Issue #4 – The Flood Issue. AUD$3.00, with all profits going to The Heart Army.*
When the floods hit Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley in January, it was my job to cover the disaster as a multimedia journalist for [now sadly defunct] online news site Toowoomba Finda. My workmate Steph and I walked through raw sewage, got the work car bogged and talked to some fantastic people. The zine also touches on the damage done to my hometown of Emerald in Central Queensland, and the incompetence of the Queensland government.
This is a zeen about Queensland’s recent floods, with a particular focus on Toowoomba, as this is where the author, Sophie Benjamin, comes from. Breaking news I often get via Twitter these days, then broadcast news catches up & bombards with the same images & sound bytes over & over & then I’m inclined to stop caring as the journalists compound the reality into clichés. In the aftermath, in due time, more thought out & composed stories come out of these situations & I gain & appreciate better perspective. & This zeen offers that kind of perspective. Sophie Benjamin is a journalist for an online news site. She writes in the zeen about her job during the flood crisis traveling around the damaged townships interviewing people who have lost their homes & businesses to the floodwater. We also get her own family’s story, notably in an interview with her brother about their home & neighbourhood. Sadly, a small-circulation zeen has covered flood stories with more insight & detail than the mainstream media ever manages to do. A zeen has made me give a shit about the many people effected by the floods, more than any site updates, any headlines or photo spreads, any sycophantic & overly-dramatic news anchors, more than Anna Bligh’s Auslan interpreter. I’m probably not gonna read a whole book about the floods, I presume there will be one eventually, so this zeen for me is as comprehensive as it’s gonna get. Thank Sophie Benjamin should you meet her.
- SIMON GRAY(Format)
* So far I’ve donated $135.60, which I think is pretty damn impressive for a $3 zine (minus commission from the distributors, of course.)
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Issue #4 – The Flood Issue. AUD$3.00, with all profits going to The Heart Army.*
When the floods hit Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley in January, it was my job to cover the disaster as a multimedia journalist for [now sadly defunct] online news site Toowoomba Finda. My workmate Steph and I walked through raw sewage, got the work car bogged and talked to some fantastic people. The zine also touches on the damage done to my hometown of Emerald in Central Queensland, and the incompetence of the Queensland government.
- Buy it online or in Toowoomba at Smells Like Zines.
- Buy it in Brisbane at Kill The Music.
* So far I’ve donated $135.60, which I think is pretty damn impressive for a $3 zine (minus commission from the distributors, of course.)