The Fraser Island Croc
The story of the Fraser Island Croc does not seem to want to go away. Yesterday The Australian ran the story - most of which was a copy of the story that appeared in The Age the day before but with two additions.
The Australian mentioned a local resident, who passed the croc on the beach while she was trying to get home before the tide came in, and who had the impression that she had passed the genuine item.
The Australian also quoted one of the tourists who photographed the croc. She claimed that she had seen it move its head from left to right.
This story will probably just fade away like the other reports of crocs this far south but it does make you wonder.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
The Chronicle is an absoloute joke. Its got about 5 local stories; which you can read in about 2 minutes. It spent last week making an absoloute joke of itself reporting on a model crocodile.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
While I understand what you’re saying and certainly have some empathy for your point of view perhaps you’re just a little harsh on the Chronicle.
The area and the population covered by the Chronicle is not a big one and newsworthy stories are sometimes hard to come by. Yesterday’s paper was definitely in the light-weight category and the delivery guys probably had to tie a brick to each one before they could throw it over the fence.
However, in the circumstances I think they probably do an reasonable job of producing a local newspaper. The Chronicle certainly seems to have plenty of advertisers and they wouldn’t have that if the advertisers were not seeing a reasonable return on their investment.
But that’s just my 0.02 cents worth
October 17th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I agree with Rocco. The Chronicle is a complete joke. The way they handled the “Crocodile” story, and persisted with it, even after it had been disproved, as laughable to say the least and embarrassing for all concerned. If the Chronicle’s reporter had gone to the effort of even the most basic research - a simple phone call to Fraser Island QPWS or the EPA would have confirmed the Croc was a joke… and yet they milked it for 2 days! And they wonder (and cry about) why they got ridiculed on Mediawatch!?
The other recent front page story about some bloke backing his 4WD into the back of his garage - are they serious?! I mean, come on! For a supposedly professional newspaper, it is ridiculous. If I was an advertiser, I would be asking serious questions on the papers management and their ability to source, research and print real, actual NEWS…
Thats my 2 cents worth…
October 17th, 2006 at 10:59 am
What can I say - Hervey Bay is basically a small town and it’s a small town newspaper.
However I did email the Chronicle’s editor last week and suggest that she might like to respond to the comments here but nothing has been forthcoming - not even a reply to my email.
Perhaps by saying nothing they’re actually saying quite a lot
October 17th, 2006 at 11:12 am
I am not surprised by the lack of response from the Chronicle. They would no doubt be wanting to leave the Croc incident behind them and move on. But it was interesting to see the Editors article in Saturdays paper crying “hard done by” the ABC’s Mediawatch program.
Being a small paper, in a relatively small city/region is no excuse for poor journalism.