Thursday, January 20, 2011

Not many (facts), if any

There's a dubious piece of reporting on stuff.co.nz from Kirsty Johnston, with the headline "Scribe's music awards for sale". It's a woeful piece of reporting that basically says "Look, this famous Kiwi rapper is now on hard times! Lets poke fun at his fall from grace!" 

So, are Scribe's music awards for sale? No. The story says a Christchurch pawnbroker, who refuses to use his full name (odd), is selling off five of Scribe's sales plaques, presented in recognition of sales of The Crusader album from 2003. Music awards get handed out at the NZ Music Awards, and sales plaques get handed out by record companies for sales. But hang on, he's only got four NOT FIVE plaques listed on Trade Me.

Johnston says she was unable to contact Scribe's management. How exactly she failed to reach any offical contact for one of the biggest selling NZ artists of the last ten years is beyond me. Last I heard, Scribe was managed by CRS Management, (headed by RIANZ boss Campbell Smith), the company responsible for the Big Day Out here. Not hard to find.

Johnston also appears to quote Scribe's Wikipedia entry, saying "Scribe, also known as Charles Gruar and Malo Luafutu..." That second name is correct, but quoting Wikipedia entries is never going to work out so good. He is NOT known as Charles Gruar. 

ADDED if you Google for Charles Gruar, you end up looking at this guy's Facebook page.

ADDED The wikipedia page for Scribe has been fixed (Charles Gruar ref is gone), but check this... "With the initial focus on the song "Stand Up", director Matua Murupaenga gave the video..." that should read director Chris Graham, not some kid from Gizzy.

UPDATED, Friday 20th - The Press has done a follow up story, interviewing the pawnbroker, who reveals his name as Shane Lilley. There's also a bit more detail there too behind the sale. Still no comment from Scribe or his management.

Here's TV3's news item on Scribe from last night's news.

Kirsty Johnston has posted a new story on this today - Strip club leads award bidding.
Also posted as Scribe's awards rocket up Trademe. Both repeat the error on Scribe's name, sourced from Wikipedia. This has been fixed.

EDIT - the headline on the first story has been changed from Strip club leads award bidding to match the 2nd story.

5 comments:

AllCity said...

hilarious Kirsty - journalism at its finest!

Al Haigh said...

Kirsty's had a shocker

Anonymous said...

the silly reporter is all over social network sites, feel free to leave a supportive message about the retarded story guys:

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=11081089 (not sure about this one)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Kirsty-Johnston/1158528925(not sure about this one)

http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/kirsty-johnston/29/333/789

http://twitter.com/kirsty_johnston

http://nzsocialmedia.ning.com/profile/KirstyJohnston?xg_source=activity

also, drop her an email. im sure she'd love to hear from you guys personally:

kirsty.johnston@stuff.co.nz

it appears its not the first time she has made a dumb post: http://falfn.com/CrusaderRabbit/?p=4266

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