THE SPINS FORUMS for 2009

Time to put aside an hour on your Tuesday nights as The Spin Forums hit the airwaves for 2009. On the last Tuesday of each month (or thereabouts) we will devote an entire hour to a single topic. A lot of the topics will be issues that don't get a lot of press or time on air. And some of the topics are ones we choose not to discuss. Some 'taboo'. Well nothing is taboo on The Spin. Both JOY's outstanding new studios will be utilised to get the maximum number of voices to address each topic. Your comments will also be welcomed.

Be prepared to be challenged. The last Tuesday of each month on The Spin . 7 - 8pm.

Tuesday, January 27 - 'Program JOY for a day'
Are we providing what our community wants to hear? The challenges of programming Australia's only gay & lesbian station (or should that be GLBTI... and Q???)

Tuesday, February 24 - 'No Asians please'
Sexual racism in the community. Are WE the worst offenders? Heaven forbid if you're not a white, anglo-saxon, buffed boy in Prahran!

Tuesday, March 31 - 'The pink season'
Too many events? Too predictable? Too clichéd? What works? What needs a rest? What do our events say to the wider community about us? Midsumma, Mardi Gras, Pride, Chill-out, blah, blah.

Tuesday, April 28 - 'The beat goes on'
Love them or hate them, 'beats' are a part of the gay culture in Australia. The vexed issues of violence, public spaces and indulgence. And did you hear about lesbian beat sex?

Tuesday, May 26 - 'GLBTIQ is so PC'
Typecasting, hatespeech, political over-correctness and who the hell we are. Identifying our 'community' and what we stand for in 2009.

Tuesday, June 30 - 'I have a dream'
Look how far we have come.... and where to now? Education v's legislation. The generation gap in our community.

You can always sms JOY on 0427 JOY 949 or email us live on air.... onair@joy.org.au. It's your program so share your views on all the topics.

Maybe you have a topic you would like to discuss on The Spin Forums. Just drop us a line on this blog and we'll be in contact.

'BEST OF Awards for 2008

'Looking for nominations for the 'BEST OF Awards for 2008'. The joint two hour special combining The Spin and Transmission Time next Tuesday will showcase the best and worst in the news from 2008.

We need your help.

Firstly, please forward your most 'profound' story from 2008. Not necessarily the front page story but something that moved or affected you from Australia or overseas. Provide a few paragraphs supporting your nomination so we can share it with the audience during the show.

Also nominations for these categories are also invited....

- Most over-rated news story

- Most overused cliché

- 'Please get off the front page' Award

- Most over-hyped media spin

- Most over-rated media personality

- Best GLBTI journalism

- 'Am I ever going to see you face again' Award (One headline wonders)

Over 20 in the cast, lots of reflection,  and all whilst we are enjoying Christmas Dinner. Join in the fun frm 7pm next Tuesday on JOY 94.9

STEALING THE STOLEN GENERATION

'Australia' brings these 'stolen' children to the big screen

The new Baz Luhrman extravaganza 'Australia' is now up on our screens after an unprecedented wait and extraordinary media blitz. I'm not a movie critic but I know what I like and I liked 'Australia'. It would even be a good name for a country. At three hours my bum was getting a bit sore.... maybe the movie could have a bit of a 'haircut' in the editing room.

Every Australian character actor was summoned to appear. Just about everyone but Paul Hogan! The story was a little predictable but the core theme of the 'stolen generation' was palpable, if not central to the story. And it was ever-present loading the latest Luhrman epic with a large dose of political correctness - certainly a film for its time. In the film it is presented as fact yet it the real world it still is a subject of enormous debate. It's also very unfashionable to discuss the issue, yet alone question the central tenets at the base of the stolen generation story.

Of course, 'Australia' isn't the first film to tackle the issue. Whilst it didn't have the hype, fancy CGI or Nicole, the Phillip Noyce film 'Rabit Proof Fence' tackled the film head on.

The stolen generation naysayers believe that the topic is largely a 'myth'. And certainly it is hard to separate the facts from a lot of the rhetoric and historical re-writing.

Clearly there are some appalling stories of separation and removal of aboriginal children from their birth parents. So how can people deny this happened? How can there be stolen generation deniers? Who knows the tuth?

On this week's Spin we hope to bring together both sides of the stolen generation debate and look at the 'spin' and hype developed in the film 'Australia' and its effect on the issue.

We recognise that the issue causes a lot of heated emotion and seek to look at the media's treatment of this story and in the film 'Australia' with compassion and care. Of course, your views are also important. The Spin goes to air on Tuesday nights at 7pm.

WHOSE CAMPAIGN IS THIS ANYWAY?

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young bringing it back to topic at Saturday's rally. 

The National Union of Students rally outside the State Library last Saturday, lead by queer officer James Vigus, was all about handing over a petition supporting a reversal in the ban on gay marriage to Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.... or was it?

The 30,000 signatories were proudly paraded in front of the audience of around 100 people who braved an unusually cold and wet Spring day in Melbourne. The carefully wrapped pile of signatures was precariously poised on one of the Library columns as a series of speakers screamed their support into the megaphone.

Great, the National Union of Students getting behind a campaign against homophobia and supporting gay marriage. But hang on, what are they talking about? Student Union fees, blah, blah.... New government legislation about the operation of student unions, blah, blah..... All worthy topics for a Saturday rally but that's not why we were there. Some of us felt a bit cheated. Coming into the city to get behind the campaign for gay marriage only to be confronted by pimply students spitting their venom at the Rudd Government... well just about anyone really. 

But it was their 'day of action' so I suppose they can scream about anything they want. They did get back to the main game eventually and the Senator spoke in support of the petition to reverse the government's stand on gay marriage. Start to finish, 30 minutes.

But I left thinking that with friends like this, who needs enemies. I am not sure whether just lumping the issue of civil unions and gay marriage into the angry custard of student issues is good enough. We were the crowd magnet being hijacked by all this other stuff that had no revelance to anyone who weren't 1) a student or 2) interested in student politics. The protest signs were all about getting rid of homophobia and supporting gay marriage. But the rhetoric was mostly something else altogether.

This week's The Spin will hear from James Vigus and discuss the protest meeting with the Southern Star Observer editor Andie Noonan. From 7pm this Tuesday on The Spin.

JOY GETS A GONG

At last weekend's CBAA Awards JOY was honoured to accept two awards at the Gala Dinner. Two awards to JOY, out of over 450 radio stations around Australia. Goes to show the creativity, quality and commitment harnessed in this wonderful radio station.

The programs were Out and About and The Sport Lounge. Both programs were a true team effort and brought together a range of skills and personnel to make some excellent programming - good enough to be awarded by their peers as the best in Community Broadcasting during 2008.

Out and About was the fill in program for the Rainbow Report over last summer and involved a weekly live recording of discussions about a specific issue. The program tackled a few 'sacred cows' and certainly had its share of controversy and heated conversations.

A special congratulations to the technical team of Jayne and Michael who made the broadcasts possible.

What can we say? JOY is the best.... and we now have the proof!

CLICHÉS DRIVE ME UP THE WALL

Do you have to be a card carrying member of the Labor Party to be a part of the GLBTI community? Do you have to be a feminist socialist to be a lesbian? Do you have to be a buffed, drug-taking partyboy to be young and gay?

Clichés, most of them invented by our own community, have beset wider impressions of the GLBTI community for years. The media repeat them and we get upset.

Of course the wider GLBTI community are as broad and diverse as the rest of the Australian community. There's accountants, school teachers, tradespeople, business-people and truckies.... as well as hairdressers and people in musical theatre.

On JOY we have a fairly broad cross-section of the local GLBTI world. A bit of this and a bit of that. Politically we have people on the far right as well as the far left. And just because your sexuality may be G or L or B or T or I doesn't mean that you vote one way or the other.

Why do we have these stereotypes within our own community. Indeed, why do we have a lack of tolerance to people of diverse political views?

Come and join a few card carrying lefties as well as a guest right wing of Gengis Kahn, as well as someone somewhere in the middle on next Tuesday's Spin from 7pm.

ONCE YOU'RE DEAD, YOU'RE DEAD!

Well, as the Herald Sun so adequetly described the situation with the Bali Bombers on its website on Sunday morning. It had the headline...

'It's Done'

Indeed it was. At 12.15am Java time last Sunday morning the three convicted Bali Bombers were shot in the heart and killed for their horrific crimes. These three terrorists are now dead but the mess over Australia's attitude to capital punishment lingers. And neither the media nor the government are doing anything to help the situation.

Firstly, let's start off with a selection of the public commentary reported in some of the media....

- They should have been given the death penalty.... The didn't deserve it! They should have been made to sit in a dark cell and rot away.

- Bastards, they get what they deserved. Now let them burn in hell.

- Its my belief that those three bastards showed not an inkling of remorse for the hundreds of innocent people they killed, as well as the hundreds more that were devastated by the deaths. So why should others show the same respects for them?

- Islam never encourage killing innocent people .What Bali bombers did was totally unacceptaple and they got what they deserve .

- Hopefully the survivors of the bombings get closure from this. May they rot in hell after the sins they have committed.

- Why are we still talking about these people?

- Is it now possible to just forget these animals. No media attention please!

So much for that very small selection of a range of the public commentary. Of course, mostly written in anonymity. But so much for the public comment. Check out the spin from our political leaders..... It's a confusing situation because there is an apparent bi-partisan approach in Australia against the death penalty around the world. And with three members of the Bali Nine not too far away from the firing squad themselves we will soon see the rhetoric ramped up to try and save these three from the same fate as the Bali Bombers. Is the government against the death penalty in relation to the crimes of the Bali Nine? Do we have the right to interfere in another sovereign country's affairs?

So the Australian government will plead for clemency for the members of the Bali Nine. At other times both parties have claimed that they are against capital punishment in any circumstance and have indicated their will to campaign for a blanket moratorium in all countries where the death penalty is still applied.

But hang on. You can't be half pregnant. In the same way you can't be half dead. If Australia's government believes that we should actively campaign against capital punishment around the world then where was their pleas to stop the execution of the Bali Bombers. Their crimes might be horrific but it's either one way or the other. How can you be against capital punishment in one case and turn a blind eye in another. Why is it one rule for one life and not another?

Greens leader, Bob Brown was quoted in the Murdoch press yesterday saying....

- “My view is that these murderers should have been kept in jail for the rest of their lives and never released. And of course there's the potential for some martyrdom effect, which would be counter-reactive.”

He also said....

- “I am with the government and opposition in saying the death penalty is never warranted"

But if it’s warranted for the Bali Bombers why not for everyone else convicted under the same law in an independent sovereign state. No one in either the dying days of the Howard Government or the new Rudd government has ever stood up and made the situation clear. Why? Cause it's just one huge mother of a hot political potato. Polls would suggest that the majority of Australians wanted the Bali Bombers executed. It was 74/26 in the HS poll yesterday and I guess that’s probably a reasonable reflection of the wider Australian community. But neither the opposition nor the government wants to tread on this one.

The other term I have heard over the past few days is 'closure'. It's been suggested that the families of the victims of these terrorist bombings will now have closure (that awful American term) and be able to move on with their lives. So do we have to kill every perpetrator of every crime to be able to achieve closure? Even worse, some media stories and commentators have suggested, like Bob Brown, that there could be reprisals and that the bombers could become martyrs for their cause. In that case we better not try and capture Osama Bin Laden, let alone try him and execute him. Surely, with this logic, we are better to leave him roaming around the back blocks of Afganistan rather than seek him out risking retribution and making him a martyr.

This is such an emotive issue and the one thing we probably need, more than anything else, is some consistent and rational leadership on the issue. How can our government plea for clemency for the three members of the Bali Nine currently on Death Row when they didn't plea for the lives of the Bali Bombers, or the Nigerian drug runners executed in Indonesia last July.... or anyone else sitting on death row around the world.

You're either for it or against, whether Australian or otherwise. Once you're dead, you're dead.

CHARMAINE'S WEIGHTY ISSUE

Photo by Paul Tresize, Herald Sun

So what should the caption from this photo be?

1) Police arrest shopper after trying to smuggle watermelons into Oaks Day

or

2) Police arrest a young girl because the photographer thought it would look good on the front of the Herald Sun the next day.

The answer might have been No. 2. But the real answer is that this young lady was actually only 17 and should have been at school and not at the Cup at all! Sprung bigtime!! But assuming that the photo was a lucky snapshot for photographer Paul Tresize it was a platinum plated, rolled gold certainty to be on the front page on Friday.... and so it was. Young 'Charmaine' claimed she was defending an elderly person whilst waiting for trains after Oaks Day - the trains that didn't arrive for nearly 3 hours.

So, what started as a photographer with en eye for the ladies ended up as a much more interesting story. Why was 17 yo 'Charmaine' at the races? What was going on whilst racegoers were waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the trains? Why WAS she really escorted away by the local constabulary? All the questions, and maybe a few answers on this week's Spin. Tuesday at 7pm on JOY 94.9

KILL THE BASTARDS

Some of the headlines and editorial following the execution of the three convicted Bali Bombers has assured us that the issue of capital punishment continues to polarise public opinion. The Herald Sun website screamed 'It's Done'. The Age was a little more matter of fact, 'Bali Bombers Executed'. In London, The Times completely ignored the story. CNN had the story in their top 3 headlines.

Talkback radio, including the Sunday morning slang-fest with John Michael Howson McCallum on Fairfax Radio's 3AW, was a snapshot of right wing vitreol. Terms like 'closure' and 'hope they died in pain' were liberally used as the contempt poured out over the executions. Of course we will be revisiting this issue in 2009 when members of the Bali 9 - in this case young Australians - will also be facing the firing squad in Indonesia. Will the attitude be any different by the conservative press and the older talkback callers who vented their hate at the Bali Bombers?

Will the executions of the Bali Bombes make Indonesia, particularly Bali, a safer place to visit? Does executing the terrorists turn them into martyrs? Does execution ever solve a problem?

We would love to hear what you have to say and look forward to airing your thoughts on the program.

Join The Spin this Tuesday when we discuss the coverage of the executions. Thanh Bui, from Australian Idol, also joins the program to discuss Australia's music industry and perceived racism. The Spin, the Tuesday from 7pm on JOY 94.9.

RACISM IN OZ MUSIC INDUSTRY

Thanh Bui, Australian Idol

Photo courtesy of www.australianidol.com.au

What we see with Australian Idol and what really happens behind the scenes are two different things. On Nov. 11 we speak to Idol contestant Thanh Bui about perceived racism in the Australian music industry. And the media perpetuates many of these myths so listen in and tell us what you think.

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?

On last week's program we discussed media reporting of a report stating that the numbers of female CEO's in Australia is dropping. Dropping? How can that be? The study stated that only 2% of the CEO's in ASX200 companies were women. And that percentage is less than in the past. Our guests Andie Noonan (Editor Southern Star Observer) and Hayley Conway (VGLRL) were as mystified as most. So is the question... 1) Why don't women want the top jobs or 2) Why won't men let women reach the top job?

JOY is not a representative organisation when it comes to the average gender spread. But we have some curious gender skews as well. In both membership and representation on air we are highly skewed towards men. On air we have almost exactly half the number of women as men presenting programs. Is that fair? Well, given the membership of JOY it's totally fair because we have a higher percentage of male members of the organisation - not twice as many but heading in that direction.

Taking the issue back another step..... are there more lesbians than gay men? Or are there more 'out' gay men than 'out' gay women? The numbers of titles in the gay press tell us the same story. A lot more gay rags out there for gay men.

Finally, getting articulate lesbians (even women) with a sense of humour and a desire to share strong opinions with a wider audience is bloody hard!!! On The Spin we try, constantly, to find new female participants for the program. And I reckon the 2% participation rate reported in the report is about the same as the success rate we have for finding new female presenters on the program. If you are up to it please get in contact with us!

So what is it with females and lesbians, generally, when it comes to either taking the top jobs in companies in Australia or talking on community radio?

Your responses would be welcomed.

NASTY WORDS ABOUT CRICKET

Jerry Lewis has landed himself in hot water on the eve of his latest Australian tour. Asked in a Channel 10 interview about Australian's obsession with Cricket he said. "Oh cricket, it's a fags game".

So who is he slagging? Cricket or the gay community?

The 82 year old has got priors in this area with comments about an "...illegitimate fag..." on the annual muscular dystrophy telethon in the US last year. He has since apologised for these comments.

Do we give him a break because he's 82? Do his words really hurt? Are we taking ourselves a bit seriously? What do cricketers think about the slur?

Join Tim Newton, Hayley Conway from the VGLRL and Andie Noonan from Southern Star Observer on The Spin as we wade through the murky waters of hate-speech in 2008.

And Jerry Lewis would be acutely aware that his comments will be widely reported and will help publicise his tour of Australia. Will this publicity sell tickets or will gay groups picket his shows? As they say... "any publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right!"

Come and join in the discussion on The Spin. JOY 94.9, Tuesdays @ 7pm

TIM WILSON TAKES A REST

Semi-regular panelist, Tim Wilson, is having a break whilst he seeks election as Melbourne's new Deputy Lord Mayor. Apart from being very busy over the next month, his role on The Spin could compromise the JOY guidelines for presenters.

Program host and producer, Tim Newton, believes his shos will be hard to fill.

"Tim (Wilson) has been a fabulous participant on the program. His views are sometimes completely off the traditional GLBTI graph. We loved it. We would like to think that we air all views, whether popular or not, that don't traditionally fit into the GLBTI mold. The program's been in trouble with station management in the past and I'm sure we'll piss listeners and management off in the future as well."

Tim Newton was suspended for a week and the program was forced to air an apology after an editorial relating to Jonaton Welch's departure from the Melbourne Gay and Lesbian chorus. He has also drawn a great deal of community criticism with other editorials on JOY and in the local gay and lesbian press.

"Our community is robust with a wide church of views. I embrace our differences and love the fact that some people get so upset when they are presented with a fresh or varied view. We will continue to air the broadest range of views from our community and hope to keep people thinking about the many issues we present on the program. Of course, we always do it with a smile and welcome people's responses to the program."

The SPin returns, without Tim Wilson, this Tuesday at 7pm with guest panelist Andie Noonan from the Southern Star Observer.

BRITT LAPTHORNE MEDIA COVERAGE

Every year about 35,000 people go missing here in Australia. Around 1,800 remain missing for period longer than 6 months. Overseas, there are over a million Australians overseas at any one time. We will make around 4 million trips OS in 2008 and around 25,000 will seek some sort of Consular assistance with another 350,000 calling Australian consulates around the world with all sorts of enquiries. Most of these travellers come back in one piece but 200 - 300 will also end up in an overseas hospital each year and another hundred or so never return for one reason or another. They decide to vanish without telling anyone or they go missing in mysterious circumstances. Some of them very mysterious, mostly never making into the news. Unless you are Britt Lapthorne.

Starting with some questions raised on a Facebook page, this case was quickly wound up by the media until it became one of the top media stories over the past month on all Australian media. The early botched investigation, the anguish of the parents, the concerned police and politicians, the warnings to other young backpackers, the finding of a body, the denials, the suspects, the eventual confirmation of the body's identity, the acute emotions of a family coping with a death, the return of the body to Australia. The whole sorry saga was played out at the head story in our nightly news, the lead story on the radio and the front page of the dailies.

Whilst I can't even start to comprehend the extraordinary loss of the Lapthorne family I think that this story deserves a critical look on the way it was reported and it's position on one of the most reported stories of 2008. In some ways it reminds me of the Madeline McCann story... the young British girl who went missing whilst the family was holidaying in Portugal. At the same time a similar scenario was taking place with another British family. Another young girl who went missing in mysterious circumstances, a family in pain desperately trying to do anything to find their daughter. What was the difference between the McCanns and this other family. You guessed it... one was a good looking, media-friendly family who spoke well and cried in front of the camera. The other was a camera shy black family from an unfashionable suburb north of England. Barely a mention in the media.

Let's face it, Britt Lapthorne is young, blond with a media-savvy family and a good looking brother. Again, I don't want to denigrate this family's attempts to do absolutely everything they possibly could to get their daughter back but I wonder about all the other hundreds of missing Australians overseas who we never hear about. Sure, it seems the police cocked up and botched the early investigations, the politicians did every thing they could from their offices 10,000 km away. But all this would be the same if someone went missing anywhere. So what was the story? Where was the value to the wider public? Where was the need to know? Where was the public interest.... I'll tell you.... the media created it all by itself. And they followed each other around like sheep.

Britt Lapthorne died somehow, tragically and mysteriously. But so do hundreds of thousands of people, overseas and here every year. Sure it's tragic. But how this story has made it onto the list of the top national stories for over a month is a very bad reflection on a lazy commercial media who couldn't get their fat butts out of their air-conditioned offices to report something else. Britt Lapthorne is dead and so, it seems, is our media's good judgement.

MEDIA LANDSCAPE CHANGING

The media landscape in Australia is about to enter a new era of change and consolidation. And it's coming from so many angles there are few who can confidently predict where it is all going to end.

The days of the three pillars of print, radio and television are clearly crumbling and a new, exciting phase of media democratisation is unfurling. It involves more people sharing more views across more and more diverse media. Whilst we are witnessing a flourishing new-age media the challenges remain for the new media to gain a collective attention and the consumers to find a way of sifting through the dross.

You can sit in a hotel room anywhere in the US and click through literally hundreds of TV channels of rubbish. Whilst opening up the airwaves over the years has provided more opportunities for the wider public to have a voice, the quality has certainly dropped. You click a hundred times and there's still nothing of quality you would want to watch. And this growth of diversity also splits the advertising dollar so that the larger content producers can no longer afford to produce decent, well-researched and scripted programming.

'But it's our right to have our say on the airwaves'. That cry has encouraged governments in the west to de-regulate the broadcast spectrums around the world to find space for (what we call in Australia) Community Broadcasting. This sector has certainly seen a growth in truly dynamic broadasting through the proliferation of community broadcasting. This has also seen smaller geographic and social communities better represented on the Australian airwaves.

And now we have a flourishing internet with even more diverse media content. But any wade through a site like You Tube will prove the point that opening up the media for everyone doesn't necessarily promise quality as well. Indeed most of the original content is just mindless ravings or crap from a keen but unskilled populus.

Ditto with blogs and social websites. A proliferation of content, but little that actually adds to our media tank. The tank is an awful lot larger than it used to be but it could be argued that the good stuff at the bottom is much the same depth today as it was 20 years ago.

"Be assured that a walk through the ocean of today's media would scarcely get your feet wet'. (A variation of Desiderata)

So, that's the challenge. Freeing up and opening the media to a vibrant new wave of technical platforms and diverse views. Whilst at the same time maintaining a semblance of quality.

Exciting times ahead.

The Spin continues to look at the New Media every Tuesday from 7 - 8pm on JOY 94.9

DID WE LEARN ANYTHING?

The Spin Special Edition - The New Media

Following an intense hour of discussions, experts, lots of facts and figures I am not really much-the-wiser about the new media. It still seems an enormously confusing breadth of technology to take in.

The way we are going to interface with the media in the future will be more dynamic, instantaneous and diverse than we can possibly imagine. The choices will be truly breathtaking,,, albeit totally confusing.

How we choose what to consume and how the content providers choose to ensure that they have our attention is part of the challenge for the future.

The Spin will follow up last night's program with some more specific issues in coming weeks as we plough through the New Media.

Your comments are welcome and we will do our best to address all comments and questions during the show.

The SPin. Tuesdays, 7 - 8pm. JOY 94.9 FM

NEW MEDIA

Welcome to the revolution

What is the new media? In the context of The Spin Special program about New Media, we would define it as the new ways we are consuming and relating to the media on a day-to-day basis.

There has been a clearly defined line between the big three - radio, TV and print - up to now. But the lines defining the borders between the traditional media are not only blurring. They are being vitamised! We are not watching a media evolution. It is clearly a revolution. And it's happening really quickly.

Here are some buzz words - convergence, blogging, downloading, digital radio and TV, blogosphere, podcast - there are plenty of them. And words that didn't exist 10 or 20 years ago.

The way you an I consume media, from this day forward, is changing forever.

How will you decide what you want to watch or listen to? How will content providers attract you as audience? Who will pay the advertising bills in the future? Or will be prepared to pay for a more flexible media? And will all this spell the end of traditional media outlets? Will there be a rise of smaller media opportunities?

It's all so exciting and slightly scary.

Listen to tonight's The Spin as we bring in the experts to wade through these exciting new developments that will affect us all... yes you too!

EXCELLENT GUESTS FOR SPECIAL SPIN

The Spin Special - the New Media

So far we have lined up an excellent list of commentators for our Spin Special looking at the new media as we wade through the exciting media options on our horizon.

Peter Blasina, the Gadget Guy (gadgetguy.com.au) will discuss the impact of digital radio that hits Australia's radio market next May. 

Kath Lett from 3RRR has been intimately involved with digital radio and will share the problems in getting digital radio ready in Australia. She will also discuss the opportunities for providers and consumers once digital radio turns on next year. 

Dan Vo, JOY Marketing and Development Manager, will discuss the exciting new future for interactivity with radio audiences as well as the opportunities ahead for greater choice and democratisation for the listener.

Apart from our panel grilling our special guest YOU will also have the opportunity to make comments and ask questions during the program.

The Spin tackles the New Media. Tuesday, October 14 from 7-8pm. Only on JOY 94.9 (or log onto joy.org.au)

SPECIAL EDITION - The New Media

For Tuesday, October 14 @ 7pm

The Tuesday, October 14 edition of The Spin will host a special program dedicated to investigating the new media pervading our lives. Where is the next media revolution? It's already happening right under your nose. The Spin will investigate the role of new media and what it means for traditional media... radio, print, television. Who will be winners and who will end up on the media scrap heap wondering what just happened?

The Spin has a commitment to using all forms of the new media to provide an interactive platform for all to involve themselves in the program's issues.

You will also notice an increased commitment to daily blog entries as we share our thoughts about the media. Whilst our focus is on Australian media, generally, we also try and keep on top of other trends as they emerge from around the world.

We look forward to you joining the Spin team next Tuesday from 7 on JOY 94.9 as we ponder where the new media will take us next.

LETTER FROM FAIRFAX JOURNOS - Spin Gurus

Dear Spin Crew

I represent a team of a few disgruntled journos... 500 to be precise. Please don't mention the name of our paper on air but to give you a hint we are the only printed daily broadsheet in Melbourne with a banner saying 'The Age' across the top. We need to be discreet about our problem with management so we have decided to go on strike. We're having to come out and tell everyone because no one really noticed that we were missing. The paper has still been coming out but put together by management cutting and pasting stuff from the net and overseas news sources. Same big paper you can't read on the train, can't fit on the breakfast table and can't carry on Saturdays without a forklift. So, if they seem to be able to do without us we better make a noise about it and hope it gets reported in the other metropolitan daily. To top it off they decided to sack the Editor as well. We thought this was a smart move as he has been able to turn the paper around in the last few years by increasing advertising and daily readership. So, Spin Crew, we need to know what we can do to get the public's sympathy and get them behind our cause? We know our paper uses more trees than any other daily newspaper in Australia. We know that less people are reading newspapers these days. We know that the diversification of the media is making our job less relevant. We know that people think we're a pinko, union-loving, left wing rag. But we think it's reasonable for the directors of Fairfax (sorry, don't mention that name!!) that the directors and shareholders of the company should lose money hand over fist and go down kicking and screaming with the rest of us. What do you think?