THE majority of Tasmanians probably don’t know it exists but those in the media and politics certainly do — and it’s won a couple of awards and been written up in The Australian newspaper.

It’s the website tasmanian times.com.

The aim of this site — that it “exists to be a forum of discussion and dissent, a cheeky, irreverent challenge to the mass media’s obsession with popularity, superficiality and celebrity” — is one that’s rarely met.

There is nothing feisty about it. It is self-absorbed and boring, the antithesis of what a challenger to the established print medium ought to be.

Why does it matter? Because, as the owner of this newspaper Rupert Murdoch rightly noted earlier this year, people are turning increasingly to various forms of internet media for the news and information they want.

“We need to realise that the next generation of people accessing news and information, whether from newspapers or any other source, have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from and who they will get it from,” he told a conference of American newspaper editors.
See: Rupert wakes up to Tasmanian Times

However, if you’re a Tasmanian who wants to find a reliable internet source of information, views and ideas about your state and what’s happening in it, oldtt.pixelkey.biz will not help you.

In contrast to other Australian sites, such as Australian Policy Online and onlineopinion (I am a director of the company that owns onlineopinion), which are diverse and intellectually engaging, oldtt.pixelkey.biz seems stodgy and complacent.

Like many writers in the state, I have written for oldtt.pixelkey.biz and had articles I’ve had published elsewhere republished on the site; I have participated in the online argument and commentary section of the site.

However, I’m always left wondering “Why bother?” There’s a cricket team of individuals who dominate the site. Nearly all have a similar world view: that Tasmania is corrupt, dominated by conspiracies and that Bob Brown will save us all one day when he ascends to the green heaven.

Let’s take the fellow who calls himself “phill PARSONS”. Here’s the opening paragraph of Mr Parsons’ latest offering, published on June 7:

“Suddenly realising that there is at least a changing climate, perhaps even a looming global emergency, but no, not a crisis, never that, all sorts of reverse and rear-end lights are mouthing on about some need for clean electrical energy”.

One assumes Parsons means to tell us there is a debate about energy sources, given the climate change crisis. Then again, maybe not. His opening paragraph is as clear as mud.

Then there’s the character known as “The Hag”. Here’s the contributor’s breathless story of May 19 this year:

Hag, shambolically reminiscing on great carousings past, was staggering around the top end of Paterson St, Launceston last week when she thought she saw the eminent Apologist For All Things Forestry, Mont, and former Chief Media Harasser for the Bacon Government, Kenny, heading towards The Examiner building”.
See: Mont, Kenny and The Examiner eulogy

Talk about keeping it all in-house. Who the hell are these people? I mean, I know — but does the average reader?

The dominance of forestry on the website is its downfall.

Every day (almost literally) there is some person somewhere ranting about Gunns, Forestry Tasmania, the Lennon Government, chemicals in the water, Recherche Bay, log trucks disturbing their kids’ sleep, smoke from forest fires or logging. Rarely is there any attempt made by the site to balance the anti-forestry tirades or to check their accuracy.

Then there’s the comments section. Here, for example, is Mr Paul De Burgh Day, a regular commentator on the site, on the state of Tasmanian democracy:

“Politics anywhere on this darkening planet is all too often dismal in the extreme. Tasmania has to be near the bottom of a slops filled bucket”.

Oh, please! Tell that to the people of North Korea, any number of Middle Eastern countries or to those who suffer daily at the hands of megalomaniacal African dictators.

Tasmanians have more politicians and levels of government than they can poke a stick at and the media are as accessible as anywhere in this country.

The site’s layout is dull, uninspiring and reflects the paucity of meaty content that gets uploaded on to it. In an aesthetic sense, the layout is also a poor reflection on the state’s presumed creative capacities.

Tasmanians who seek sources of news, information and entertainment — in addition to the three newspapers that serve the island — deserve better than the myopic and clubhouse style banter of oldtt.pixelkey.biz.

It might have started its life as a good idea but it has failed for lack of editing, new voices, new issues and decent writing.

This is re-published with permission of the author, and the Editor, from The Mercury, Monday, June 20.