17 Minutes
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 1:41 pmIt’s been said that the level of Australian political coverage has been dumbed down to the lowest level possible. Forget policy, forget detail, forget intelligent debate, it’s all about a sound grab or a slogan.
I’ve been meaning for some time to express a thought I’ve mulled over for a while now. It was brought to the surface by a poster referring to ‘that dropkick Oakeshott’. Now this is a widely held view and it all seems to stem from the fact that the said Mr Oakeshott took all of 17 minutes to tell the nation who he would support in Government. That is, the most important decision for the Australian people for some time was explained with detailed reasoning.
If you go back to that day, you will recall Bob Katter taking some time to ramble on about his decision to support Tony Abbott. Some, perhaps a majority, might have thought he was a ‘dropkick’ well before that day, but that’s another debate.
We then saw Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott sit down together to give their decision. It was then obvious that the two would agree. As Katter had supported Abbott, it was also obvious that the other two would do the opposite, as otherwise they would have presented a united front with Katter.
Windsor quickly said the obvious and the obvious was that Oakeshott would follow suit. He did, but made a fatal mistake.
He wanted to say what he had considered before coming to a decision and why he had made that decision. It would have been patently obvious to any remotely interested observer that his decision would be to agree with Windsor, though, as no other reasonable interpretation was possible.
But he took 17 minutes.
He’s now a ‘dropkick’, even though almost every person who expressed an opinion on him up to that time had considered him to be someone who other politicians should emulate.
But he took 17 minutes.
Tasmania swore in a new Premier last week. The headline in The Australian read along the lines of “Left Lady looking for Mister Right”
It’s 2011 and we’re still reading that sort of journalism.
This week it’s a flood levy and the media rush to find ‘victims who will have to pay the levy’, even though the quickest reading makes it clear they’re exempt, or “I’ll have to pay thousands and it will ruin me”, even though you’d have to be on hundreds of thousands to pay that much. It’s 96 cents a week for one year if you’re on $60K, but this is the time of the quick sound grab, so facts get in the way of a headline.
I have a confession to make.
I listened to that ‘dropkick’ Oakeshott intently for that 17 minutes and I survived OK. I’ve only had one negative effect so far, except for making up for it by foregoing half an episode of a TV soapie.
That negative effect? Sadness at the number of times we’re happy to read a headline as fact, or accept whatever ‘fact’ is published that suits our argument.
We’re almost all guilty of it, including me, which is why I enjoy posts on here that attempt to be factual.
I enjoyed that 17 minutes.
All power to that ‘dropkick’.
I’ve been meaning for some time to express a thought I’ve mulled over for a while now. It was brought to the surface by a poster referring to ‘that dropkick Oakeshott’. Now this is a widely held view and it all seems to stem from the fact that the said Mr Oakeshott took all of 17 minutes to tell the nation who he would support in Government. That is, the most important decision for the Australian people for some time was explained with detailed reasoning.
If you go back to that day, you will recall Bob Katter taking some time to ramble on about his decision to support Tony Abbott. Some, perhaps a majority, might have thought he was a ‘dropkick’ well before that day, but that’s another debate.
We then saw Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott sit down together to give their decision. It was then obvious that the two would agree. As Katter had supported Abbott, it was also obvious that the other two would do the opposite, as otherwise they would have presented a united front with Katter.
Windsor quickly said the obvious and the obvious was that Oakeshott would follow suit. He did, but made a fatal mistake.
He wanted to say what he had considered before coming to a decision and why he had made that decision. It would have been patently obvious to any remotely interested observer that his decision would be to agree with Windsor, though, as no other reasonable interpretation was possible.
But he took 17 minutes.
He’s now a ‘dropkick’, even though almost every person who expressed an opinion on him up to that time had considered him to be someone who other politicians should emulate.
But he took 17 minutes.
Tasmania swore in a new Premier last week. The headline in The Australian read along the lines of “Left Lady looking for Mister Right”
It’s 2011 and we’re still reading that sort of journalism.
This week it’s a flood levy and the media rush to find ‘victims who will have to pay the levy’, even though the quickest reading makes it clear they’re exempt, or “I’ll have to pay thousands and it will ruin me”, even though you’d have to be on hundreds of thousands to pay that much. It’s 96 cents a week for one year if you’re on $60K, but this is the time of the quick sound grab, so facts get in the way of a headline.
I have a confession to make.
I listened to that ‘dropkick’ Oakeshott intently for that 17 minutes and I survived OK. I’ve only had one negative effect so far, except for making up for it by foregoing half an episode of a TV soapie.
That negative effect? Sadness at the number of times we’re happy to read a headline as fact, or accept whatever ‘fact’ is published that suits our argument.
We’re almost all guilty of it, including me, which is why I enjoy posts on here that attempt to be factual.
I enjoyed that 17 minutes.
All power to that ‘dropkick’.
