Another TV event, another result leaked online.
All I can say is that the more popular online media becomes the more this is going to happen.
The Celebrity Apprentice is the latest show to fall victim to a broken embargo, with a leak occurring on its own Ninemsn website.
This comes only a month after the Herald Sun prematurely published that Hamish Blake had won the Gold Logie.
This increase in broken embargoes must have PR people pulling their hair out.
But I really can’t help but think; are they really surprised?
The very nature of online journalism makes it increasingly likely that such things happen.
Let’s picture it.
It’s late at night and you’re the journo staffing the entertainment section of the online website, as you have been for the last 8 hours.
You’re tired, hungry and, let’s face it, a bit bored as at midnight what’s really happening in your department.
Then you remember that awesome story you got given, but can’t be written for another 12 hours.
Well you might as well write it and get be ready, right?
Or even better you could write or edit part of it to publish now so you don’t break the ban but still have something to fill the demand for constant breaking news that exist online.
Ten minutes later all hell breaks loose because you clicked the wrong button, uploaded the wrong file, or maybe just accidentally left something in that really should have come out.
The problem is there is no editor standing between you and the public when it comes to online.
The checks and balances that occur when publishing to print just don’t happen with online journalism, due to the immediacy of it.
While networks such as Nine and Seven, may be at the end of their tether as their shows keep getting spoiled by broken embargoes, a thought has to go out for the journalist.
Word is that Ninemsn, might be sacking the staffer who posted the offending video.
While the person clearly made a mistake, this seems a little harsh when probably they were trying to do the right thing on what is still a relatively new platform.
My opinion is simple, the leaks of these results, while unfortunate, have to be expected, at least until the online platform is fully understood.
Or maybe, just maybe, the PR people could stop giving people things they don’t yet want published.
Dicko celebrates his victory, 12 hours before the show airs in Melbourne. Photo a screenshot from the uploaded video on Ninemsn
