SIXTY MINUTES

The standard of news and current affairs here in Sydney is at an all-time low…..and I mean LOW. What’s more, I’m fairly confident that this is the same all over Oz. I can’t ever remember a time when there have been more references to networks’ television shows in their own news services than just recently. On occasions, it even happens on the national broadcaster’s 7.00pm news which is inexcusable.

Then we have the ‘lazy Susan’ platter of topics that goes round and round and round. You know what I’m talking about………. welfare cheats, deadbeat dads, cutlass-waving mad Muslim clerics etc etc. All this passes for news. Just tonight, I viewed the ‘young royals’ touring India and Princess Mary’s/ Margaret’s/ Eugenie’s (fuck, whoever it was!) dress blew up in the wind. That was the focal point of the vision and story. Not the real news that they may have been strengthening the links between India and Great Britain. Perhaps this has been the situation all along but, to me, it seems worse now.

The decimation of the print media industry certainly adds to the gloom of all this. Journalism appears to be a dying profession and, even if resuscitated, it’s an expensive one………at least in the eyes of newspaper proprietors and managers. Sure, the transition to online publications is proceeding but I see no evidence of a corresponding transfer of quality journalism to these internet sites.

When I was a teacher, there was an old maxim that stated that schools were typically ‘data rich and information poor’ and the same can be said for the internet but on a much grander scale. As yet, I’m not seeing anything that resembles investigative writing/ reporting that has the net as its primary site or platform. Now that could be my problem……maybe.

The ‘Sixty Minutes’ fiasco highlights the drivel that we’re prepared to accept as news these days. These clowns made the classic mistake of NOT reporting on a story but, rather, becoming part of the story….in the most heinous of ways. There has only ever been one journalist world-wide who could insert himself into a story and enhance the content of that story because of it. I’m certain that many of you will know who I’m referring to. The Oz reporters in Beirut, most certainly, were not in his league…..and never will be.

The Fourth Estate or the Networked Fourth Estate (whatever you call it, it’s the same to me) was originally tagged, centuries ago, as an influencer, a protagonist, an antagonist and a force in the political, social and economic climate of the times. Of course, its forms and boundaries have changed since those times but its function has not. Unfortunately, in 2016, many of its agencies may need some reminding of that.