Great night to be a twit

Last night and this morning, twitter confirmed itself as the best platform for up to the minute, insider accounts of developing news.

The Labor leadership spill vindicated, in a sense, all the time I’d previously wasted on twitter.

"@brianna_travers having twitter is so worth it on a night like tonight #spill"

It’s clearly a useful news source, not just for breaking news, but for the context provided by piecing together different updates.

Here’s a quick timeline of the key breaking news and inside sources.

7PM-10PM
CUhlmann Kevin Rudd’s leadership is under siege tonight from some of the Labor Party’s most influential factional warlords. Watch ABC News. NOW!

lyndalcurtis AWU definitely switched to Gillard. Other unions expected to follow. #spill

abcnews Breaking news: ABC political editor @CUhlmann says Kevin Rudd likely to be dumped as Prime Minister

latikambourke ‘Definitely on. Arbib backing Gillard. #spill’

10PM
leighsales Rudd press conference at 10.10pm

KarenMMiddleton Press conference room absolutely chockers. no sign of PM or deputy yet. #spill

_leo_s rudd says he will stand, gillard will challenge #spill

10:30PM
(Labor Senator for ACT)
KateLundy: I will be voting for Julia Gillard in the l'ship ballot. She will be an inspiring PM!

1AM
David_Speers cabinet source: it's all over, Gillard-Swan ticket has the numbers locked in

3AM
latikambourke Source: Gillard will win 'with an overwhelming majority.'

8AM
samanthamaiden Labor Mp text: it's Julia no ballot #spill

9AM
774melbourne Julia Gillard is elected unopposed with Wayne Swan as deputy

David_Speers Congrats @samanthamaiden on awesome scoop

..and within seconds there were token tongue-in-cheek updates, this was probably my favourite:

"@scottdools It'd be dope if Gillard made maternity leave crazy long and then got pregnant."

Here’s hoping for the next leadership spill.

MTR bottom of ratings, quality

In today’s radio ratings report, MTR was confirmed as Melbourne’s least popular station.

Their average audience was 10,000 people, with a market share of 1.7 per cent.

Ratings leader 3AW lost 0.2 percentage points down to 14.8 per cent share of the market while 774 ABC remain second with 12.7 per cent.

MTR’s director Steve Price told the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘‘we’re going to take these figures and increase them... we’re not here for a short time, we’re here for a long time.’’ (the rest of that story here)

But this excerpt of an MTR interview from The Australian’s cut & paste last Friday gives some indication of why it's not very popular.

STEVE PRICE: Do you consider yourself a queue jumper?

WAKIL (winner of the auction to surf with Tony Abbott): No, I don't consider myself a queue jumper. Just tell me where the queue is?

ANDREW BOLT: The queue is the people in refugee camps who have put their name up, have been accepted as refugees, and are awaiting placement.

WAKIL: There are people, genuinely recognised by UNHCR, who spend nine years in Indonesia.

BOLT: Mate, you were there for one month in Indonesia.

PRICE: You know what? Tony Abbott ought to tell this bloke to go and get nicked. We've got a very funny email. It says: "Please ask the guy to make sure Tony Abbott teaches him about dropping in, ie, waiting your turn in the surf."

Powersource bands are the latest fad in footy and the media.

‘Fev wears one. So does Riewoldt, Damien Oliver, and Ronaldo...’ that was the front-page intro from yesterday’s Sunday Age.

The story was about the rise of Powersource wristbands in sport.

The bands, according to Powersource’s website, use “holographic technology” to send energy flowing through the body.

And a lot of sports stars are wearing them for extra power.

Adelaidenow did a really good feature on the wristbands back in April, asking perspectives from a range of players who’ve used them and doctors who’ve studied them.

The main points of the story were that:

•  Scientists deny any medical benefits other than a placebo effect
  
•  And that sports stars will gladly endorse them to make a quid

 It also had this amusing description:

“It is claimed the wonder band can increase an athlete's core strength and power by as much as 500 per cent.

Have a think about that. Does that mean a man who can bench press 100kg can all of a sudden lift 500kg?

Forget about tackling: there could soon be a day when a footballer is hurled over the grandstand by a charged-up opponent.”

There’s been a lot of news stories about Powersource already this year and there’ll be more. Especially if sporting codes decide to ban the wristbands as a performance enhancing device.

It’s fantastic publicity for the product.

But it seems a lot of the media are happy to provide an entirely free plug. The story in yesterday’s Age took up the entire front page, describing the wristbands as “a genius marketing strategy”. 

There’s clearly a bit of genius to it. As long as some important players use the wristbands and as long as there’s a bit of mystery – Powersource spokespeople avoid commenting on the science involved – it will capture media interest and create free exposure.

The media need to take a little more questioning and skepticism rather than just adding to its publicity.

And they also need to acknowledge Rainier Wolfcastle as the original champion of the Powersource/Powersauce brand.