The Age fires freelancer who faked viral ‘Melbourne man’ hipster profile

Fairfax fires the writer that gave them what will probably be their most talked about exclusive story of the year, that was all in the name of a bit of fun.

These rapscallions made my day when the “story” first came out, and they’ve made it all over again now that they’ve proved my instincts right and revealed that it was a joke.

Kenny is right: a fashion-on-the-streets vox pop column isn’t news, and certainly isn’t something worth getting your knickers in a knot over. If anything, the fact that this got through to the keeper could indicate that Fairfax is putting their fact-checking priorities in the right place – where the actual news is.

I would love to close with a comment saying that I’ve bookmarked her site, but it’s so terribly designed that I won’t be going back anytime soon. Bit of a shame, really. I was looking forward to some more shameless silliness.

This whole thing was stupid and even funny, but at the end of the day, a major newspaper got duped by one of its own freelancers and published several false stories. The editors should apologise — that is what media outlets do when their writers are caught lying. Instead, they published an unbylined article http://www.theage.com.au/victo.....q1mnw.html that ledes with a defence from a blogger at a fashion magazine, before pinning all the blame on the freelancer they didn’t bother to factcheck (even though they admit it didn’t pass the smell test). Weak.

Tara and Samuel are Australia’s Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston.

Haha!! Don’t see what the problem is.

Most ‘journalists ‘ sorry I mean Social commentars just make crap up anyway.

They all belong in the sewers

Its not the point. there is no authority for her to have an ‘artistic licence’ on faking bios and outright deceiving readers. Starts with this, then what else?

The fact that this so called reporter has then had the audacity to justify, excuse, and meekly acknowledge outright manipulation is systemic in todays under 30s never ever owning their mistakes, taking accountability and moving on. Instead, there’s the concern only on not wanting it to damage their career.

Furthermore, this woman was holding a position for a colleague of only two weeks, and she cheapened the article overnight. Goodbye to your career and good riddance.

Fairfax judge their journos on how many clicks they get yet dismiss a freelance journo that delivered highly on that metric with (obviously) fake bullshit.

They get exactly what they deserve. You sack serious, experienced reporters because quality journalism costs more than peanuts and doesn’t generate the clicks that fake hipster would.

Now your reputation is muddied not because a clickbait merchant conned your editor to run this on the front page, which is hugely embarrassing, but because that is the newsroom culture that you have sewed.

You pay for what you get. You may con clueless advertisers (and editors) with your clickbait nonsense but you won’t con readers.

I’m not surprised that the story was a fake. I’ m so disappointed that The Age would give so much space to such trivia. I ‘m a rusted on Age reader & have defended it’s quality to several people, but that story was embarrassingly bad,

Ridiculous, but also typical of these times that she was sacked.

That was the funniest thing I had read all year. Creative and intelligent!

Good for you Tara. Here’s hoping you get loads of work as a result of this, from publications with a better sense of humour, and a better appreciation of the value of social media and viral stories. And maybe a better rate of pay for freelancers too…

Look, if you want to interview interesting people in Melbourne there are plenty from whom to choose but The Age is not about interesting people, nor is it evidently about fact checking. How many of their articles are made up? The Herald-Sun has a letters page that has for years published opinions sharing not just opinions but incredibly similar sentence structure. Who is going to fact check the Fourth Estate when the role of public fact checking has been assigned to the very people needing same. It is only by the intense scrutiny of others that this sad truth has come to light: Tara and her friends are privileged brats from Melbourne/Monash universities, and their dress-up games mock the honestly interesting people The Age would never deem worthy enough of their attention.

The Age was right to let her go. Funny or not, great coverage, viral sensation etc etc or not. Reporters are there to report. Not make up fiction. If she wants to be a comedy writer she should focus on that and let someone else have a go at this style of writing. It’s a dumb fashion column sure, but she clearly wasn’t taking her job seriously when she should have been, which means she’s either lazy and couldn’t be bothered doing it properly or thought it would be great to con her editors, colleagues and public for the amusement of her friends. Her ‘apology’ is far from it and just another form of self-promotion.

Who is sillier? The freelancer trying to justify fabrication or The Age for putting its paper at risk. All the typos and lack of sub-editing, misleading headlines and garbage click bait are probably doing more to undermine the integrity of the Age than this stunt, but holy crap, this is dumb and dumber territory.

How outraged people are when they make fun of someone, only to find out the joke’s on them!

Ethics! After years and years of cringe worthy, pseudladen commentary of the most pompous kind, The Age gets antsy over a pair of dungarees!
If and when they ever revert to asking reasonable questions and reporting clearly the balanced view I shall resume contact. Until then I’d rather watch apples grow.

What is all the fuss about?
I think it is hilarious.
Perhaps Tara should have published this interview on April Fool’s day. Then perhaps the righteous police may have been less offended.
What happened to a sense of humour?
Age! Reinstate Tara!

this is hilarious. I want to hire this woman!

Hilarious. Enriches the newspaper. A rare Camellia on the moss moment. The concept of the street fashion if it is taken seriously by readers is a nonsense that is only improved with creative nonsense writing. Congrats Kenny.

It’s Putin’s fault.

I wish that uncritically repeating the justification for the Iraq war or giving a platform to extremists like Bolt and Hanson were as scandalous as a student faking a piece for a fluffy sidebar than no-one cares about.

What a joke! The Hipsters of Melbourne was covered several years ago by authentic persons and credible journalists. She has ripped the story and content from another journalist and make it sensational now by saying it was a joke….here we go the problem here is she lied in the face of confrontation. She has destroyed her integrity and for social media seriously it shows us how shallow the world has become for 5 minutes of fame. Good luck darling. The Age did the right thing!!

Please somebody hire these folk as script writers. The Aussie film industry needs your penmanship desperately.

i strogley belive that he was makeing a mokery of what they were doing in the paper only because he seemed to thinke that it was going to be something but i soon realised that that it was not funny at all especally when he flameinwell looked pathetic and he dose deserve to get what is getting to him in alot of ways he dose

Caroline could totally get a job as an Age sub.

This was so obviously and immediately fake. Maybe the whole chain of command should be given the arse seeing as their checks and balances (if any) couldn’t sniff out this stinker.

Ay yay yay … the desecration of the vox pop journalism ‘art’ form. The hunt, the prowl, the approach, the building trust … just enough to eke out decent quotes and get permission to take a photo – this is the FUN of vox pop pursuits.

As a former Sunday Age staffer (way way way back in its formative years), I did the vox pop for some years each week. Sure, cold calling folks in Bourke Street Mall for their views about the ridiculous home loan interest rates at that time (around the 18% mark) was the toughest. I approached almost 60 people with my spiel before I could get half a dozen people to say ‘yes, I’m fine with that’.

It was worth it.

Though, sometimes getting the singular celebrity vox pop was more tricky. Pre-internet days, it was only through ringing Actors’ Equity agents that I could figure our who was representing who and “track ’em down” for a quote. Pester power sometimes worked – I remember both Dermot Brereton and Kate Cerebrano saying “you? You’re calling me again? What do I have to do to stop you ringing me about vox pops?”

“Talk to me, please,” I replied.

Perseverance. It’s at the core of journalism.

5 minutes of my life I will never get back *sigh*

Never celebrate lazy journalism. It’s a slippery slope. Doesn’t matter what you report. If this girl couldn’t find an interesting subject out in the Melbourne streets, she’s not cut out for the job.

Also don’t get those people complaining about fairfax letting her go, and at the same time saying something around the lines of “you never believe what you read in the papers,” what sort of logic does that hit? What do you expect? They had no choice. Doesn’t matter what beat she was covering. How much angrier would you be if they kept her? Seems that you’ll be angry no matter what they did. But that’s internet logic, huh.

I hear that the Betoota Advocate might be advertising

Let me get this straight: she was freelancing for a freelancer for a paper that is increasingly becoming infotainment? Kudos to her.

Clearly Tara is seriously talented. She should be hired to work on Mad as Hell.