independent journalism for the latest in arts news suddenly found themselves a-fluster and without the big news that the new Australian musical Priscilla Queen of the Desert was picking up sticks and heading to Melbourne a month early of its one-year anniversary.
The article as reported in aussietheatre.com states, "Priscilla was involved in a behind the scenes battle with Miss Saigon over the right to be housed at the Lyric, with both shows having contracts with the theatre in what was building as a major internal theatrical controversy.
"Producers of both shows and officials from Star City have been locked in intense discussions over exactly which show would be playing at the Lyric come October. Miss Saigon appears to have won out, and is expected to announce a Sydney season shortly. The blockbuster show is currently enjoying a Melbourne season and is bound for Brisbane ahead of its Sydney run."
What is even more interesting is that all of these negotiations were affecting the opening dates of a new production of The Rocky Horror Show. Arts Journalist understands that this new production is to star Hedwig and the Angry Inch sensation iOTA.
aussietheatre.com reports that the "forthcoming production - scheduled to be staged at a soon to be re-named Star City Showroom - had been the unlikely victim of the battle between Priscilla and Miss Saigon, with moves underway to move one of the shows to the Showroom, which would have forced Rocky Horror out."
The effect of alternative arts websites are now starting to show themselves on the mainstream media. Let's hope that the Herald credit aussietheatre.com when they publish the story tomorrow.
UPDATE:
No, the SMH didn't credit aussietheatre.com, despite referring to its allegations that there was a tussle between the producer of Priscilla & Miss Saigon:
"McQuinn [the producer of Priscilla] denied there had been a behind-the-scenes tussle with the producers of Miss Saigon over use of the Lyric [Theatre]."
See this link for their article, one day later.
Image: (The image that everyone is using from) Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Monday, 23 April 2007
A marriage made in heaven?
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 8:25 pm
Labels: Arts Journalism, Australian Plays, Blogs, Media, Musical Theatre, Theatre
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5 comments:
As if!
Sloppy, Fairfax ... very, very sloppy.
The question is, what is the relationship between the mainstream media and alternative news sources?
Do outlets such as Fairfax owe it to their readers, and the other sites to declare where they got the news from?
If, hypothetically, AFP or AP had run the story, what sources and authorship would Fairfax had declared? Surely they would have, at the very least, acknowledged some of the origins.
I suppose aussietheatre.com doesnt sound too flattering to them...?
There ae no hard and fast rules: but if a story is broken by AAP or another newspaper, you will generally see some reference in any story written by the host paper ("AAP reported today...")
They're not going to credit bloggers until they absolutely have to.
I would suggest that the "relationship between the mainstream media and alternative news sources" is similar to the one between a 'professional' theatre company to an 'amateur' one: "Yes, they [the amateurs] do it for love, bless their hearts ... we [the professionls] do it because we're paid to, which means we're better at it." Or something like that.
The critical point here is that the journalist refers to a "dispute" of some sort, but never clarifies what it is (was). As a sometime Editor, this clarification would only been possible had she either quoted her source (aussietheatre.com) or detailed it in her own words, which in this instance would amount to plagiarism.
Or it could have been subbed out.
Either way, it's sloppy: sloppy journalism, sloppy editing, and/or sloppy sub-editing. Which is, very sadly, what we've come to expect. God bless 'the professionals'.
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