Stephen Downes replies: “ABC delighted to be trivial”
I’m delighted that Sally Jackson, communications ‘lead’ at ABC NEWS, has corroborated indirectly my revealing (ABC News’ death rattle) the trashy triviality of the revamped broadcaster’s online front page.
She’s clearly pleased that in September and October ABC NEWS ‘overtook’ that bastion of digital unimportance, news.com.au.
In October, she says, 11.7 million read ABC NEWS online for an average of 31 minutes. Unfortunately, she doesn’t say what pieces were most read. Was it an article like the ones I cited in my piece, the one about hoof-like shoes, the hot news about a priest who lost his job because of a music video, or the story asking why western Sydney has so many acai shops?
To think that an ABC NEWS executive is pleased that beating news.com.au to the bottom of a swamp brimful of the garish, tacky and tawdry leaves me breathless. What were the ages of her 11.7 million readers? What were their IQs? Do they know about the genocide of Palestinians and Putin’s terrifying threats? Do they care? Do they know the name of the Australian PM?
They certainly appear to be intrigued by stories like the one about pumps with separate compartments for big toes.
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