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The Forum > Article Comments > And now for the news? > Comments

And now for the news? : Comments

By Alison Sweeney, published 18/7/2007

People are understandably losing interest in current affairs: television news sometimes borders on the farcical.

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As if the news isn't bad enough we have to put up with those dreadful current affairs shows. First the news: is it news to tell us that efforts will be made to pull a bulk carrier off a beach? And here we were thinking that it would be left stuck on the beach because it allowed local artists to test their skills. Really.

Following hot on the heals of the 'news' we have to put up with the day's diary entry regarding Paris, heavily retinued, and her activities. As we sit, hypnotised by the small screen and afraid to draw breath, we are told that Paris double-parked her Merc, adjusted her padded bra, and then boldly strode down Rodeo Drive pouting her lips. Seeking relief, we swap channels only to tune into another dreadful show asking us to vote on our favourite screen kiss. And after the ad break, they promise to show us the exclusive story of Peggy who has lost 35kg by eating healthy foods and exercising. Hardly secrets.
Posted by Sage, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 9:01:40 AM
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TV News is easy to avoid - unless you have a family member who insists on it. Banish them if necessary. It's the last source you go to if you want to know what's happening in the world. Said this before - go for a constitutional, read a book, find something to do that has a point to it. When friends start to talk about tabloid tosh, change the subject. My experience is that you miss nothing that matters.
Posted by Henery, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 9:30:19 AM
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there are news sources, sage. but you have to change channels, and even surf around the net. troublesome for an arthritic old codger, i expect.

did you know there is a channel called sbs? there is english language news from germany, usa, even australia, imagine that!
Posted by DEMOS, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:31:48 AM
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Television news and current affais for that matter - at least on COmmnercial TV is pitched at people with reading and comprehension skills of a 12 year old - as is the writing in papers like the Tele or the Sun Herald.

Television news and current affairs is a list of shiny objects lined up to attract the attention of the Homer Simpsons of this world - essentially it is garbage.

I once started to mourn the passing of free to air commercial TV - it once was a product of some value - right now I am encouraging prompt and merciful Euthanasia - at least for the valueless commercial variety.

James Packer has tried to kill it off - and the subjects of Gerald Stones book are still doing their damndest as well. I wish them all the very best of luck.
Posted by sneekeepete, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:42:25 AM
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DEMOS if you wish to see the banality of news presentation tune into the BBC and you will get tiresome repeats of the same "news" every half-hour.
Posted by Vioetbou, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 11:05:51 AM
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TV News brings worthwhile lessons in linguistics to our dumbed down audiences.
It is comforting to hear, and watch, the ABC's sports presenter, Dawke Bogan, deliver commentaries, enhanced by adding an "a" for stress to the end of selected words.
Very important a.
Posted by Ponder, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 12:10:39 PM
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DEMOS, we (my nurse and myself) are locked in battle at the moment over the small matter of missing my medication. Imagine the fighting if I spent hours hunched over the keyboard 'surfing' as you suggest.

SBS news...I said I was bored with the news but I'm not that bored just yet.
Posted by Sage, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 12:17:11 PM
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It's called news lady, like the weather it changes. Perhaps you should to. Come out of your 1960's "This is the BBC World Service" & move into 2007, where the news is delivered to my living room by a young attractive lady, who isn't preaching to me. Who cares if I'm not interested in it she looks good. If I want to find out what's wrong in the world I'll ask my father-in-law
Posted by SNS, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 12:50:26 PM
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My father used to say, the man in the street gets his information
from the daily tabloid.. (circa 1945). Well same for commercial stations, and I must say, recently, the ABC 2007. SBS is hanging in there by a thread.

Current Affairs' programs are not much better. Occasionally you will
get some work by John Pilger, and other expats.of like mind.

I mostly go to the internet these days and search for what I want to
know, not something some backroom producer gives me in a 1-minute grab on the TV screen. In any case, they pound us with pictures
in nanosec. grabs. We can do without the pics. For me, news is Words. The Independent media isn't doing a bad job, Long may they Live.

The Oz and SMH still have some comments worthy of reading, but when
I have read these, I go to the internet to see other views on the
same topic. Well, we educated the masses! Now we feed them
tripe. Nothing has changed. If we're going to oust the incumbent in our Fed. seat, the only way to go about it is, yes, door-knocking.
The voters certainly won't learn anything on the "news".
Posted by lesley, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 1:37:59 PM
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You say the nightly news sometimes borders on the farcical. Sometimes?

Thje ABC is as close as we have to actual news, local, national and international.

Commercial TV stations usually ignore international altogether except when there is someone ", A QLD nurse once met the person who made Princess Mary's dress" or similar tripe.

If you are dumb enough to watch commercial TV news you won't know most of what is happening as their agenda's exclude certain items and certain political stances.

When the ABC reports those issues they are accused of bias.

And please don't refer to those 2 schlock shows on the commercial TV stations as current affairs. They use the term but they might as well use the words farce, BS, repeat and simply, garbage. Nothing they cover is current affairs unless you count celebrity activities as news.

If you actually want news you have to watch Fox news and you will know the opposite of every single word is the truth.
Posted by pegasus, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 1:57:24 PM
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I have been on bushwalking trips which separated me from civilisation for up to 2 months. No news at all. When I came back I found that I had not suffered from not knowing what was going on in the slightest. If you are addicted to the news or sport or the lives of celebrities, then you have been conditioned over time to be that way by the media business.
Posted by healthwatcher, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 2:08:08 PM
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Commercial TV news and current affairs are an indistinguishable porridge (and about as appetising - apologies to our sponsor Uncle Toby). They bear as much similarity to real news as wanking does to real sex. Just as anything called "reality TV" bears as much similarity to real reality as... well, you get my drift.

Since nobody else has brought it up, yet further evidence of the above assertion is particularly apparent here in Victoria, where AFL "stars" occupy a substantial percentage of news (as distinct from sport) and current affairs stories; this is never because of their football prowess, but rather because of their, well, current affairs and other addictive problems. Remember Wayne Wotsisname and Ben Who? In the U.S.A. (remember our great and powerful friends?) politicians are regularly being outed for experiencing extramarital bliss. Seems that in Australia you have to be a sporting identity to attract that attention. Remember Warney?

I rather suspect this dumbing down of free-to-air TV might be something to do with attempting to get us all to subscribe to pay-TV from sheer desperation. Face it, folks: John Howard (remember John Howard?) said we can all afford pay-TV.
Posted by Genre, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 2:09:49 PM
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Ponder, we always enjoy a good laugh at that too a.

Back on topic, studies in the US and Canada have found that people who are actually interested in the news (as opposed to people who just watch it out of habit) are going to the internet to find out what's really going on. If you depend entirely on one source of news it's a fair bet you're only getting one side of the story. The same item from a few different sources often gets you a lot closer to the whole truth, which is what a well-informed person is ideally after.

Commercial news media is more of a misnomer every day. Why they bother to keep calling it news is a mystery a.
Posted by chainsmoker, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 2:33:56 PM
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I couldn't agree with you more! The amount of coverage given to a ship lodged in the sand off a Newcastle beach was ridiculous! I find it is best to only watch the "real" news on either SBS or the ABC. Don't get me started on the so called current affairs shows and even 60 minutes is in the business of sensationalising most of their stories. Generally though, the news coverage is so depressing, it is barely worth watching it at all. Let's have some good news coverage for a change!
Posted by Foxy C, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 3:27:45 PM
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"Current Affairs" programmes were perfectly represented by that long-gone satire "Frontline", with the commercial news broadcasts not far behind.

I remember one of the observations during that show where it was said that current affairs is not about news - it is about emotions. We want to cheer for the battler, depise the child molester and so on. The use of existing social prejudices was also well illustrated on several occasions.

Nowadays, there will usually be story about somebody being ripped off, something about rampant bureaucracy, something uplifting, the latest fad diet, and always - something to fear.

Generally, there is little real information provided - just entertainment and the illusion that we have been well-informed about what is happening in the real world.
Posted by wobbles, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 4:14:34 PM
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I don’t think media employees have the faintest idea what interests the public. They whip themselves into a frenzy about what they think is interesting, while the rest of us put ourselves into a coma until their screeching ceases and something we do want to hear or see comes along.

Alison Sweeney is so right!

One, brief, radio news bulletin in the morning is enough for anyone. And, we don’t need to hear guesses about the weather – we already know what it’s like.

Television news is crap: more writing on the screen than in a book, plus the stupid, distracting and irritating channel logos. Not to mention the dogs reading the news believing that they are-so-attractive instead of brushing up on pronunciation
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 6:40:29 PM
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If you really, really want to see dreadful news you have to go outside the cities and watch any episode of WIN News, in any region of Australia, any weekday.

The Canberra WIN News, which runs 6 till 6.30, is enough to make the 9 News broadcast from Sydney look intellectual. there is approximately 30 seconds of anything which may actually be "news" then the rest of the bulletin is whatever drivel they could knock together about how the Red Hill knitting circle's Dulcie has just knitted her two hundredth scarf for a local footy team.

I recently realised, to my great surprise, that I hadn't turned on my TV for a week. I'm not anti-television, I think TV as a technology is great. But there was just nothing on during that week which enticed me to have a look. The news is better online, and Big Brother can't compete with a decent book and a glass of red.
Posted by AnthonyMarinac, Friday, 20 July 2007 8:17:47 AM
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You've basically got 2 choices, SBS TV or ABC radio. And for current affairs, ABC Radio's AM or PM programmes.

What's most interesting is listening to the coverage of a news story that you are actually personally involved in. They (every channel) almost always misquote or misrepresent the details.

I quit my job in commercial television over 10 years ago when they told me they had to increase the lingerie stories in the current affairs programmes because that's what the viewers wanted to see!

The Journalists at the commercial station I worked at often hadn't completed their jounralism degree and so could only be titled 'reporter'. These 'only just 20-somethings' (because the younger they are the better they look on camera) had no education in history, politics, finance or philosophy. All unnecessary for the job apparently. They can only handle what they understand, hence: Pasha Bulka.

The biggest joke was the retired sports stars becoming sports reporters. Everybody wanted to know when Let's Elope was going to start doing the racing news.

You can just do like my family and throw out the tv. You're really not missing anything. And all the rest you can buy on DVD before it hits the tv screens.
Posted by M.Whitehouse, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 1:58:18 PM
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Nobody has dumbed down the news more than the media itself. They ran story after story to scare people into handing over their liberties and now that such seizure of rights is now affecting the media, they cry like little babies. They made their bed and now they have to sleep in it.

A disturbing trend I have noticed lately, are news items that is nothing but a company sponsored item. The news is becoming but one long commercial and I wouldn't be surprised to find them advertising the latest vaccuum of home gym equipment as a headline.
Posted by Spider, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 8:37:59 AM
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Sir David Smith recently reminded us, in an address he gave on 11 November 2005 in the NSW Parliament House on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Dismissal, of Thomas Jefferson's views as to the value of newspapers, the medium of Jefferson's time. Sadly, Sir David's address apparently did not rate as "news", as I saw no reports of it at the time in today's media.

Not happy, Alison!

Give me the good old reliables of the Government Gazette and the Australian Year Books any day. Thats where the news really is!

Here is what Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen had to say in his preface to Year Book Australia 1988:

"Year after year,ever since 1908, the Australian Year Book has been published annually without fuss or fanfare, providing each year a new source of information about and for, Australia and Australians. It is hard to think of any single national development of note over the past eighty years on which the Year Books do not throw light. Here, in one publication, is a continuous record of government policies, international relationships and a concise statistical summary of every facet of Australia's economy and society. Through the Year Books, one can scan eighty years of life on this continent, tracing the changes and noting the trends. The Year Books have included, too, from time to time, special articles of topical interest, thus adding unexpected treasure troves of detail to the broad brush-strokes of history.

As we enter this, our Bicentennial Year, it is appropriate that that faithful mirror of Australia past and present, the Australian Year Book, should accompany us, reflecting in its candid glass the nation in all its states and conditions. The strength of nations, as of individuals, lies in self-knowledge and there can be few better introductions to a knowledge of this nation than through its Year Books.

Ninian Stephen"

As a current example of the sort of news lurking in the Gazettes, see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6147#88417 and following posts.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Friday, 3 August 2007 2:52:59 PM
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I hate to say it, but this is a "well, duh..." article.

If any of the commercial channels were to put to air a news broadcast that, say, included important events from overseas as well as important news items from Australia, all delivered in a "straight reporter", factual style without any "back to you Nat's", guess what would happen?

The ratings would go, as they say in the trade, straight down the gurgler.

Is this not true?

If it were otherwise, then we would have quality news reports from quality journalists, on every channel, competing for our attention.

The decision is totally understandable. Nowhere in the commercial broadcasters' annual reports will you see a chart showing increasing integrity, accuracy or sobriety in the delivery of news. Only charts of profitability, and the average number 28 - 39 eyeballs attracted each night.

Clearly, as far as the networks are concerned, they have looked carefully at their audience, and determined that the race is not to the top, but to the bottom.

However we dress up the truth, this tells us much more about ourselves than it does about the broadcasters.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 3 August 2007 4:33:16 PM
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There really is getting to be far too much cross-promotion involving the use of what are alleged to be "news items" as vehicles for publicizing other programs of the TV medium, or other events or activities that medium may be sponsoring. It really has become quite irritating! At least on a forum or blog you can give an item the flick if it isn't the sort of news you want to hear, or doesn't tell it the way you think it should be. Give it the flick, man, thats the answer; remember one click, and its gone.

You could test this on this link: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5018

Or this: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2136

Or this: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5018#58127

Speaking of clicks, the 17th post on this thread by Anthony Marinac raises a dreadful spectre. Could the WIN in regional Australia's WIN News signify a relationship with Microsoft? Could it be that the "blue skies" planning of this would-be copyright holder of the very idea of knowledge has designs upon copyrighting news itself? You know, "its our way or the highway, buddy!". That would be a WIN-WIN situation to be avoided at all costs. Anyone even seeking a different take on the news would do so in peril of extradition to the US to face breach of copyright charges! Enough to make one quake in one's ugg boots, generically speaking, of course. It may well become a case of "Render unto Microsoft ...." as in "transport in a Grumman Gulfstream" anyone in regional Australia caught trying to get news on the internet.

Make Linux your friend, Grasshopper. Empty your mind. Try to imagine the sound of one hand clapping in applause of good news.

I'm with Anthony on this one, although my personal preference is for a few back-issues of the Commonwealth Government Gazette and maybe several glasses of a good red. In the mean time, don't nobody bring me no bad news.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Saturday, 4 August 2007 10:28:53 AM
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