The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info -----------------------
Last updated on July 26th, 2017 at 12:18 pm
Job offer at Webdiary. Or is it? The wording is ambivalent; could Margo actually be inviting someone to pay $50,000 for the privilege of joining her happy team?
As Editor of Webdiary, I am offering a position as Webdiary journalist for one year for an all up payment of $50,000.
In return, you get the freedom to showcase the best you can do as a journalist, with support from Webdiary experts, researchers, designers and all sorts of other talented Webdiarists. In other words, you would be the director of your work from beginning to end, including choice of headline!
But you do have to pay for all your own bold tags.
UPDATE. Webdiary reader Solomon Wakeling is confused, and Margo isn’t helping much:
Solomon: The point is I’m struggling to understand whether you’re offering employment as a journalist, for $50,000, or whether you’re requesting payment of $50,000 in exchange for rights to a column. The first plan seems unecessary, since you have so many fans who would be volunteers, and the second plan sounds over-ambitious, unless you’ve got some really, really eager fans.
Margo: It’s an advertisement, Solomon. I’m offering full time work to a journalist for a year. I’ve already had an expression of interest from someone I’d be proud to appoint as Webdiary’s first professional citizen journalist, and we’ll talk further I’m sure. I’ll see what else comes in, OK?
UPDATE II. Margo clarifies:
When I said “In return” I assumed that journos who earned more than that would be interested in the opportunity. So, in return for a drop in pay, you get …
She can’t even write a job ad. Hot tip for this high-profile role: Antony Loewenstein.
UPDATE III. Ad now re-written:
As Editor of Webdiary, I am offering a position as Webdiary journalist for one year for an all up payment of $50,000 all-up payment to you of $50,000.
- Now, she does realize that even if she has a laser printer, and it’s only Australian currency, she can’t just print the stuff herself…?Posted by richard mcenroe on 09/05 at 01:20 AM • permalink
- I can’t believe it, but I think you’re right: she’s actually asking someone to PAY MONEY for the privilege of writing on her web site!
Full marks for audacity. Shame that the only people that stupid have long since been fleeced of their assets. What could have driven her to such desperation?
What’s that I hear, Margo? Sounds like the debt collectors repossessing your electric car!
Posted by Alan Anderson on 09/05 at 01:26 AM • permalink
- Hagrid seems to get a little tetchy when tested on the $50k ‘donation’…
”…If I want to ask for a $50,000 donation, I’ll ask for one, OK? Seen any donation buttons on Webdiary yet?…”
That’s funny Marg…it looks like that’s exactly what you are asking for…
”…I am offering a position as Webdiary journalist for one year for an all up payment of $50,000…”
How else where you proposing to secure this stipend?
Maybe you should give it to your sycophantic oxygen thief Marilyn Shepherd. Lord knows she needs the gig if only to stop her writing her bilious crud to the Hun everyday.
Then again maybe you could secure a Funded Grant from the lefties in the petrie dish at the Australian Research Council.
Who knows…benevolent Bob Ellis might even kick in the requisite shekels in an attempt to reaffirm his own insanity.
Posted by Jay Santos on 09/05 at 01:39 AM • permalink
- fcuk, I thawte itw as a jOb ofer.
Four a mo ment their eye thouwght awl my xmaseses did come at wunce.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 09/05 at 01:48 AM • permalink
- Don’t most job offers include requirements—i.e. “office skills”, “university degree”, “no criminal record”, etc?
So we have professional journalists working with citizen journalists in all areas of expertise.
If you’re being paid, doesn’t that make you a professional? And if you’re already a professional journalist, does that somehow take away your citizenship?
The woman has gone completely around the bend. She can’t even post a job offer without screwing it up.
Oh, and she’s already lost 5% of her management team. How are the other 19 going to feel when she’s out trying to recruit journos for a not-insigificant sum of money, yet can’t afford to pay them?
- You should go for it, Tim. That’d pay for some LONG LUNCHES with EXPENSIVE WINE. It’s not like she’s talking about a no-compete up there, so it’d basically be getting a $50K check and blasting Bushitler and the j00s in the occasional article.
Plus, as a bonus, your last article could be on why Margo is so batshit-loony.
- Margo could pay her expenses if she could get a reality TV show paying her to let them follow her around every week, though the deal would probably fall apart before the show got started since she would insist on having a hand in the editing.
Margo has provided plenty of amusement here. She could do so for a mass audience.
- Good grief. Trying to get a coherent sentence out of this woman is like trying to weave a rug out of milk.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 09/05 at 02:16 AM • permalink
- LOL! She is SO busted on this one! I’m actually starting to feel sorry for the poor old sod. Err, ‘soddess’.Posted by Deo Vindice on 09/05 at 02:20 AM • permalink
- Deo Vindice:
I was starting to feel sorry for her too, until I read this: Is New Orleans the beginning of the end of the war in Iraq?
What a maroon. And I don’t care that she didn’t write it; she posted it under her name.
- Ok, I just had a thought formin’ in me head. Why dont we have a whip around, raise the 50k and appoint someone whacky to edit Webdairy? I vote for Habib!Posted by Deo Vindice on 09/05 at 02:27 AM • permalink
- As an aethiest I don’t know who to thank for creating Margo Kingston. That’s about the tenth belly laugh she’s givin me in the last week.Posted by Hank Reardon on 09/05 at 02:28 AM • permalink
- Sadly in Australia, to be a professional journalist all you need is a paying gig.
Journos of Margo’s vintage often went through a cadetship system instead of a uni degree and the only things they had to their name was a newspaper byline, a pay slip and membership to the AJA.
I see from Margo’s biog that her degree is in law not journalism, so strictly speaking she falls into the above category.
However, achieving modern qualifications as a journalist frequently leave people even less well equipped for the realities of the job.
— Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 09/05 at 02:29 AM • permalink
- Mark Steyn on Katrina in the Sun-Times
Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, director of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Endowment (and no, I’ve no idea what that means, though feel free to do your own jokes), wrote a hurricane essay arguing the novel line that “The Terrorist Katrina Is A Soldier Of Allah.” You could sort of see his point. Imagine if al-Qaida were less boneheaded and had troubled themselves to learn a bit more about the Great Satan’s weak spots. Imagine if they’d decided to blow up a couple of levees and flood a great American city. Would local and state government have responded any more effectively than they did last week? After all, Katrina, unlike Osama, let ‘em know she was heading their way.
and
You could have done as the anti-war left wanted and re-allocated every dollar spent in Iraq to Louisiana. Or you could have done as some of the rest of us want and re-allocated every buck spent on, say, subsidizing Ted Turner’s and Sam Donaldson’s play-farming activities. But, in either case, I’ll bet Louisiana’s kleptocrat public service would have pocketed the dough and carried on as usual—and, come the big day, the state would still have flopped out, and New Orleans’ foul-mouthed mayor would still be ranting about why it was all everybody’s else fault.
Posted by walterplinge on 09/05 at 02:41 AM • permalink
- As Editor of Webdiary, I am offering a position as Webdiary journalist for one year for an all up payment of $50,000.
What are the ethics in charging $50,000 for something that Fairfax only gave $48,000 to run?
In return, you get the freedom to showcase the best you can do as a journalist,
Hmmm, working out of a net cafe in Byron sets the bar pretty high.
with support from Webdiary experts, researchers, designers and all sorts of other talented Webdiarists
Who are presumably dumb enough to work for nothing. Gee, the ethics flow, all those worker drones. And its Howard and Bush who are the evil ones?
In other words, you would be the director of your work from beginning to end, including choice of headline!
How about Margo sells out?
- I’m missing something here. Margie’s been crying poor so where are the bucks coming from? ‘Patron Power’?Posted by Deo Vindice on 09/05 at 03:52 AM • permalink
- “In return, you get the freedom to showcase the best you can do as a journalist, with support from Webdiary experts, researchers, designersand all sorts of other talented Webdiarists. In other words, you would be the director of your work from beginning to end, including choice of headline!“
- Correction Deo – Margo is “penniless” and is “begging”. A cool $50 K to spare must be her definition of “penniless”.
Can’t be an AWA, since many a blank computer screen has been filled to the brim on WD objecting to such things (indeed, I once asked the question if any of the WD’s so vigoroulsy contributing to a particular thread had ever worked under an AWA – there were no takers. It seemed that I was the only person reading the thread who knew anything at all about AWAs, having signed and worked under numerous of such). So, ideologically, surely it won’t be an AWA.
A handshake, perhaps, along with all those blank headlines to be filled, and box of bolding tags?
- Headline 1 –
‘Pay me an award wage you batshit crazy stinking heap of pus’
Posted by Harry Buttle on 09/05 at 04:32 AM • permalink
- Poor young Solomon n Wakeling – Tim has given him more lurving attention than Marg0, despite Solomon’s best efforts to become part of Marg0’s inner sanctum of sycophants.
Solomon really has tried hard, over a period of time, inclusive of subtle hints, open begging and offering his free marketing and financing tips, but all in vain. Now his patient waiting for an invitation to have his talents recognized must be wearing thin. Within a matter of days he has moved from this comment:
“Margo, don’t forget to be a contributor, too. I always get a buzz reading your published work. Talent in full-flight.”
To this snarling comment, at the end of his ‘exchange of thoughts’ with Marg0 about the job for purchase / hire, as already covered by Tim:
“Gotcha. You’re offering a free, year-long ticket on the Titanic.”
Meow. Saucer of milk is on its way.
- I’ll take the job, but I want the money up-front!Posted by Young and Free on 09/05 at 05:13 AM • permalink
- #37. In a brown paper bag.Posted by Deo Vindice on 09/05 at 05:20 AM • permalink
- Off topic but equally absurd is Martin Flanagan’s attempt to enlist Gallipoli hero Simpson in his own tiny-minded war:
Simmo praised the arbitration commission. This Government has actively undermined the principle that represented. Simmo was a union man. The trade unions are carrying the fight against the same Government’s proposed changes to industrial relations legislation. Perhaps students might ask what Simmo would have made of the Howard Government. And you can’t help but wonder, were he there, what Simmo would think about Iraq.
Students better make that a rhetorical question if they know what’s good for them.
(Url changed to link by the Management. Please use standard html for linking for long urls. Thank you.)
- Off topic but equally absurd is Martin Flanagan’s attempt to enlist Gallipoli hero Simpson in his own tiny-minded war:
Does Flanagan really want to go down that line?
What would Simpson have though of homosexual rights? Multiculturalism? Equality of the sexes? The fact that most union members didn’t vote for the ALP last election?
Making a case based on what you *think* someone from 1915 might think is a slippery slope.
Posted by Quentin George on 09/05 at 05:53 AM • permalink
- So Margo hires somebody. Signs an employment contract for $50k with them. Plus the benefits and other costs (e.g. super, insurance, training, paid sympathy leave for dead pet wombat etc).
Margo struggles to attract revenue to pay the salary because her business model is unviable. In desperation, Margo takes steps to drum up business. Margo tells employee to start writing about things that the people really want to read about – latest adventures of Warney, Brad & Jen etc, other celebrity gossip, soap news, horoscopes, Big Bro’ and plenty of footy! Webdiary gets taken over by New Idea/Ralph/TV Times/The Picture.
The alternative scenario: Margo refuses to ‘sell out’, doesn’t attract the revenue to meet her labour costs and then has to make said employee redundant – presumably having to fund redundancy costs out of her own pocket. It would be interesting to see how Margo then views the new IR laws, for the first time when the issues affect her own pocket as an EMPLOYER.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 09/05 at 06:13 AM • permalink
- #26
ChHart, Whatever or whoever created Margo completely screwed up if the intention was for her to be a credible journo. They nailed it though if she was supposed to be a RWDB entertainer. Conceptually I think of Margo as a court jester over the web if you will, only more ridiculous.
Posted by Hank Reardon on 09/05 at 06:28 AM • permalink
- Flying Giraffe – no, no – the $50 K is “all up”, which, for normal people would mean inclusive of salary, leave entitlements, Internet cafe expenditure, and superannuation.
New or old IR laws would not apply to small business, thus NO redundancy payout. Her penniless pocket would not be affected, since the 2326 people who constitute the management, experts, researchers, transition, strategy, financial modelling, keeper of the bold tags, etc, etc, teams are all unpaid volunteers, therefore, they do not count as staff.
Difficult to know what the future employment prospects of the first laid-off “citizen journalist” would be though.
- float_on, when you’re tired of Margo-bashing, you’re tired of life.
What I wanna know is, who’s the mysterious benefactor who stumped up the fifty grand? it can’t be a fantasy, can it?
Posted by reverse_swing on 09/05 at 07:01 AM • permalink
- Don’t you love how a sniff of responsiblity makes the lefties control freaks. ‘You will answer to me’…and if you dare compete with Margo, ie express your opinions freely on your own blog site your exiled to some cyberian gulag, never to return. She’s just another petty tyrant passing herself off as a democrat. How long till do you reckon it will take till she starts adjusting the total control of content offer?Posted by platey mates on 09/05 at 07:10 AM • permalink
- I would love to see someone like Iowahawk apply for this job. That would be hilarious.Posted by drscroogemcduck on 09/05 at 07:26 AM • permalink
- To be honest, I dont think that witchypoo knows what she wants:
‘You’d report to me, of course, and we’d be answerable to each other’
Hmmm, I used to indecisive, now I’m not so sure.
And this gem:
Hi Lester. Webdiary’s revenue model is being worked through as we speak.
Centrelink must be working late
- Color me skeptical, but I still have thoughts that Margo is a fiction, a construct conceived by Tim Blair to generate web traffic to his blog. What makes me think so?
Well:
1) if not for the funny shenanigans of Margo, maybe of us would not come to Tim’s blog as often as we do
2) since we come here, hoping to read something ludicrous that Margo said or did, we often leave one or more comments. At other blogs, they get only a handful of comments, but here Tim gets 50 – 100, all free of charge
3) worse, if I want to use tags (other than arrows), I have to pay Andrea for them (pay me or you die wronwright – gulp)
4) my gawd, look at her picture! That’s satire, that’s what it is. She didn’t even brush her hair! No, that’s Tim Blair with a wig on. And, uh, maybe he rub himself first with an ugly stick
Tim, just how stupid do you think we are?
Posted by wronwright on 09/05 at 08:53 AM • permalink
- Um, that should be “many of us”, not “maybe of us”.
Yes, preview is our friend. But she a damn expensive one. Tim is charging for it. Curse the commenter who pointed out that a blogger can charge for tags and whatnot on his blog.
Posted by wronwright on 09/05 at 08:56 AM • permalink
- Wait’ll the unionistas get to hear about the job situation on the good ship Lol–ipop.
The only answer to the mysterious benefactor….Who is Margo’s second best friend in all the world,stinking rich and sufficiently stupid enough to throw away that kind of moolah. Probably regards her as having learnt everything at his feet.Afficionado Philip Adams OF COURSE.
- I think you might be on to something with the Phat Phool, crash.
$50K to the old commo is short change.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 09/05 at 10:55 AM • permalink
3) worse, if I want to use tags (other than arrows), I have to pay Andrea for them (pay me or you die wronwright – gulp)
Yeah, that reminds me… where’s my paycheck, bitch! (Slaps riding crop into palm.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 09/05 at 10:55 AM • permalink
- Timmmmm—Andrea called me a bad name! Can you have your Administrator ban her from this—oh damn!
Andrea, I do have access to the Neocon petty cash fund (current balance $666 million). But after spending money on bussing the jooos out of New Orleans (real nice luxury busses, stewardesses, movie, the works) a week before the hurricane came ashore, I threw a keg party at the Greenbriar Resort (ever try to get kosher beer?, it ain’t easy) and Karl’s a bit miffed at me for the bill.
I’ll try to get your bill paid Andrea. But I need to wait until Karl’s in a bit better mood. That might take some time though.
Posted by wronwright on 09/05 at 11:39 AM • permalink
- No, Margo’s well worth analyzing and criticizing.
Writing is hard. Writing unambiguously is harder. Everyone screws it up once in a while. (Hint: Pronouns are not your friends.)
But when a professional writer lacks the skills to say, unambiguously, “I would like to hire someone, and will pay $50K” the first time off, you just have to sit in stunned silence.
Posted by John Nowak on 09/05 at 12:54 PM • permalink
- O/T re #39 and #41
I caught the end of a piece about the Burma Railway on Red Kerry’s show last night. It was to do with a 91 year old bloke named Flanagan who was a survivor of the Burma Railway. His son, Martin Flanagan, who was described as a writer was saying that anything blokes like his dad said about war – hinting very strongly at Iraq – must be taken to be authoritative (moral authority?). Basically he was saying that somehow governements must do as these old diggers say in these matters. He was shamelessly using the suffering on the Burma Railway to push his cause.
So he is enlisting the diggers from both world wars to fight his particular factional war.
And if he does really want to push that line I’ve got some interesting views on Cathy Freeman and indigenous matters generally that were provided to me by an old mate, recently deceased, who was also a Burma Railway survivor.
- On topic, I had a really big laugh over at Margo’s yesterday.
There are all sorts of appointments happening.
In response to someone suggesting how to correct her ad, she announced that some clown was the new general manager – she’d forgotten to announce it until now.
Then she said she’d have Kerri get right on to it – the ad change that is – before announcing to the rest of the colony that she’d promoted Kerri to deputy editor yesterday.
Next line, up pops: Deputy ed Kerri: done.
I wish she’d said “Done Chief!”
I don’t know if DEK is responsible for the strikeout thingy, will have to keep an eye on that.
It really is great entertainment.
- #60
Agreed Harold, it’s great watching this lumbering bureaucracy in action. I particularly like their grasp of technical aspects:
“Kerri, can you amend using that strikeout thingo?”
Oh. Bold taaaggggs.