Club Troppo

It’s no secret that I don’t think very highly of journalists. Too many of them use lazy shortcuts dressed up as serious journalism. The most common is “two-soundbites-and-that’s-a-wrap” trick, where they just get two different people, who they’ve decided to label as rivals, to provide a soundbite each. Then they write it up and head down the pub.

Another favourite trick is to get people to respond to mangled quotes. Journalist rings with a line and asks you to respond. You’re put on the spot and “have to” say something, or they’ll exercise their divine right to accuse you of “evading”, “back flipping” etc. So you give a response to some wild, outlandish quote. Later you find out that the original person never said what the journalist quoted to you. Lovely.

In the USA The Daily Show acts as a kind of humorous Media Watch. They had a good go at CNN in their latest broadcast, which I found all too familiar.

Australia gets mentioned as a unit of measurement.