Ah, cancel culture! Or is it can sell culture?
I think that politicians proposing that a phonics only approach would improve our literacy may need to take a deep breath. Whoops. A deep bref.
Anyway, apart from the fact that none of the anti-cancel culture, political correctness gone mad warriors had any problem with Alan Tudge’s we should ban “Dark Emu” in schools, I have noticed a tendency for journalists to argue that there’s a need for expertise when people criticise journalists on Twitter.
Now, let’s get one thing straight, people there is NO excuse for violent threats, abuse or bad language. Any fucker who’d resort to such things should be beaten in public for daring to behave so badly…
Notwithstanding that, I find it interesting that the media frequently ask people to comment on areas outside their field of expertise. This is, of course, fine. I frequently comment on all sorts of things I know nothing about but nobody then suddenly goes, “Hey, Rossleigh said that maybe we should replace democracy with a system where whoever gets the most likes on Facebook should get to be PM for the day.” In other words, people recognise that I’m either on solid ground or I’m putting myself forward as a candidate for the Dunning-Kruger award for 2021.
While it’s true that sometimes people don’t realise that journalists may be playing a devil’s advocate role and asking difficult questions but one doesn’t need expertise in journalism to notice when politicians from one party get asked questions like: “Where will you find the money to pay for action on climate change?” while politicians on the other side get asked, “How did you come up with such a brilliant strategy on saving the jobs of so many people?” Yes, if Scott Morrison gets asks his favourite colour by some journalists, Albanese will be asked to explain how the refraction of light through a prism may result in colours on the wall.
So, it’s interesting to reflect on this with the shock resignation of Gladys who stunned people by announcing that the fact that ICAC was investigating her relationship with Darryl which was dodgy and her relationship with the truth which was possibly not as dodgy but the jury hasn’t even been sequestered on that one…
Yes, one Sky News journalist pointed out that ICAC had brought down three NSW premiers but not one conviction. There is some potential criticism over the first one, which was Nick Greiner who was subsequently cleared. And, while it’s become popular to suggest that Bazza O’Farrell went down over a bottle of wine, it’s always worth pointing out that it was his insistence – under oath – that not only did he not receive a bottle of Grange worth thousands of dollars but because it was bottled in the year of his birth he definitely would have remembered such a gift. While I have no wish to comment on any potential outcome from Ms Berijiklian’s appearance at ICAC, I feel that it may be a little early for the journalist to be insisting that Gladys is another one where ICAC failed to get a conviction.
Another interesting headline was “LYNCH MOB GETS BERIJIKLIAN” from The Australian. It was behind a paywall, so I’m unsure who the lynch mob is. After all, she stood down “unexpectedly” so it’s hardly those uncouth Twitter folk what done her in. Is it suggesting that ICAC is the mob? Whatever it doesn’t make it sound like they think that she stood down for any other reason than an inability to stand up to bullying… Oh, it sounds like she gave in to pressure when you put it like that. Or was the lynch mob her party colleagues who all wanted her job?
Compare that to yesterday’s Herald-Sun in Melbourne where one of the sub headlines was: “ANDREWS AGAIN BLAMES VICTORIANS FOR RISE IN CASE NUMBERS”. I inferred that they thought he should be blaming someone else but it’s hard to fathom who else is responsible for some of the spread if not the people who held Grand Final parties or who attended protests without masks.. . I mean it’s pretty hard to blame the French. if they were suggesting that he should take the blame, then it’s hard to work out what they think he should have done, given their rhetoric has been all about opening up and not worrying too much about the odd thousand cases here and there.
Well, I could be wrong, but I suspect that any day now there’ll be media articles about what a mistake it would be to have a Federal Integrity Commission when ICAC is responsible for such a great Premier as Gladys having to stand down when she’s done nothing more than have loyalty to her partner and if we’d had a similar one at federal level then who knows how many of the great performers like Stuart Robert or Richard Colbeck would have lost their portfolios over some minor issue like forgetting where they left it.
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