Emu Swamp Dam
I am NOT opposed to this dam at all and I will not be tying myself to trees any time soon. I am of the opinion that the build figure is a lot more than $87m, more like $187m as a start point. I am also of the opiinion that this dam will be of NO benefit to the vast majority of ratepayers, and said ratepayers will be considerably worse off if it goes ahead.
Twenty odd years as a commercial manager working for tier one companies tell me this.
Further to this the benefit to local business during construction will be marginal and any contract work will be hard won with little profit margin.
This is an agricultural dam for the farmers which is fine by me but stop trying to drag the ratepayers into this to prop it all up.
Geoffrey Pittard, Stanthorpe
I would just like to respond to your most recent “The Editor’s Desk” published in the edition dated 10th March and express my huge disappointment in this column. I hope the below is outlined well enough to facilitate reflection on your part.
Firstly, I am concerned with your claim of working “for about 16 days at this point” and would seriously urge both of you to take a break as this apparent non-stop working seems to have made an impact on your judgement and writing. I find your pride in this issue and the great stories of fantastic local women to be at a disappointing juxtaposition to this needlessly mean attack against two very hardworking and intelligent women in our local community. At the end of the day, we all know that you’re referring to the Warwick Daily News and the two female journalists working there. In a male dominated industry where women have to work extra hard to get the same recognition, I find a female run newspaper bullying another female run newspaper to be disgusting. These women are insanely hardworking, clever, kind and compassionate people and are the very two people behind the newspaper to which you’ve unnecessarily rude. Are you threatened by the Warwick Daily News? Why the random attack? This is at least the second one that I’ve read from you and it’s simply disappointing. Do you think Rupert Murdoch himself is going to read your weird manifesto? Is that why you wrote it? It is entirely unnecessary to attack this small news outlet, whether or not they are part of a larger organisation.
In regard to the court stories to which you refer, I could not disagree more. Unfortunately, these people live in our community and I, as a community member and consumer of the news, would like to know that they are here. Court is open and free for anyone to attend. Publishing what happened in court behind a paywall is no different to attending court. If people are interested, they will go or they will read. If they are not, they will not. If you would like to pretend that these awful things do not happen in our community and write only good news stories, that fine. Do it. Fill your Editor’s column with great things from our region rather than wasting several hundred words trying to bring down others. There are so many better things you could talk about.
I am assuming that you have brought these issues up in person to the journalist that you are talking about as it would be awfully cowardly to just print it in your newspaper without confronting it in person. As you seem so passionate and smug about it, I assume you have. Like I said previously, I would also urge you to take a day off and question why your employer seems happy for their journalists to work 16 days in a row. The tiredness is showing as you have repeated yourself at the end of your column.
At the end of the day this is just a disappointing read. It comes across as unnecessarily mean, boring and lacks creativity. Surely if you love our region as much as you say you could easily spend 300 words talking about it rather than publishing this school yard bullying. You firsthand know how hard the industry can be and how difficult it is to cover the news in a huge region with such a small team. So why would you be so cruel to other people in the exact same position? Did you consider the emotional effects that this may have on someone before you published it or were you too chuffed with yourself about how scathing you sound?
I would just like to reiterate how especially disappointing it is to read this during the week of International Women’s Day when women are supposed to be celebrating the achievements of other women and calling out the systems that continue to oppress us, not bully other women as you have done.
Do better.
Kind regards,
Tess Enchelmaier
Editor’s Note: I was trying to be understanding in my editor’s desk last week by reflecting on how the issues at Warwick Daily News may be reflective of a larger issue within the organisation. However, our celebrating the achievements of women in our region for International Women’s Day should not mean we overlook the mistakes some are making. Being a woman does not mean other women can never call you out. And my editor’s desk made it clear that the root of my criticism was their reporting of a rape case, followed by their lack of coverage of a women’s march. You mention I wrote another editor’s desk about Warwick Daily News; it was funnily enough about the coverage of a rape case then too. Almost like this specific outlet, and this specific journalist, has a problem with how they treat women in their coverage of these cases.
If you love court stories, fantastic. All the power to you. I wasn’t implying they shouldn’t exist. I simply don’t think the gruesome details of an alleged rape should be published without considering the person who endured them. Local news is more than that. If we sat in court all day we wouldn’t get time to report on anything else. And we feel that would be a disservice to our community.
International Women’s Day, feminism in general, does not mean celebrating women blindly.
If another woman is doing something I consider wrong, I’m going to call it out. Especially if that thing is blasting another woman’s trauma all over the internet for clicks. Do better? Your better is not my better and I am perfectly comfortable with that.
