Hot on the press

Call me a cynic but Government’s announcement that it is cutting print advertising and its $42,000 worth of local newspaper subscriptions wouldn’t have anything to do with the Premier’s plans for a new daily newspaper would it? Sources tell me that Dr. Brown is pressing ahead with previously-stated plans to launch a new daily Government-run newspaper and that interviews have already taken place with some leading local journalists – although none will yet own up to having been approached. [Breezeblog, incidentally, can exclusively confirm he hasn't been tapped up - and would anyway feel guilty about the truckload of taxpayers' moola it would take for him to consider such an offer.] I’m not saying The Royal Monopoly couldn’t do without some competition but you can’t help thinking that the Daily Doc is likely to be little more than a propaganda sheet. Still, it will be interesting to see how this pans out because regardless of the politics, many of the Gazette’s long-suffering advertising clients will welcome a new daily vehicle if it treats them like the valuable customers they are and if enough of the reading public are fooled into thinking the Daily Doc is a real newspaper, the Gazette is going to have to considerably up its game.