Party plans to Labor the point with a news service on the lines of Crikey

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/30/party-plans-own-news-service

Version 0 of 1.

Labor is planning to launch its own news service with the national secretary saying the party’s message is not getting through to the mainstream media.

The party is hoping to hire a journalist on a salary of about $95,000 and to create a news service in the vein of Crikey with a daily update landing in subscribers’ inboxes.

National secretary George Wright told subscribers to the Labor party newsletter about the project in an email and said it would not have the “filter” of mainstream media.

Wright told Guardian Australia the party was hoping to hire a serious journalist with political experience to fill an editor-type role.

When asked if the journalist would have editorial independence Wright said: “Yeah, it would be news coming from a particular perspective, of course; we’re not pretending to be independent, it’s news from a particular perspective.”

Wright said the Labor newsletter had about 300,000 subscribers and the party was looking to capitalise on that.

He said the party already published media releases on its website but wanted to create “something with a bit more personality”.

“We will be building a team [to work with the editor] over time,” Wright said.

The announcement was mocked widely on Twitter under the hashtag #LaborHerald with suggestions such as Bob Carr being employed as the travel editor.

Wright said he had not seen the response on social media but “there is no such thing as bad publicity”.

Self defence tips for Taxi Drivers

By Mark Latham

#LaborHerald

And Foreign Correspondent RT @oz_f Social Affairs Editor Jessica Rudd #LaborHerald

Women's issues: Bob Ellis #LaborHerald

Page 3 girl: Craig Thompson #LaborHerald

Wright said donations for the news service had already started to come in and the party was confident of launching the service in the coming months.

In his email to subscribers Wright said the site would feature handy facts, interesting articles and video.

"You've told us that you can see the Labor message isn't making it through the mainstream media and we have to produce our own news service," it said.