Wolf of Wall Street ?..or just a Rat

The Wolf                                   The Rat                      John McGrath                    Liz Hayes                     Neil Jenman

Real estate advocate Neil Jenman has savaged the con-man Jordan Belfort turned "motivational speaker" who is due in Australia this month for a speaking tour.
On Monday evening Media Watch ripped into the man the film the Wolf of  Wall Street was based on and in particular some of the countries vacuous TV shows that presented gushing interviews with Belfort who ripped off thousands of Americans of their life savings in a classic boiler room scam.

But it's Jenmen who has scathingly shredded the scamster labeling him The Rat of Long Island as well as questioning why popular real estate identity John McGrath is sponsoring the crook who will be telling 100s of would-be Aussie moguls how he committed his crimes.
It's a mystery why Mc Grath who also a hosts several TV shows would link himself to this unrepentant crim who walks out on interviews when asked difficult but pertinent questions as Liz Hayes did on 60 Minutes. Watch the video below.
A gut feeling here: this will not end well for John McGrath and he could seriously dent his integrity by associating with Belfort. And that's if Belfort actually gets into the country : Jenman is petitioning the Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to get the Wolf Rat's visa revoked on the claim he is coming to Australia to profit from his crimes which in itself, is a crime.
Read Neil Jenman's fact filled expose of the Rat of Long Island here.

Copy This ! : Designer's Anger at Newspaper

Strong words have been appeared on Facebook with professional Australian designers expressing their disgust at an advertisement that appeared in the Fairfax newspaper The Sun Herald on the weekend.
Heidi Dokulil, former editor of Monument Magazine and co-founder of the respected Australian Design Unit posted:
 "SMH you should be ashamed of yourself! Yesterday's advertorial for copycat furniture placed opposite the work of an absolute design legend is disgusting. The headline 'make a classic choice' rubs salt in the wound and shows just how low some major newspapers are going to make advertising $$. Design rip-offs hurt the industry and the thousands of hardworking local designers. What next SMH, a feature on Coco Chanel flanked by fakes? I'd like to see how that goes down".  Ouch !.
 Other designers have condemned the positioning of the advert for 'replica' Eames furniture and were busy arranging an email campaign to the Sun Herald. Some have forwarded a complaint to Media Watch. 
An Eames original can sell for around $5400 while the Taiwanese copy, sold out of a showroom in inner Sydney goes for just $1800. In 2011 the US Henry Miller company which distributes furniture designed by the legendary Americans Charles and Ray Eames reached a settlement with the distributor but they are still trading on the valuable Eames name.

left : a genuine Eames chair and right : the "replica"

The Double Bay newspaper Latte Life found recently when it discovered a local shop flogging handbags that looked identical to well known brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, that the law is difficult to get enforced and authorities can be apathetic much to the annoyance of other shopkeepers in the Bay selling genuine goods. 
China is famous for producing 'replicas' (today's speak for rip-off) of just about anything including a Rolls Royce Phantom, Mini Cooper and the humble Toyota Corolla. While the Rolls copy, labelled a Geely GE sells for just $30,000  a genuine Rolls Phantom can cost up to $1M.
 Australia is not new to rip off designs. In the days before the Internet one fashion store chain owner turned property developer was known for having models and friends regularly bring back a suitcase of the latest London and Paris designs which were whipped up into copies in local factories and on sale within days of their appearance on the international catwalks  
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As the election campaign revs into high gear, a 'replica' front page newspaper war has also broken out on Facebook after the Daily Telegraph published it's front page attack upon prime Minster Kevin Rudd.
Those firmly in the Labor camp were furious and a replica was soon on-line replacing KRudd with Tony Abbott. By the end of the day Rupert Murdoch's face had replaced Abbott's. By midnight News Ltd journalists were in the firing line.
And this is just Day One !

Doom & Gloom at Fairfax Media

The independent political website crikey brings disturbing news that Fairfax Media are planning to force redundancy on  up to 300 staff.
Fairfax publish two of the oldest and once most respected broadsheets in the world : The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne.

Just a ten days after Fairfax Managing Editor Greg Hywood gave an interview on the ABC's Media Watch defending the future of printed newspapers, he has told staff at Fairfax that if workers including 90 sub-editors do not accept redundancy, it will be "forced upon them".

Fairfax also own the Southern Cross Broadcasting chain of radio stations and made a profit in 2010 of over $282M

Originally owned by the Fairfax family from 1841, the publishing group has had a variety of owners since Warwick Fairfax's failed 1990 bid to completely privatise the company.

Journalists at Fairfax are not happy campers.

One beef is that editing is to be out-sourced to Pagemasters, a firm owned by AAP. Similar has happened throughout Britain where dozens of small independent news gathering agencies that supplied Fleet Street tabloids with local news have gone to the wall and standard s have declined alarmingly.

king of the world

Britain is still comes to grips with the fact the the giant News Corporation which claimed for years that the illegal hacking of mobile phones was an 'isolated incident' . Demands from politicians for a parliamentary enquiry may have temporarily delayed Rupert Murdoch's plans to snaffle up B Sky B giving him extraordinary control over UK broadcasting but he is expected to still get the go ahead.

And News Corp owns 45% of AAP. The world is shrinking.

Read the whole sorry saga here at crikey.com.au.