It’s 9pm in the Daily Telegraph bunker and Gemma Jonestown is screaming herself hoarse.Her nationwide scoop about fatcat asylm seekers scoring free taxpayer-funded microwaves to heat up their 2-minute noodles is held up in production.

“For chrissake, Woodward and Bernstein would KILL for this story,” she screams, between hurried sips of her Hungry Jacks large chocolate shake, “It’s only a photo illustration, mate!”

But the news editor knows that it is the picture that sells the story. And this mock-up is a munter – a couple of towel heads lying around on deck chairs in front of flat-screen TVs, paid for by your Mr and Mrs Campbelltown struggling punter. I ask you, target market or what?

“Keep a sock it in Gemma, this’ll win you a Walkley,” reassures the harried news editor, sending a screentop to the Page 1 sub to go with the splash “WHO NEEDS MECCA?”

Meanwhile, over at the non-Photoshop, traditional photography desk (where the pictures are real), a crew is sent out for a story about a 10-year cancer victim, Rebecca White, who has been told to wait for a kidney transplant because there is no donor and no funds.

The news editor glances from one item to the other on the job sheet. Then: “OH YES!”, he screams in an orgasmic moment of journalistic revelation. “Let’s do a two-shot on the front page: MECCA BEATS BECCA. Write this: ‘As freeloading Islamist queue jumpers exploit Aussie hospitality, red-tape bungling threatens the life of a young Aussie battler’.”

And so it is that the expensive shoe leather of  Australian journalists is worn to a sliver – speaking truth to power and bravely standing up for the disadvantaged many against the privileged few, who exploit Aussie hospitality to escape certain death in Iraq or Afghanistan.

What’s more, this is a story that keeps on giving – an editorial lecture about those who would take advantage of our charity, a three-hour rant-and-spittle-redistribution from Alan Jones between multiple spins of Macarthur Park, and a strategic doorstop from Scott Morrison juxtaposing the luxurious Koran Divans with the bum-numbing Shire Tyres. Then we can have a head-nodding Tony Abbott reprimanding Scott about going too far and saying that even Jesus was a towel head.

Over at The Drum, meanwhile, Stephen Long can suggest that perhaps Morrison is playing cynical race politics based on lies and misrepresentation. That’s the cue then for ABC boss Mark Scott to issue a grovelling apology to Morrison. Meanwhile, young Gemma gets backslapped by her boss for a great “yarn” and takes another long suck of her milkshake.

So, never let it be said that our hard-working mainstream print media does not keep our democracy strong  in the face of apoplectic, hysterical, pyjama-wearing bloggers who pander to the lowest common denominator.  Never let it be said that our brave Gemmas do not twist the truth and make stuff up to keep you safe under your expensive Doonas listening to talkback radio.

So go to sleep little Australians. The  Deep Throaties are on the case -screaming themselves hoarse so you can dream your little, brittle dreams.


6 Comments

kymbos · June 14, 2012 at 9:30 PM

Oh, how I'd hoped there wasn't a real Jonestown article underpinning this.

KnifeySpoony · June 14, 2012 at 10:33 PM

thank god we have multi-national media organisations to protect us from those elitist asylum seekers. With their genuine stories of horror and surviving the odds, thank goodness we have Gemma to keep the blighters on their toes.

Anonymous · June 15, 2012 at 12:35 AM

but Mr D, they forgot to work in a carbon tax reference …

Anonymous · June 15, 2012 at 10:38 AM

Nah. They've choked it and dumbed it down, driven off its old demographic for the new MacMansion audience that can't function without noise and advertising, to sell to Murdoch.
The problem for them, now that Murdoch has been exposed in his full abjection, is that he is not a fit and proper person to own media.
At the same time, even the Fairfax Board is resisting another lunatic, Rinehart, from deep control there.
But for this, liblab and the corporate string pullars would have smashed all trace of broadsheet and we'd be totally blind(ed)to the real world
Paul Walter.

Anonymous · June 17, 2012 at 12:34 AM

It's not mainstream media, it's lamestream media.

Anonymous · July 24, 2012 at 10:33 PM

dumbed down by corporate interests and too dumbed down to realize.

Leave a Reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *