All the juicy news of the week!!

Oops, we have yet another mistake in the celebrity obituaries announcements.

It was announced on the internet that Zach Braff, the goofy and funny actor from Scrubs and Garden State, had overdosed on pills and died in his house in Beverly Hills.

Rumours started to circulate on a “breaking news story” on Twitter.

But fear not, Braff is not dead.

Braff announced on his Facebook and Youtube that he was very much alive and kicking.

And, he’s definitely kept his sense of humour during the whole incident, complaining he didn’t get enough “likes” for his declaration he’s not dead on his Facebook status.

Where did it all start

The hoax all started with blogger Chris Laganella, who created a fake CNN site of Braff’s apparent death as a joke to fool his friends (all Scrubs fans) back in 2007.

Hmmm … the top headlines of Heath Ledger and Michelle William’s split should have given away the timeline.

Laganella said he just forgot to take the site down and had never meant for it to go public.

Let’s hope Laganella has now learnt that the internet is rather public.

Laganella, the forgetful blogger, apologised for scaring the public, upsetting Braff’s mother and to Braff himself.

Zach, sorry if you got offended by me posting a fake suicide about you on the internet … Also, sorry for upsetting your mother

He wasn’t the only website with the hoax death announcement.

Why do all the celebrities seem to “die” in New Zealand?

Another website published that Braff had in fact died in New Zealand while on set filming a new movie.

That was the same story as Jeff Goldblum’s mock death a few months ago.

Maybe because Richard Wilkin’s gave the pranksters such a laugh on the morning show the first time, they thought they’d try a round two but only bothered to change the celebrity’s name with same location.

The business of bogus deaths announcements on the internet is an increasing trend as Braff joins an ever increasing list of celebrities prematurely mourned before their time.

We had Tom Cruise in New Zealand too, Tom Hanks also in New Zealand, Oprah Winfrey,  Twilight’s Robert Pattinson and Charlie’s Angel Jacelyn Smith to name but a few.

Future of journalism

But what does it mean for the future of journalism when journalists are getting their stories from random blog posts and twitter updates?

Unfortunately, I think mistakes like this that attract world wide attention reflect badly on journalism as a whole.

Carrie Bickmore, from 7pm project on Channel 10, isn’t helping the credibility case of journalists when she announced that this news of Braff’s hoax death had upset her, as now she’s worried everything she reads on the internet might not be true.

Nice one Bickmore…

Is she actually a journalist though or a script reader?

I’m not sure about that one.

Looking at it another way, people could start turning back to newspapers as a reliable and trustworthy source of news.

I’m a big fan of newspapers, so the more of them the merrier I say.

News sites really need to make a huge effort to assure people of the authenticity of their information.

I think the future of journalism looks good as people will want to digest thier news from newsites with mastheads they trust and have a reputation for accuracy.

All that said, the fake death is the highest searched story in Google of the day.

So do you think credible journalism in the internet is doomed in the future?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts below.

Sorry folks, today isn’t going to be the most riveting of posts but some analysing of my short life in the blog world must be done and might be more interesting that you think…

Statistics

This semester my blog has seen 257 page views and 108 unique views.

It averages out at 3 views per day… not too bad really.

Most of my visitors come from the Melbourne metropolitan area but there are also quite a few from Perth in Western Australia and Sydney. I have a few international hits from Ireland but that’s because I forced my Mum and friends to read my blog.

The average viewing time for my blog is 5 minutes 38 seconds which is longer than I had predicted.

On closer inspection the average is a little skewed as some of you have stayed on for 20 minutes and for the rest of you just under 2 minutes.

Traffic trend

The highest number of entry pages is through other student’s blog rolls.

This definitely demonstrates the importance of getting my blog onto as many blog rolls to boost the site views.

Over this last semester Fridays have seen the largest volume of traffic to be seen is on a Friday following by a Monday.

This stat makes sense as I post on Fridays and people are normally gearing up for the week-end looking for distracting reading to get them through the day.

However, I do have a confession to make that I am missing two week of stats when my Sitemeter went “missing’ from my new theme for two weeks but it was a lesson learnt

The future of headlines in the online domain

I can see why everyone can become slightly obsessed with watching the hits on the Sitemeter we can turn the making sure the keywords are title.

Does this mean the future of fantastic, witty and naughty headlines that turn are head are in the past and we’re going to be stuck with bland and boring ones instead?

Sadly, I think the boring and bland headlines might be the way of the future. For the majority of news and blog sites it’s about getting the readership.

Stories with the highest hits

Viewers to the site always shoot up with a new post so the more posts the better for increasing hits.

Top stories were a look into AFL Brendan Fevola’s drunken escapades and Tim Holding’s controversial rescue.

Visitors using the Firefox were at the highest percentage at a whopping 49 per cent. Next was the  Internet Explorers at 42 per cent and 9 per cent of you are using Safari.

My plan for blog world domination

•    To use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to let people know of my latest blog entries.

•    Most encouragement for readers to subscribe to my RSS feed to boost my blogs popularity.

•    Get on the blog roll’s of high profile blog sites and sponge off their fame.

•    I need to comment even more on other people’s blogs. This will encourage further interactivity.

•    Keeping my blog themes fresh and updated.

•    Continuous and frequent posts so you won’t forget about my blog.

•    Always ensure I bring you the latest and most topical news of the day.

Stay tuned for more updates of the juicy news of the week we all want to know.

If any of you have any tips for a more exciting read please leave a comment below.

Slightly off topic, I must rush off to guard a pretty dazed bird that has just flown into my window and given me a heart attack. My neighbour’s black and white cat is licking his lips and looking a little too happy about the whole situation for my liking!

Brendan Fevola is in the news once again… shock and horror!

Basically, his latest attention seeking display was at the Brownlow Awards night where he got very drunk, abusive, spilled people’s drinks, vomited and hit on (some papers describe it as molested but you get the message) other women once his six month pregnant had enough of him and had left.

The cleaned up version of his Street Talk presenting…

For anyone outside of Victoria not familiar with Fevola, he is undoubtedly a very talented AFL player but is constantly doing something wrong to get attention.

Some examples are; urinating in public, getting in fights and playing with sex toys in public.

Oh and lets not forget, he attacked an Irish barman when he with was many others of his team because he is such a tough man… but the team, notably Barry Hall, stepped in and stopped him.

So what’s the big deal?

Now, no-one is really saying the big problem at the awards was that was he was drunk, as there were no doubt plenty of people drunk at the awards.

Fevola’s problem is he’s a bad drunk and often becomes nasty and violent.

And his preferential time for getting extremely drunk is when there’s cameras around and media attended functions.

The excuse that it is off season doesn’t wash as it’s an official AFL night where he still represents his club.

And no-one was asking him to be an angel, just not a complete idiot.

At the same time, he was presenting Street Talk for Channel Nine which didn’t exactly go according to plan. No surprise there.

I wondered why Channel Nine left him to his own devices to do interviews given his past behaviour.

But, I can understand as it’s the sort of TV where you cringe, laugh and with a drunk host it makes it unpredictable.

I have to admit it but its amusing- you want to look away but its like watching a car-crash in slow motion, knowing it’s probably not going to end too well and you keep watching.

That gives ratings.

Media Coverage

Personally, although the story was of a slight passing interest at first, after ENDLESS hours of non-stop coverage of him is driving me to drink myself.

He has admitted himself that he is a bad drunk and becomes a different person so can somebody please just explain to him not get drunk away at awards shows and media covered functions.

It’s not really rocket science.

Fevola said he was taking tablets for a recent shoulder injury but admits it’s no excuse.

No it isn’t Fevola, I’m pretty sure you would’ve known about the tablets before you drank.

“When I drink, I just turn into a different person, and I hate that person,” he said.

Media Analysis

Well, the Herald Sun is milking this story for everything it has got and I mean everything.

Since the Brownlow Awards, that being last Monday a long five days ago, articles have been on the top of the front page of their site consistently.

One of the hundreds of readers comments on one story really made me laugh out loud.

“Don’t blame Fev for his antics, blame the system or Carlton Football Club.”

Some even suggest Fevola should sue the Crown Casino for not making him drink responsibly.

Oooh yes, let’s not ever think of making a person responsible for their own actions since they have nothing to do with making their own decisions especially out of season.

Should the club provide a nanny for a 28-year-old man who’s a father himself? Nooooo.

In another way, it proves the point that footballers really do have a responsibility as role models to the public as so many people look up to them so much they can excuse almost anything they do.

Some examples of the headlines are:

Fev ‘not the worst behaved’

Fev fights for career

Mike Sheahan: Forward’s had enough chances

Galway: Fev hasn’t learnt lesson – assault barman

Dr Rob Moodie: C’mon Fev, boot booze

On the spot video: The time of Fev’s life

Jeff and Paul video: A very Fev interview

And then The Age. They were a bit more relaxed about all the hype and gave some decent coverage to the players who won awards at the Brownlow night and actually deserved to be in the limelight.

• Fevola’s boozy Brownlow (funny video)

Time to look at Fevola’s antics

Footy Show axes Fevola after Brownlow antics

‘Wake up to yourself, Fev’: Demetriou

The Age is keeping most of these headlines to the footy pages and rightly so giving the up and coming grand final the front page headlines.
No doubt we’ll see lots of pictures of a very sad looking Brendan Fevola, maybe his wife coming out saying how she forgives his mistakes, probably some counselling, maybe he’ll then morph into the victim and then he’ll be all good again…
What do you think? Do you think others are to blame for Fevola’s behaviour? What should his club do?

Poor Tim Holding, he has had a pretty dismal couple of weeks.

For those of you that have never heard of him he is the water minister in Victoria.

What happened him

So on this very cold Sunday morning (31 August) he headed off on a solo hike up Mount Feathertop in the Victorian Alps.

When he didn’t return that night, his girlfriend, a Sunday Herald Sun journalist, alerted authorities and the media swung into full action with updates on the search for the missing minister.

After two days of being lost in the wilderness in freezing conditions the relieved and very embarrassed minister was found alive.

And that’s when the real media circus began!

Who found Tim Holding?

Everyone seemed to be claiming they found Tim Holding…

Starting with the Nine network.

They were doing little dances for joy exclaiming their helicopter was the first to find the elusive Tim. Reporter Brett McLeod stated their news helicopter was the first to spot him.

Have a look at their story here.

But then we had Channel Seven reporter Norm Beaman on the phone to Neil Mitchell, the host of 3AW morning radio talkshow, boasting how their helicopter had found the water minister.

Listen here.

While all this confusion was going on, the identity of who actually found him was a surprise to everyone.

It was a secret spy plane owned by the Australian Federal Police that had actually found him through an experimental video surveillance they’ve been working on.

But this plane was supposed to stay a secret.

However, they had forgotten to tell the media department in Victoria police this… oops.

The tried to delete all reference to it in a media release but it was too late.

After his rescue

And once the minister was found alive, the media and public started to get … well … a little peeved off with him.

While we were happy he was alive and well … his lack of emotion and looking a bit too well wasn’t all that appealing.

A little ‘touch’ hug for his parents and a pat on the back for his girlfriend.

Not quite the reunion we’d been expecting to say the least.

Have a look at the video here.

Bad Tim bad … after worrying about you for two days we all needed to see slow motion tear-jerking embraces.

Sobs of relief from all parties would of given us some really memorable pictures.

And Tim, you could of made more of an effort to look scruffier really … a bit more dirt, maybe some leaves and twigs hanging off you clothes would of helped , scratches on the face… you get the picture.

Pity for Tim he didn’t bring his PR team with him!

I’m not normally one to feel sorry for a politicians but awwww… I think we should give poor Tim a break.

The guy was mortified.

Known as an experienced hiker with military experience he fancied himself a little too much of a G.I. Joe and had refused help for other walkers he met on the mountain therefore causing the whole drama to unfold.

Now there all calls he should pay for the cost of his expensive rescue efforts.

No way should he, surely he’s entitled to be saved like everyone else regardless of his job. Do you think he should pay?

Feel free to leave a comment below on the saga of the rescue

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Well the Premier of Victoria John Brumby seems to think so.

Dare I ask Mr Brumby when is the last time he paid for an alcoholic beverage? continue reading…

This story has been in the most popular columns of online sites of the Herald Sun, The Age and ABC news in the last couple of days.

South African runner Caster Semenya, broke records in Berlin winning the womens’ 800m race in the World Championships.

She powered across the finish line obliterating her competitors by more than 20 metres.

International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had already decided to send Semenya off for gender tests but wanted to keep it all quiet which wasn’t to be…

continue reading…

There has been an outpour of grief and tributes from people all around the world on hearing of the death of everyone’s favourite furry marsupial, Sam the Koala, last week.

Well, actually, not quite everyone was sad …

continue reading…

Ramblings on the media and entertainment news of the week!!

It will be amazing and amusing reading