That should be 'wowserism' and 'morals'.

Seeker:”TPP, all you can do is present your case and hope for sanity to prevail (someone’s version of it anyway). What you describe is what fathers often feel. Not the few that run off, but the many that are ignored as parents.”

I bet a lot of dads feel the same way. I am going in to this meeting quite sure the overall agenda is to indeed pacify me. Liability would fall ultimately at the authorities’ feet and not mine.

So I have a choice to be part of ignoring the harm or throwing my hands in the air and telling them to remove the situation from my household. I am trapped; I would feel guilty and not stop worrying if I chose removal.

“Thank them for considering your submission and don’t get emotional or aggressive as some of the fathers tend to do. Just like any father, you too, are not that child’s mother. Don’t lose track of that one (:-)”

Ah mothers; a label which should not be an assumed job description.

I am always pleasant and polite; I personally react to not having any power with becoming completely despondent. Afterwards I get angry then after awhile just return to acknowledging how powerless I am and how useless it all is. I constantly remind myself it is only in This Moment I can do any good.

examinator,

'assume I feel I'm superior.....I don't.'
"all evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing."
Haha, you're not superior, you're just the good man stopping all the evil posters!

CJ Morgan,
You're obsessed with anti. I really don't know what you'd do if he wasn't around.

TPP,

'Since I may never catch up I am weary of being “corrected”. '
Oh don't worry. You'll be corrected. Look out for FoxyMopHandleMama!

'What do I say to that?'
Throw it back at them. Patronise them. Just use lots of phrases like Gong Forward and 'Key Stakeholders'. Just fit them in anywhere, they wont notice. They do the same.

Then at the end Say, 'I'm taking the child, and his siblings. You can either profit by this, or be destroyed. It's your choice but I warn you not to underestimate my powers.'

cornflower,

wowerism is better. I agree with you. Lets face it, the examinators of this world are not the target audience of Vile and Jacky Ho, and neither am I. But the difference is I accept that my taste is not the be all and end all and that others (those that voted the show an award) might disagree.

I wait for the day when all the target audience for The Footy Show and Vile and Jacky Ho find some journalists that will promote their hatred of 2BL and Insiders. But the 'journalists' and pompous moral crusaders like those shows. It doesn't matter though because the punters know that their marketing dollar is infinitely more powerful than the kill joys of the world listening to bible talk. Safety in numbers and marketing dollar.

Lets face it the main motivation for the witch hunt is that the chattering classes enjoy dumping on the pikeys, as in examinators 'luxuriating in such human effluence '

I suspect he would give a similar label to all he sees as 'below' him.

It looks like ACMA is going to look into regulating similar matters in future according to http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/11/2652462.htm?section=justin.

Cornflower, sure wowsersism went too far in the past. But as people get deluged with more and more public antics that they feel invades their personal space, I bet they'll want the pendulum to swing back in the wowser direction. Best thing is that the media learns to self-regulate if they don't want regulation rammed down their throat. Even better, how about shredding the source of the problem - the producers and announcers that are promoting this stuff? Maybe a surgical annihilation - or the threat of such - of the serial transgressors is in order here.

The public revulsion over this issue will soon wear off.

Particularly as the audience targetted by the station couldn't give the proverbial rat's about political incorrectness. It's a turn-on, not a turn-off.

I well remember a visit a number of years ago to an ad agency, where I offered an adverse opinion on one of their more objectionable TV commercials.

The exec looked at me quizzically for a moment, then said "But it's not aimed at you".

Kyle and Jackie O broadcast to a demographic that is considerably less concerned about the ethics, decency or morality of its content than this thread has exhibited. In much the same way as "rusted-on" listeners to Alan Jones or John Laws couldn't give a stuff about what they were spruiking in the white heat of the cash-for-comment debacle.

Is the broadcasting of exploitative, trashy "contests" any worse, behaviourally, than the lies and pretence of promoting product under the guise of editorial?

Both corrupt the listener, and the broadcaster. Equally, both are willing participants. Co-conspirators against a perceived level of "decency".

Kyle and Jackie O will be back. Their ratings won't have suffered from the layoff. The content won't improve, because that is the formula that attracts the demographic they are aiming at. And the advertisers will be back too, because they are getting the audience they are willing to pay for.

In a few weeks, this will be old news. We live in a world with the attention span of a gnat, one that will latch onto the next "scandal", and make the same huffing and puffing noises about how tawdry it all is.

After all, it's not as if we haven't been here before...

"We should expect the best and the worst from mankind, as from the weather." Vauvenargues

"It will be very generally found that those who will sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples." Charles Dickens

"Don't overestimate the decency of the human race." H. L. Mencken

Pericles

Everyone was having sooooo much fun take swipes at each other... and then along you come to state the naked truth.

What will happen to Houllie? Where will A-septic go? What will become of R0bert's attempts to appear fair? Who will Examinator examine?

Alas we are lost in a wilderness of our own making.

PS

Love your work.

:-)