The Age Pwn3d Yet Again As 3AW Misfires

By Nicholas Fogarty (fogdog) & BomberBlitz
Fairfax Media owned Melbourne radio station 3AW today have labelled BomberBlitz.com, the amateur supporters website for the fans, as “racism, offensive language and insults”.

Neil Mitchell’s morning program discussed a story listed on BomberBlitz.com that referred to Etihad Stadium as “Jihad Stadium”.

The programs Donna Demaio, during her sports segment described how to search for the article written by a reporter of BomberBlitz.com, increasing the traffic on BomberBlitz.com as well as providing free publicity for this humble little website! Welcome outraged radio listeners from talkback land!

During the discussion, 3AW’s entertainment gossip reporter Donna Demaio failed to report that a search of “Jihad Stadium” resulted in hundreds of other websites, blogs and articles that also refer to this tongue in cheek naming of the stadium. Including Demonland (the Melbourne supporters equivalent to BomberBlitz.com) – Melbourne supporter Neil Mitchell might like to checkout that website also – it is a good read :-)

The Fairfax owned “The Age” newspaper themselves referred to Etihad Stadium as “Jihad Stadium” in this blog: Realfooty reference to Jihad – however, realising their hypocrisy in the issue – references to “Jihad Stadium” (which had been sitting there for more than 6 weeks) were quickly removed following today’s publicity.

But you can’t delete the incriminating evidence from Google Cache –

Further investigations by BomberBlitz.com have also discovered that Official AFL Broadcaster Channel 7’s Yahoo7 website have also used the term “Jihad Stadium” and UK tabloid The Sun refer to UK soccer club Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium as “Jihad Stadium”.

We take serious offence at 3AW’s actions to try and tar this website with their scurrilous allegations without fully checking their facts and researching the history of the “Jihad Stadium” moniker on the internet. Just as we didn’t call Telstra Dome by it’s real name. The “Jihad Stadium” moniker is stupid, puerile, childish and lame, just like what the internet is! The internet is a stupid place and we are just one small part of the stupidity, people who try to read something into the stupidity are just stupid themselves (or journalists). To try and manufacture outrage on a non-issue, all 3AW has shown is their own owners hypocrisy.

If we have seriously offended anybody, we apologise for that …. but BomberBlitz.com will brush this incident off and continue to produce fodder for lazy journalists just as we have for over a decade. 3AW might like also to note that BomberBlitz.com was a proud sponsor of the AFLs’ first devout Muslim player Bachar Houli – we put our money where our mouth was instead of bitching from the sidelines. So 3AW’s allegations of racism once again is misguided.

This issue between BomberBlitz.com and The Age/Fairfax Media is the latest in an ongoing saga after BomberBlitz.com members pulled the pants down on a senior journalist when a false story was written about the recruitment of Ricky Mott after a tip off from a BomberBlitz member.

Read the ABC Media Watch Transcript on the “fake” Ricky Mott story by clicking here

Three years on from that, it seems the old media journalists still have not learnt their lesson of running a story without first checking their facts.

The Age this morning contacted BomberBlitz.com for comment about this story, a reply was sent asking them to comment about the same (now removed) “Jihad Stadium” reference on their RealFooty website – we are still waiting for their reply!

The Age, Neil Mitchell and Donna Demaio were contacted for comments about their employers involvement in the issue, however, none have responded.

Posted 21 July 09 in News