every day the media sucks more

*opens laptop and views news aggregator site*
*clicks on 'australia' filter*

TOP NEWS:

<rudd wants his job back and momentum is building for a leadership challenge and he'll totally win it, because as we all know rudd is SO much more popular than gillard! gillard's days are numbered (we did a survey) and rudd'll be back!! talk about instability>

<some labor backbenchers and insiders who would prefer to remain unnamed and unsourced have said it's only a matter of time before rudd challenges! is this government a disgrace or WHAT>

<some ministers have kind of said that they wouldn't serve under rudd (IMPLICATION: LABOR PARTY INSTABILITY IS REAL, AS IS AN IMMINENT CHALLENGE BY RUDD)>

<a leading sports man has expressed a strong opinion on his own team's recent performance, as well as a strong opinion on the performance of the opposing team>

<something else has happened in domestic politics so here is an "analysis" on how it affects the rudd comeback. WHICH IS REAL>

*slams laptop shut so hard the screen punches through the mantle of the earth's crust*  

that right there is the news AGAIN. according to every single mainstream news outlet in australia rudd's chances are looking ever so good and probably/maybe/certainly he'll be leading the doomed labor party by september. AGAIN we are reading this

i studied to be a journalist briefly. right after i finished my art's degree and naively believed that the fourth estate in this country functioned to some limited extent as per habermas' 18th century ideal i wanted to get in on that action, believing that as a journalist i could both hold a position i found interesting while simultaneously improving society.

FUCKING LOL. it took a little less than a year of really looking at the role played by the australian media to see how much of a joke that ludicrous belief was. apart from how present-day journalism more often seeks to obscure and exploit an issue rather than explain it, i also discovered how sickeningly few the owners of all the various news organizations actually are, and how beholden to vested interests they've become.

i felt that i didn't really want to sell my painstakingly learned ideals for a slim chance to make it in what is really a very terrible industry, so i stopped going to classes. and when i see how fucking stupid (or else downright deceitful) the media landscape is i can really tell you i feel no regret whatsoever.

do you seriously remember how long this story of a rudd comeback has been going on? for three goddamn years more or less non stop. if any of these journalists had a shred of credibility you would think they would hesitate to run the exact same story over and over, but noooo.

the most flimsy pretenses are seized upon as the basis for front-page stories, and nobody seems to want to point out that we've heard all this shit before. quite a bit actually.

and it's important not just because it's fucking annoying to try to read some news and -how about that!- actually find no news at all, but because if all the available space for real news is taken up by non-news then there is no opportunity for the real news to get across.

like, for instance, unemployment is down slightly according to the latest figures (which is hardly cause for celebration but does blow a bit of a hole in the labor-equals-economic-incompetence argument), or that the carbon tax has worked slightly and created thousands of jobs, or that the deficit projections have been slightly revised in the right direction (which is really surprising considering how much air-time that topic can get). you certainly dont read much about that, if at all. and if you should happen to come across facts like these, they are usually presented through a rudd-return lens.

i suppose the saying "it's the economy, stupid!" doesn't apply to elections here. perhaps "youre stupid, stupid!" might be more on the mark, or maybe "it's the stupid people, stupid!"

nevermind that rudd has tried twice and failed twice to replace gillard (with gillard actually being backed by the labor party by the largest margin in 30 years) it's totally going to happen, and soon, and this time it's for real, promise.

the aap heard it off a guy who talked to a guy who wants to remain unnamed, and besides you can so totally tell that rudd is just itching to be pm again.

the media can just make up any old story they want, and maybe it'll come true maybe it wont, either way they're the political experts so who are we to question THREE YEARS of the same false story. literally exactly the same except the date in the top corner