Today, more leaks about The Advertiser’s cunning plans, Jill Bottrall gets Bottralled for Bottralling, Rupert Murdoch’s local lads whinge about private investment in journalism, and one of Jay’s pillars of wisdom starts to look wobbly.

More leaks than an echidna’s raincoat

InDaily had the pleasure again this week of announcing the news from Advertiser HQ, this time the formal stepping down of Sunday Mail editor David Penberthy and the axing of The Advertiser’s monthly glossy Adelaide Magazine.

It took Penbo 11 days to tell staff our original story was correct, but only half a day for Advertiser Newspapers managing director Ish Davies to follow up our Adelaide Mag yarn with an all-staff email (which was promptly obtained by The Outsider).

In the best traditions of “spin”, Ish described the axing of the magazine as a step forward.

“We have taken the decision to redirect our journalistic and advertising effort into an expanded SA Weekend that will house as of February 2014 – on a weekly basis – much of what made the Adelaide Magazine attractive to readers and advertisers,” he said in the email.

“There are no job losses associated with this change – it is simply a matter of more effectively channelling our investment.”

From what we can gather from under the desk at Waymouth St, SA Weekend’s founding editor and inspiration Roy Eccleston will most likely head to the Sunday Mail and Adelaide Mag editor Jim Plouffe to SA Weekend.

For his part, Plouffe told staff he was “excited that we are amping up our coverage of Adelaide and South Australia. It’s time we gave all our readers what they need when they need it – from the news of the day to the best places to have after-work drinks on a Friday night. We will do this by shifting the lifestyle content to sa weekend and building our daily digital offering.”

Is he saying that coverage of Adelaide and South Australia has been somewhat lacking? Surely not.

There will be one more edition of the Adelaide Magazine.

News flash: Murdoch hates competition and private investment

Meanwhile, in head office, News Corporation has launched a series of attacks in its national publication, The Australian, at the notion that someone would dare to compete with them.

In case you missed it, InDaily’s publisher Paul Hamra is part of the group that launched The New Daily in Melbourne two weeks ago – and a cracking read it is.

What got up News Corp’s nose was the fact that some superannuation funds had invested (from their marketing budgets) in the venture.

Perhaps the fund’s managers were trying to offset their investments in Fairfax (shares last seen heading south at a rate of knots) and News Corporation which reported to the ASX last week a 22 per cent decline in quarterly Australian newspaper revenues.

Hey Rupert! We thought you liked stuff like investment and competition.

Bottrall Bottralled for Bottralling

We at InDaily are fans of former Rann staffer Jill Bottrall’s blog on political matters.

But some of her Labor colleagues are not so pleased.

This week she penned another, rather well-argued piece, analysing Jay Weatherill’s weaknesses on the economy and how he might remedy them.

It seemed a long way from furious tone she used when displeased with journalists during the Rann years – a trait that led to the phrase “being Bottralled”.

However, she soon discovered that others in the party have also mastered the art of Bottralling.

We understand a senior party figure – not known for possessing a fierce temper – gave her both barrels, which led to this contrite Tweet:

“Note to self. Stop Bottralling your Party and Premier of choice. Labor is fairer for all & @JayWeatherill will always be better Premier.”

Fortunately, she’s still planning to keep sharing her thoughts: “Absolutely intend to keep blogging. However subtlety is not my forte (who knew?) so must learn to write without a sledgehammer,” she Tweeted.

Bitter taste

One of Jay Weatherill’s seven pillars of wisdom is that South Australia should be known for its food (the catchy slogan is: “Premium food and wine from our clean environment”).

But apart from a bit of dough for fruit fly research, the Government doesn’t seem to be putting its money where its gourmet mouth is.

Other states have stolen a long march on SA, including Tasmania, the big eastern states, and now Western Australia.

Today marks the start of the impressive 2013 Margaret River Gourmet Escape festival – the second since Tasting Australia had its last outing in SA in 2012.

The program shows an array of culinary stars, from Heston Blumenthal to Rick Stein to Adelaide’s own Jock Zonfrillo and Poh Ling Yeow. Needless to say, the national and international publicity for WA is flowing.

Meanwhile in SA, the home of premium blah blah etc, there has been almost nothing said about the next SA Tasting Australia festival – slated for April next year.

Tumbleweeds blow around the Tasting Australia website.

Poignantly, Tasting Australia’s departed founder, Ian Parmenter, makes his home in Margaret River.

Greetings from Australia’s gourmet tourism capital!