In this series of articles we explain to you how ESCDaily.com works and why we do things the way we do them. The first editorial is about our roots and reason of existence: Finding the Australian angle.
Escdaily.com was officially launched in November 2009, by a couple of Australian music journalists with a passion for the contest. They started a Eurovision news website aiming for our home soil, Australia – but they soon gained a lot of support from within Europe as well! In the first five years of our existence, Australia was not able to take part in the contest. That all changed a small year ago.
Before the Australian participation, we were always looking for Australian artists in preselections and the numerous party’s in Australia, honoring the Eurovision Song Contest. Finding the Australian angle can also mean focusing on the Australian composer of “A Million Voices”, or interviewing the Australian member of Genealogy.
For years, we did not have our own participating country to focus on, but it did not matter; there are so many people Down Under with cultural ties to a European homeland! Australian Eurovision-fans, much like the ones in Europe, want the latest news from all participating nations.
We have editors working around the clock, all over the world to bring you that news, as it breaks, as your fastest reliable source. One of the strenghts and values of ESC Daily is that we have several graduated journalists in our team, professionals who have the core values of journalism as their standard.
“Australians love to compete,” said the first Australian Head of Delegation Paul Clarke once to us in an interview. Therefore, ESC Daily approaches the Eurovision Song Contest primarily as a competition, as a sports event almost. We do that for the enthusiastic Aussies who love nothing more than to see their country contend against others. But we also do it for other Eurovision fans all over Europa (and the United States) who have found their way to us.
Australia in the contest
With SBS really joining the contest, we could not be happier. It gives us loads of extra work, but the way Australia is approaching the contest is mouth watering for us journalists following the contest. They take things serious and have a professional attitude. Just like Team ESC Daily!
We get to make more interviews with Australians about the contest, since there will be more and more artists taking part on behalf of Down Under over the years. And we will keep following their every move; something we do not really do with former participants from other countries.
The Australian participation also brings us some new challenges. ESC Daily is not representing the Australian delegation from SBS, nor the other way around. We are an impartial media outlet and will maintain a critical independent attitude towards the Australian delegation. Impartiality, however, is not the same as neutrality: we support the idea of Australia in Eurovision and we wish our entry all the best in the competition.
The Eurovision Song Contest is big in Australia, and Australia is big in the Eurovision Song Contest. This gives ESC Daily a reason to work even harder for you, and bringing you even better content.