The problem with syndicated news

SMH (NSW) story: A man has been shot dead on Valentine’s Day, in what locals are saying was a jealous argument over an ex-wife. A large search is now underway for the killer around the small town of Gulgong, near Mudgee in the state’s central west.

Age (Vic) story: A man has been shot dead on Valentine’s Day, in what locals are saying was a jealous argument over an ex-wife. A large search is now underway for the killer around the small town of Gulgong, near Mudgee in the state’s central west.

At the time I initially looked, neither story had any indication which state this happened in, except the SMH one linked to a Google map of Gulgong, NSW. I had guessed that, since I recalled Mudgee was in NSW.

When you’re feeding your local stories into the global (or at least national) media machine, a little more info on where it’s happening would help a lot.

2 thoughts on “The problem with syndicated news

  1. Blogless Clive

    This has a pet hate of mine for a few years now.
    Read a story and, if you are lucky, you’ll get some idea
    of locality in about paragraph 6.
    The local freebie hard-copy, MX, is particularly fond of
    using wire stories as filler. Often with no real
    locality information included at all.
    (Of course, the electronic mediia is also not without
    guilt here references to “the premier” without ever
    mentioning which state is involved are all too common.)

  2. Jon

    Don’t you think it’s deliberate? They’re hoping that readers will see ‘Capital Bombed’ and buy the paper before they read further and find out it’s the capital of Uzhbekistan.

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