Schembri goes in hard at The Age

If there's been one writer who epitomises The Age's rapid tumble from grace, from a thoughtful broadsheet with an emphasis on breaking hard news to a paper filled with tabloid gossip and inane society pieces, it's Jim Schembri. Prior to Andrew Jaspan taking over at The Age, Schembri was an agreeable enough film reviewer, whose film recommendations - interspersed with the odd little self-indulgent quip - The Verbose Ghost sometimes respected and even chuckled at (only privately though). Now, under Jaspan, he's been let loose on any topic he trips over - literally. Yesterday his piece was based on an informative and overly-long shopping docket he's received, which has to be read to be believed.

But it's today's piece, "Prepare to catch a code that will shake the very foundations of mankind" , which finally broke The Ghost's back and forced us into the Schembri debate. But if you want to read a Schembri bitch-slap, then just google him and read the thousands of acidic words he attracted after his cutting blog satire, which you can read here - 'cause Schembri's a symptom of what's happening at The Age, not the cause. He's copped enough for the moment.

So in today's Age we see his piece on Da Vinci Code marketing, which pops up at the top of page 3 or 5 (don't have a hardcopy handy at the moment) in the front news section of the paper. The problem is it's Schembri's usual tripe: hard hitting sarcasm that could have been written by a 5-year-old North Korean kid with a hangover; long and convoluted insights into his personal life; and an attempt to belittle anyone with the slightest interest in the subject he's indulging.

Here's a little from today's offering, talking about merchandise:

The first thing we must do is dismiss the press notes as they do not count as official merchandise, although they do contain what every journalist craves — a two-paragraph synopsis of the film that will allow me to bluff my way through any conversation with anybody who has actually read The Da Vinci Code.

This leaves us with three items — torch, notebook, hat. If we take the first letter of each item — T(orch) N(otebook) H(at) — and rearrange them we quickly discover that the letters will not make a word, however hard we try. If, however, we add a vowel, I(nvite), we now have TNHI, which, rearranged, gives us the Da Vinci codeword — THIN.

I'll stop, but you get the picture. Even worse than Schembri's writing was The Age's decision to run it in the hard news section of the paper, with prominence and without an edit. Schembri doesn't do hard news, and Jaspan knows it and loves it; he's the hilarious new pin-up boy at The Age, but too bad the rest of Melbourne's not laughing with Schembri. Jaspan's eithier given his new love some Terry McCrann editorial freedom (Herald Sun sub editors have direct order not to touch his copy, and it shows), or he's one of the most incompentent editors a daily broadsheet has seen for quite some time. Especially when the SMH is running with a real news story about the Da Vinci Code marketing, which shits all over Schembri's predicable cynicism The Age calls hard news.