I’m a rampant media consumer, way too much of the time I should spend being productive I am instead wandering around the internet reading about stuff. Politics and religion and sex are all staples, but if you can write really well or have something really interesting to say (or enough of one to make the lack of the other irrelevant) I will read your shit.

Bloggers tend to have one particular topic they write about, politics, sport, parenting, religion, feminism, maleism (is that a word? Do we need a word for that? Ok, let’s save that for another post), body image, fashion, food, crafts, and on and on ad infinitum. They write intelligently and articulately on all these subjects, without sensationalism or prurience. By comparison they can, and do, make the mainstream media look foolish.

This is not just me being a snarky cow, I feel sad and a little bit betrayed by the failure of outlets like The Age and the ABC to maintain the high standards of journalism they used to have.

Channel 7’s nauseating performance in outing David Campbell, and then trying to take the high moral “public interest” ground was typically grubby, but commercial media stopped being our opiate years ago, it’s our amphetamine, its purpose is not to inform it's to promote fear and/or outrage.

I have no problem with the if-you-don't-like-it-don't-watch-it philosophy and I'm more than happy, in fact I'm delighted, to stay right away from the troglodyte press.

Last night, however, the ABC, that last refuge of the fourth estate, showed footage or a traumatised grandmother being interviewed by police after the pram containing her two year old grandchild rolled off a station platform and onto train tracks. What the fuck ABC? How is that news? How is there any public benefit in broadcasting that poor woman’s face to the whole of Melbourne? Leave scurrilous gossip to channel 7 and do what you are supposed to do – provide information and analysis we would not otherwise have.

Tony Abbott’s cock-up of an interview on the 7:30 report is still being gleefully picked over by most of the media. Abbott is a tool and the fact that he can’t handle Kerry O’Brien is an indication of his inability to handle the pressures of high office, but where is the genuine analysis of the abilities of the alternative prime minister? His lack of economic credentials and unwillingness to utilise the only person in his party who has any, out of what appears to be nothing more than petulance, rarely gets mentioned. I’ve seen it on Crikey and on this political blog, but where else?

Asylum seekers are used as political footballs all the time, but where are the legal social, economic and historical issues about refugees discussed? Here and here (yes, that was us, but I'm proud of that one and won't apologise for pimiping it) but where in the mainstream media do we get more than "look out the towelheads are coming to steal your babies"?

The ABC and The Age maybe struggling to define their place in the new media landscape, but the solution, for the ABC in particular, is not to race channel 7 around the S-bends. The ABC and The Age have three things that bloggers don’t: time, money and access; and three things the tabloid media don’t: intellect, expertise and gravitas. The sad demise of New Matilda indicates that there may not be much room in the middle, but there is still a pace at the top, that's where the ABC and The Age should be firmly planting their flags - and they're not Get your shit together guys, because once you've given up your credibility you can't get it back.

+ 1

+ 1