Triple M’s showcase event last weekend united a community and national sporting following, all in the name of a good cause.
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Months of planning culminated in a well organised day in the scrub to further the cause of Neale Daniher and his Fight MND campaign.
The media department was on full alert for the event of the year, and it included the Griffith-based team and it’s well constructed coverage.
The Area News and other rival media were alerted in the lead up in good time, and were encouraged to promote and cover the day.
The proviso was journalists would refrain from live-streaming any part of the public event.
Good on Triple M for finding the magic formula and combining clever public relations tactics with a chance at earning a healthy financial gain for the charity, and exposure for the broadcaster.
It’s a fantastic cause, and a great story, and no doubt a big PR win on the back of organising an encouraging hand to rival media bodies.
Though you have to wonder Triple M’s motives when restricting live streaming.
A media organisation claiming live coverage rights at a public event represents more than claiming ownership of the event’s broadcasting.
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It’s adding to a deliberate push to redefine how corporation-backed media can bend the rules and journalistic common practice.
A group, quite probably in it for the right reasons, manipulates the rules driving traffic and dollars to their sites, inadvertently restricting the wide spread and multiplying coverage of what was a fantastic cause - much like social media was originally designed to do.
It’s not to suggest the whole event was planned by Triple M as a pure money-making exercise.
It’s merely an example of the grey area in media standards being exposed by a fast expanding and more ruthless digital media landscape.
Regional mastheads, entrenched in the communities they serve and rely on for mutual prosperity, have expanded social media use in a huge way in recent years.
And the viral nature of digital popularity dictates what their communities see.
It brings the issue back to a simple point – how committed to regional centres are media organisations when they actually suppress the noise make for a good cause?
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