From The Guardian:

“Having watched this fantastically unthinking and heavy-handed adaptation I feel the only way to make it less subtle would be to let Michael Bay direct it. As it is, the task has fallen to Baz Luhrmann, the director of Moulin Rouge! and Australia, a man who can’t see a nuance without calling security for it to be thrown off his set.”

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Halifax’s Chronicle Herald in Canada has pulled off a similar feat: Misspelling its own name in a headline about its award winning journalism.

(Hat-tip: Poynter)

2pm update: And in a spectacular case of glass houses and stones, this from today’s daily Mumbrella email:

The post Sack the sub appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Dr Mumbo notes the launch of a new event next week – The Humanity In Business conference on Wednesday May 22, which sees media company speakers well represented.

Among the speakers are Mi9 CEO Mark Britt, Slingshot founder Simon Rutherford and SBS HR chief Melinda Tunbridge.

The post Media shows some heart appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Tony Thomas: Never met a mirror he didn’t like

To Sydney’s Sebel Pier One and The Siren Awards for Australia’s best radio ads, hosted by Mix FM’s Tim Ross.

And Rosso had an important announcement to kick off the breakfast event, aimed at his former colleague, DMG Radio’s dashing marketing director: “Just one piece of housekeeping.

“Tony Thomas was looking for a mirror. It’s that way.”

But Rosso understood the difference between making radio ads and presenting, telling the audience: “You should try the other bit: where you have to tell the time.”

The post Tony Thomas: The man in the mirror appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

So he’s delighted to see that Fox Sport’s Rugby HQ is righting the balance celebrating “the best game day entertainment of all time” on its YouTube channel.

And here at number six is slow-mo footage of cheerleaders stripping down to their bikinis.

As Fox Sports puts it in the accompanying description: “It’s The Girls doing what they do best”.

Because clearly they do that better than Man Things like rocket science or business or brain surgery.

9.15pm update: Credit to Fox Sports, the line has now been deleted.

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The post Hopping over the paywall appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Lion Nathan’s beer brand XXXX Gold is looking for a brand manager to take on the role of promoting its XXXX Island.

The ad is up on Mumbrella’s jobs board with the “key responsibilities” being managing the XXXX Island marketing campaign.

It has been a year since XXXX GOLD announced it had acquired the island and six months since the first guests.

Marketing a beer-themed island off the coast of Queensland sounds mighty tough.

The post Must love beaches appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

In a column published in The Daily Mail, the self-proclaimed high-achiever describes her position as “torturous” in comparison with that of her “scatty, jobless” friend.

“Now in her 30s, she tends to crash from one career crisis to another and inevitably will have just quit one job and be searching for her next,” Molloy writes of her friend. ”She’ll arrive with a hangover, minus her wallet, meaning she won’t be able to pay for dinner.

“At some point during the meal, she will always say the same thing: ‘You’re so lucky, Amy — you’re so driven and successful.’ She envies my life, my career, my salary, my prospects.

“But the truth is I envy her failure. It’s hard being a lonely and joyless high-achiever. I wish I could be mediocre.”

Molloy’s drive to success has burdened her since she was a toddler.

It pushed her into achieving straight-A’s throughout school and university, to land her first job at a national newspaper, and to be “repeatedly promoted” until she was made editor of Grazia at the age of 28 (which closed after seven months of her being at the helm).

Molloy insists: ”Being successful is torturous. It’s isolating — you lose weekends, holidays and (if you’re not careful) your social life.

“Some people can struggle to be around the super-successful. They think I’m looking down on them and maybe sometimes, subconsciously, I am.”

If her professional achievements were not enough to separate her from the masses, Molloy writes of her success as a champion gymnast, marathon runner and her ability to exercise enviable self-control by following a sugar-free, alcohol-free diet. (Dr Mumbo notes she has previously written elsewhere about her time as a sufferer from anorexia.)

“It’s rare that I have genuine fun and the closest I get to relaxing is reading a magazine for research. I watch people laughing in cafes and wish I could be that idle.

“I’m beginning to see how one-dimensional — not to mention boring — a life fuelled by ambition can be,” she said.

So sufferable it is, that Mrs Molloy will sometimes “lie in bed and cry” on a Saturday morning, “knowing I have two options for the weekend: to work and feel exhausted or take time off and battle the guilt that I’m lazy.

“If you think I sound boring, you’re not the first — I’m not fighting off social invitations.”

Dr Mumbo did wonder whether Ms Molloy had fallen foul of imaginative subbing on the part of the Daily Mail. At the time of posting, she could not be reached.

Dr Mumbo suspects that if making friends is her struggle, this column won’t help. Although it almost certainly will go viral.

The post Being successful is hard, says the editor whose magazine was closed down appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

But this piece of work by Saatchi & Saatchi shown on the day, Dr Mumbo feels, deserves to go viral.

Quite the most adorable thing. Ever.

You can see the full round up of videos here.

The post First taste appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

As Dr Mumbo’s spy puts it: “No more squealing.”

The post Silence of the pigs appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

If there’s two things he hates, it’s when they’re sitting in the front row.

And if there’s three things, it’s name droppers.

So imagine his feelings towards a person who would be capable of combining the three.

Somewhat spectacularly, that person achieved the trifecta in Sydney last night during a monologue from comedian and storyteller Daniel Kitson.

When the performer stopped the show to ask what the hell he was doing, the miscreant’s somewhat awkward reply: “I’m messaging Courteney Hocking to tell her how you’re doing.”

Courteney Hocking, Google tells Mumbrella, is an occasional comedy writer and former contributor to Good News Week who once appeared on the radio with Kitson.

If you’re going to namedrop, you can probably do better than that.

Or, you know, don’t be a dick in the first place.

(By the way, it was still a work in progress, but Dr Mumbo thoroughly recommends Kitson’s show After The Beginning. Before The End.)

The post Worst media namedrop ever appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

But as it’s now been forwarded to him by three different people, he feels he can’t resist:

So we can probably identify who’s not going to win digital marketer of the year.

The post How not to be digital marketer of the year appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

He was wrong.

For those unfamiliar with newspaper history, News International’s The Sun has never fully recovered from the untrue claims it made about football fans at 1989′s Hillsbrough Disaster in the UK in possibly the most notorious front page of all time. To this day, its sales have not fully recovered in North West England. No paper in the UK, he is certain, will ever use the words on a front page again.

The Daily Telegraph does not, Dr Mumbo assumes, know its family history, based on its presentation of the Tom Waterhouse affair today.

The post Loaded words on a newspaper front page: ‘The Truth’ appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Last year Holmes indicated that he would be finishing up mid year and Crikey has recently reported that a new replacement would be announced next month.

Amid the rumour and speculation about a replacement Dr Mumbo salutes the diligence of betting brand Sportsbet for creating a market on who would be the next host.

And the Sydney Institute’s Gerard Henderson, star of the somewhat ABC-sceptical website Media Watch Dog, comes in fourth paying $8 (presumably there are rules preventing the inclusion of Nancy his dog).

Former Media Watch hosts Paul Barry and Liz Jackson are among the favourites at $3 and $6 respectively. While Dr Mumbo thinks he would quite enjoy a Media Watch hosted by John Safran…

Dr Mumbo thinks readers should also spare a thought for some of the more conservative contenders for the role. Sportsbet puts Janet Albrechtsen and Andrew Bolt at $9 and $10 each (a little generous maybe?).

While The Australian’s Chris Kenny is way out at $26.00 and regular Media Watch contributor (technically true) Alan Jones is paying $51.00.

Market courtesy of Sportsbet- Next Media Watch Host

• $4.00   Paul Barry
• $5.50   John Safran
• $6.00   Liz Jackson
• $7.00   Kerry O’Brien
• $8.00   Gerard Henderson
• $9.00   Janet Albrechtsen
• $10      Andrew Bolt
• $11      Andrew Denton
• $12      Julian Morrow
• $13      Lin Buckfield
• $15      Geraldine Doogue
• $17      Stuart Littlemore
• $19      Tony Jones
• $26      Chris Kenny
• $34      Tracy Grimshaw
• $51      Alan Jones

The post Gerard Henderson for Media Watch host? The odds narrow appeared first on mUmBRELLA.