Australian Grand Prix melbourne racing
(Image: AAP/Julian Smith)

Crikey readers jumped at the chance to dig into the Australian Grand Prix (which Alana Schetzer pointed out yesterday was considered a waste of taxpayer money by an apathetic Melbourne populace) — from the questions of accuracy in its ticketing reporting, to its very reason for existing. Elsewhere, readers reckoned with the responsibilities of traditional and social media during crises like Christchurch. 

On the questions of the Australian Grand Prix

Peter Logan writes: It’s a con. It always has been. Greg Baum of The Age won a Walkley ten years ago exposing it. A new book on Newcastle Supercars shows this sort of thing is endemic to this state sponsored “street racing”. But it has bipartisan political support, so auditors general have found it hard to crack. A billion dollars of state subsidies has gone into the grand prix, all based on misleading and deceptive claims.

Marcus L’Estrange writes: Despite evidence of ticket prices, seating capacity, general admission areas and audited ticket sales figures showing the event sells no more than 70,000 seasonal tickets, the AGPC claim massive crowds that mysteriously are never visible in those numbers during the event telecast and their figure includes 15,000 “officials” for each of the four days plus thousand of free entry students on Thursday and free tickets issued with the number being confidential. The GP is the only sporting event that estimates attendance. All the others do an actual head count. Why? The AGPC is horrified of the long suffering Victorian taxpayer finding out the real attendance figures.

Jock Webb writes: The Melbourne Grand Prix has always been a farce. Adelaide was the season-ending race, with the championship still in play. Awesome events were seen. Melbourne is the first race has nothing riding on it and is simply a bullshit joke that extends daylight saving (pitch black at 7.15 this morning) and achieves nothing other than buggering up the park.

On social media’s reckoning

Bruce Hassan writes: The killer’s video turns up in unexpected places – A Greek-language news program came on SBS and I wondered how they would treat the story. It was the first item, opening with the killer’s eye-view film down the barrel of his gun as he entered the mosque and pieces of him shooting people. I turned it off, so don’t know how much they actually showed. It’s not just social media that needs to lift its game.

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