Journalism - the valueless degree.

Even the most inattentive could not possibly have missed the deplorable decline in the standard of journalism since it became a degree course.

The above photo and caption were published today on news.com.au.

The best the kid who wrote the caption can hope for is to use the excuse of "I made a typographical error and one word was omitted."

In which case they should be sacked on the spot, for using bad English.

Alternatively the (cough) journalist who captioned the photo is (as are 99% of "journalists") clueless on "army stuff" and has written the caption exactly as they intended.

In which case they should be sacked on the spot, for gross stupidity.

There are actually Three different forces you know

The seemingly complete and total cluelessness of journalists about military matters ("army stuff") is one of the sadder aspects of the output of the modern university journalism courses.

 

Anyone who is aware there is an Army, a Navy, and an Air Force is ahead of many journalists.

 

Examples abound of instances where journalists can't tell a machine-gun from a mortar, a Sergeant from an Admiral, or a submarine from an aircraft carrier.  (If you think I'm joking, you need to pay more attention to newspapers/TV)

 

But they can still tell the Army from the Navy, can't they?   Who knows, but try this one:

 

 

Favourite part of the recent International Fleet Review?

For Mine Host this was in the ABC TV coverage, which at one point ran a short magazine style story on "Women in the Navy", consisting entirely of footage showing ladies dressed in the uniform of the Royal Australian Air Force.

Screenshot taken by Mine Host, during ABC-TV "Women in the Navy" clip.

Wish Granted!

Been griping about the amount of air time ABC news & current affairs programmes have been devoting to the Global Warming scam?

Been hurling the sherry glass at the tv screen in sheer frustration at the amount of airtime ABC news & current affairs have devoted to the 100th-tier issue of "gay marriage"?

Your wish has been granted!

For some years the abovementioned two matters have been (to the ABC) the biggest event since Adam & Eve ate the apple.....

..... not any more, for the ABC hasn't a moment to spare, so busy it is getting stuck into Rupert Murdoch.

You'd swear Mr. Murdoch is the Anti-Christ incarnated.  (If you actually believed what you see and hear on ABC news & current affairs, that is).

The ABC's fanatic obsession has been pursued to the point where their Murdoch-666 obsession has become comedy.

The nadir came on Monday night's Media Watch programme on ABCTV.
Nobody can produce and actually put to air an episode such as Monday night's, not and maintain any claim to be journalists.

Prime Minister Abbott:  Don't just cut ABC funding to the bone - the news & current affairs section needs to be completely dismantled, and started again, with entirely new faces.

ABC hubris

Favourite moment of the ABC's tally room coverage of the recent Northern Territory election:

When it became clear that the ALP government had been voted out, a distraught Kerry O'Brien instructed (yep, instructed) a member of the new government, to not change any of the policies of the [defeated] ALP, because the voting pattern had indicated an affirmation of ALP policy.

You couldn't make it up!

Channel 10 - Back on the Air!

A couple of weeks ago TV station Channel 10 commenced broadcasting for the first time since sometime in March (a break of about 5 months.)

... or so it would seem to anyone frequenting the Wayside Tavern!

In March Channel 10 was tuned out of every television set at the Wayside Tavern (all 110 of 'em) This isn't difficult, just one tweak at the master control.

For in March the host & hostess of a mid-morning TV show on Channel 10 made belittling & nasty comments about a Victoria Cross recipient.

These comments were made on air.

Channel 10 is free to air what they wish.
Mine Host is free to boycott any channel he wishes. And so he did.

A couple of weeks ago the airhead themed morning TV show was cancelled.
Thus Channel 10 is now back on the air at the Wayside Tavern!

In public circumstances (such as a TV appearance) a VC recipient is representative of all who have served, and of all who fell.

To publicly denigrate, belittle, and show disdain to a VC recipient, (going about quiet enjoyment of his life) is extremely offensive.

One of the two philistines, George Negus, is an experienced foreign correspondent & television journalist, with decades of reporting behind him.

He knew better. He has no excuse. He deserves to be shunned from polite society. That is, whenever he appears in public, or private, all should turn their backs to him. (Similar to when military cadets "shun" one of their own for a breach of honour).

The hostess, lacking Negus' worldly experience & perhaps not as capable of meeting the challenge of understanding the discretions & norms of wider society, still should have known better.

Confronted with community & viewer ire (on a grand scale) and with sponsors withdrawing cash from the programme, they each gave a Claytons apology.

They then went on to make some incredibly stupid statements. All of which indicated a total & complete tin ear for the sentiments of decent society. Example: They claimed to be "anti-war", as if that implies a free pass to insult & sneer at the memory of war dead.

Columnist Andrew Bolt (a Channel 10 presenter, whose own show hasn't been seen at the Wayside Tavern during Channel 10's blackout) made possibly the stupidist excuse for them Mine Host has ever read:

Mr. Bolt, who is himself apt to make contentious comments at times, but always conducts himself as a gentleman, does himself no credit by saying that morning TV is a difficult gig, and saying nasty stuff is okay, as it can be "very difficult to think of things to say to fill the hour".

Bunkum! When faced with air time to fill, one is not compelled to say horribly nasty things about people.

The remarks in question were not said in isolation. The hostess, whose media career has rightly disappeared *poof*, did not just suddenly decide out of the blue to say nasty stuff about a national hero.

This sort of comment is built up over time. It was something she was comfortable saying.

In all the months (before spontaneously airing it) the remark was germinating in her psyche, at all the gatherings it (or similar) was aired, to all the people in her social & work circles who conversed with her, not one of them had seen fit to pull her up or correct her.

This speaks volumes.

What's for Lunch?

Newshound Mine Host, refers in this post, to the following newspapers:

Melbourne Argus
Queensland Country Life
Daily Telegraph
Sun-Herald
Sydney Morning Herald
Melbourne Age

Beat that! (for diversity)

Mine Host, an occassional visitor to the (very) big smokes of Sydney & Melbourne, has long & deeply loathed Fairfax newspapers The (Melbourne) Age & the Sydney Morning Herald.....

....because...... you can't read 'em on the train!

Printed on very large sized pages, reading them in the confines of a crowded commuter carriage is no easier than would be folding bed linen.

Good news arrives: These two newspapers shall, early next year, be turned from broadsheet into tabloid. The "able to read aboard trains" market, long the sole domain of the Telegraph or the Sun-Herald, shall finally have some diversity.

This change of page size brings to Mine Host's mind a previous occasion when a broadsheet switched to tabloid:

The major newspaper in Qld is the "Queensland Country Life" (excepting a narrow strip down the coast, this newspaper reigns supreme in Qld) These days a part of the Fairfax empire, QCL was at the time printed on second-hand presses purchased from a newspaper in the far south, the "Melbourne Argus".

For a generation or more, the rural folk of Queensland read about their engagements, obituaries, cattle prices, average yield of the mango crop, etc. on pretty much the same pages as those upon which the Argus had brought the news to generations of Melbourne residents. For reasons that shall become apparent below, those broadsheet pages are fondly recalled by rural Queenslanders who handled them.

Occasional reader, fair dinkum newspaperman, and Melbourne local Bernie Slattery may chime in, on comments below, to give a brief report about the Argus - with focus on the printing press of course.

When the Argus presses reached the end of their economic life, the QCL switched to what is now known as "tabloid" size.

Oh Boy! This change of press size brought plenty of negative reader feedback.

The new smaller sized "Country Life" irritated readers, complaints were many in number, vehement in emphasis!

..... for it transpired that in rural Queensland, where they know what they really want in a newspaper, the new tabloid sized pages were "too small" to wrap a cut lunch properly.


Update: Definition of a "Cut Lunch" (prompted by Dave from Tacoma, in comments)

A "Cut Lunch" is a fulfilling & adequate lunch
For which the consumption of requires no cutlery or crockery
Is prepared at the same time as breakfast
Is carried with one to work, school, the factory, office, wherever
Is of a sufficient robustness to withstand knockabout treatment.
Is cut to size so as to fit into one's saddlebag, lunchbox, or other container.

Usually this is sandwiches (& perhaps some fruit and/or cake).

I'm certain the concept, if not the name, is well known to Dave & other Americans.

One Law for Her, Another for the Rest

Cause of much mirth to Mine Host over the past week or so has been the misguided panic of a coterie of journalists, in regard to the ownership of a pair of newspapers in the deep south.

Yep. The buying of shares in Fairfax by one of Australia's smaller scale mining bosses: Western Australian Gina Rinehart.

Newspapers, as in those printed things you read, are going the same way as the horse & carriage.

The Fairfax newspaper company in particular is so ineptly run, that the only thing people are prepared to bet upon is the actual date it will go bust.

Then along comes someone who actually buys shares in the failing company, and who actually believes in newspapers. (Gina Rinehart)

How do journalists at Fairfax greet their saviour?

With screeching panic, that is how. They bray like donkeys about how terrible it is that she is buying shares.

.....this does not assist one to believe that Fairfax journalists are a particularly bright bunch.

But then, anyone who follows circulation & readership figures (& wickedly compares those to copies sold) will have long known that the numbers of readers being shed by the two main Fairfax newspapers is quite an achievement in its own right.

The journalists at Fairfax are objecting to the very person who is likely to save their jobs.

Except of course, they'll be expected to (ugh) work for their money. Gina Rinehart has the look and manner of one who will not be indulgent of staff indolence.

Mine Host's favourite parts (in a mini-saga that downright bristles with instances of dickheadsmanship)?

1/. The insistence by the Fairfax Board of Directors, of whom none have signed a charter of editorial independence that Gina Rinehart must sign such a document as a condition of getting a seat on the board.

This pre-requisite of quill-must-meet-parchment or you don't sit on the board, has never been required of any other board member.

The only directors to ever so sign their name, were already members of the board when they just up & decided to sign.

2/. The insistence by a coterie of journalists that Gina Rinehard sign "the charter". Or else what....?

For there isn't one such document. There are two. One for the Sydney Morning Herald, and a different one for the Melbourne Age.

These really skilled investigative journalist types, could perhaps brush up on their facts before publicly engaging their mouth. Which of the multiple charters are they insisting she sign?

The same (cough) journalists who can't get it right about the number of charters-of-editorial-independence, simultaneously, & without any sense of irony, are screeching about quality journalism.

Fairfax is known as "fewfacts" for a very good reason. These same (cough) journalists who declare they are producing "quality" journalism, more than anything else are cut-&-paste clerks. They get most of their actual, you know, news from an AAP feed. Occasionally they'll camouflage the AAP feed with a bit of a re-write.

One thing is certain: The sooner the sheltered workshop calling itself Fairfax gets a real boss, the more chance that it may be saved, along with the jobs of some (undeserving) journalists.

Nappy Change Time!

Recently two members of Australia's olympic swimming team, in the USA for training (Australia has no swimming pools?) posted to facebook, photographs of themselves holding crossed shotguns or pistols (in a local USA gunshop.)

These off-duty photographs sent members of the following groups bonkers:

• Journalists
• the swimming team hierarchy
• The Australian Olympic Committee

Journalism, an occupation in which the cohort of clueless & chattering types is a considerably larger percentage than for most occupations, declared in print & on air, that the "weapons" the swimmers had posed with were the same as "those used in the Port Arthur massacre".

Well, the scary ballistic stuff does come out the end with the round hole in it, but that is about where the comparison to the port arthur weaponry ends.

... But, gee.... why bother to research actual facts, when you can just make it up? After all.... "guns is guns, right?"

Then some feminised bedwetter in the olympic hierarchy (seemingly a masculinity-free zone) declared that the swimmers should only post photos on facebook that you'd want to "share with your mother or grandmother"

...... which is exactly the sort of photograph the swimmers did post on facebook!

The nadir of this farce occurred a few days later when the swimmers returned to Australia. Confronted at the airport by a phalanx of journalists, one of the swimmers stated that it had just been a "bit of fun" & he said he was sorry if anybody had been offended by the photos.

Actually the swimmer's apology was rather a grovelling one. He didn't apologise for the photos, but only for inadvertantly offending anyone who'd seen the photos.

This got the morning TV wankocracy babbling about the "lack of sincerity" in the "clayton's apology" etc etc etc.

What the "journalists" overlooked was that this apology was a sign of the swimmer's lack of character...
.... for in this instance he had nothing to apologise for, and he should not have apologised at all.

Were Mine Host (who has never represented Australia in swimming) to be confronted in similar circumstances about posting on facebook a photo of himself nursing a firearm, he'd advise the journalists, and especially the Australian Olympic Committee, to go & have their nappy changed.

Framed!

Hands up if you've ever been interviewed by a journalist.
Hands up if you've ever been subsequently misrepresented by that journalist?
(Golly, everybody kept their hands up!)
Hands up if you've ever had a journalist misrepresent their motives to you? Who hoodwinked, or lied to you, not chasing news to report, but instead something they could twist to fit their preconcieved notions?
(Funny, most people still have their hands up!)

Click through to the picture to read this one:

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has been the most respected & revered broadcasting voice across the land. When I was a kid the ABC radio was the only transmission you could get. Messages were broadcast over it, for many communities. (No longer a requirement in this day & age when every householder has a telephone.)

When the bulk of Australia received a TV reception for the first time, in the late 1980's, ABC TV was the last to get into action. We had the commercial stations long before we had an ABC TV reception. (Perhaps that was a sign of the decline.)

In the bush respect for the ABC is now sub-zero. Respect has been replaced by contempt. For this the ABC can blame only itself. There is a special hell where these reporters are destined for, where unending fires burn one alive in perpetuity. Deservedly so.

This outfit (ABC) should no longer be funded by taxpayer money. From a broadcaster that passed messages to listening remote communities (eg: search & rescue operations, urgent meetings when the government was about to foreclose on more than half the stations in the district, etc.) it is now an outfit that is not only working against the interests of the taxpayers who fund it, and the people who have depended upon it, but is also working against the national interest.

Professional Journalist

The local newspaper runs a news article about me. A most inaccurate & unfair article. The entire article is fabricated subjective assumptions and is bristling with lies. It is very surprising that the newspaper printed it.

The article seems vaguely familiar.

Then recognition dawns! It is almost word for word a transcript of what Mr. Motelier was spitting at my doorman early that morning.

It transpired that Mr. Motelier had lurched drunkenly home, taken two-finger aim in the general direction of the keyboard, and put what he had been saying into an email, one spattered wiht the spellngi anf puntcuaiton errora of the drunkn typist, then sent it to the "newsroom". (Hick newspapers in yokel towns don't have newsrooms, they have one room of desks, with about 5 open-plan cubicles.)

The senior journalist at the newspaper had printed it word for word. In that same day's edition. And put her own name on the byline.

The 2-i-c and I had a rather unhappy interview with the senior journalist, where she backed herself further into a corner.

None of what she had written (correction: what had been ghostwritten for her by a drunken motel owner) was true, and could easily be demonstrated to be untrue.

Her story unravelled quite easily. Journalists often aren't good debaters, particularly when they are defending a lie. She had written about what happens inside the Wayside Tavern and on Front Street, between 2 and 3 am.

When asked what she thought of the atmosphere inside the Wayside Tavern at that time of morning she (the "journalist" who had put her name & reputation alongside the research & writing of the article) reacted in a most superior manner:
"I'd never go into your grotty pub at that time of night"

And the words came from her own mouth. It was too easy. Getting her to say it wasn't even challenging.