This is a tricky post to write because I could easily be accused of doing the thing I’m criticising. For this reason, I haven’t tagged this post with the actress’s name, I’m only mentioning her name when necessary, and I’m doing bad SEO (search engine optimisation) practice with my links – other than the link to the original piece.

That piece is My Medical Choice by Angelina Jolie, in the New York Times. You should go read it. I have no idea if the decision to tell the world was easier or harder than the decision to have the procedure, but I tell you what, that’s a pretty fucking tough year she’s had.

So. Given that millions and millions of people will want to read it – and that she wrote it for a particular news organisation, rather than, say, putting out a media release – how ethical is it for other news organisations to write their own highly-detailed versions so they get a piece of the traffic?

There’s no right or wrong answer here. It’s just an ethical question. What makes me uncomfortable is different to what makes other people uncomfortable, and regular readers will know that I probably think too much about this stuff.

Fairfax’s Daily Life writer Natalie Reilly has done a re-write, with a screaming headline that includes all the terms people would be searching for. It’s good SEO practice and therefore it’s good for traffic to dailylife.com.au.

However, it isn’t until halfway through Reilly’s re-write that she tells the reader the info comes from a piece in the New York Times. When you’re doing a re-write, that information should be mentioned – and hyperlinked – in the first or second sentence. No later. You need to make it very clear that you are writing about someone else’s work. These are the rules I stuck to when I was a journalist and they are ones I stick to now. On top of that, there’s so much detail in Reilly’s piece that there’s little reason to read the original. To me, that’s unethical. You might feel differently.

(Oddly, Sarah Berry has also done a re-write for smh.com.au, so they have two versions on their website. Berry’s is better, in terms of clearly and prominently telling readers to “click here to read Angelina Jolie’s piece in full” at the start and end. It also gives information about the procedure in Australia, so it’s not solely a re-write. However, I think it also gives enough information that readers won’t go any further. I’d be interested to see their stats on how many readers did click through to the original, but of course they will never release that info.)

Re-writes are common practice in newsrooms. It’s how you share another organisation’s work with your audience when you don’t have permission to use it. Wire services send them out all the time. I don’t think re-writes are necessarily bad, but you need to be clear that it’s a re-write. You also need to be really obvious in pointing your readers to the original, in a way that makes them want to go to it, and part of that is not telling the whole damn story in your re-write. Otherwise, you’re essentially just passing someone else’s work off as your own.

I don’t want to single Reilly out, because News Ltd sites also have re-writes of this story, but they aren’t bylined. The piece dailytelegraph.com.au was running this afternoon has been replaced by the news.com.au version. It’s worth seeing the story on dailytelegraph.com.au, just so you can see what happens when you don’t pay attention to your images. Just like the Fairfax pieces, News Ltd’s re-write also leaves the reader with little reason to go to the original. Plus they throw a million links and galleries at you to make sure you’re too distracted to leave the website. Clever, I suppose, but very messy.

Now, I’m not so naive that I think online news is just about reporting news for the good of the people. Of course it’s about boosting traffic for advertising purposes. I’m also not so naive to think that a story about Angelina Jolie and her breasts wasn’t going to make news around the world. But given the highly personal story she’s telling, a better approach would be to say “hey, here’s a few lines of it, go read what she wrote, in her own words and not in ours”. Yes, you still get the traffic, but you don’t look like a jerk.

The DUFC is a monthly round-up of some of the best online writing in Australian and New Zealand. It’s hosted by a different blogger each month, and April 2013 means we’re up to 60. Pretty sure that means you all have to give me diamonds.

So, make yourself a cup of tea and put on your reading pants, because TA DA!

Bodies – what we put on them, how we feel about them
How to lose the body judgement by Kath at Fat Heffalump:

“I was thinking a lot about the self hatred that so many women project on to others on these comment threads, either individually or fat women in general, and what really strikes me is that we’re never actually taught how to NOT judge people.”

Friday Frock: Compare and Contrast by meganwegan at Craft is the New Black.
Pics or it didn’t happen by Rachel Hills at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman.
Despite the gym we are fatter than ever by Mindy at Hoyden About Town.
Musings on 35 part 2: The personal “body shame” issue by Utopiana at Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist.

Sex and relationships
The fcukless zip and Tony Abbott by Jennifer at No Place For Sheep.
Relationship phrases we should probably retire by Can Be Bitter.
Sexless frumps by Mindy at Hoyden About Town.
Who’s the man? by Rebecca Shaw at The King’s Tribune.

Media – stuff in it, stuff about it
Fairfax’s sense of gender balance by Wendy Bacon.
Real beauty? by Awesome Frances at Corpulent:

“This Dove ad tells us is that it is also not enough to be merely beautiful, you have to know it too.”

The Official Lady #QandA drinking game by Eliza Cussen at Fit it, Dear Henry.
Women writers, ‘brands’, and the politics of the personal by Sarah at Maintain the Beige.
Each woman must be assessed by me, here.

Religion
No girls allowed by Deborah at A Bee of a Certain Age.
ANZAC Day and religious rhetoric by Chally at Zero at the Bone.

Violence and harassment
Can we please stop comparing rape to mugging? by Can Be Bitter.
Sex Offence Sentencing: Are sentences for sex offences appropriate? by Holly at Confessions of a Stuffed Olive.
Being in public while female by Jo at A Life Unexamined.
Women as public property by Jessamy at You Are Doing That Wrong.
NSW Police and the vigilance warnings by me at The King’s Tribune.

Parenting
In defence of mummy blogging by Cristy at Larvatus Prodeo.
Framing the judginess of Plunket by Deborah at A Bee of a Certain Age.

Politics and society
On the politics of criminalising the persecuted by Jennifer at No Place For Sheep.
I am not a widget: privatisation of social services by El Gibbs at bluntshovels.
The Greens hate fat people too by QoT at Ideologically Impure.
So it turns out political candidates are legally allowed to lie to you by Eliza Cussen at Junkee:

If voters want to make the informed decision required of them in a successful democracy, it is up to each of them to Google every claim made in every election ad, and fact check them before deciding their vote.

Piers Akerman – Dinosaur Extraordinaire by Chrys Stevenson at Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear.
The challenges of being a Muslim woman in a multicultural society by Ghena Krayem at Right Now.
Voluntary segregation by Anjum Rahman at Stargazer.
The Politics of Exclusion by Stella Young at Ramp Up.

Feminism
Is the corpse of feminism revived and stirring? by Tatum Street at lipmag.
Elite feminism. Who is it good for? by Jennifer at No Place For Sheep.
The fantasy of women’s collective historical identity by Chally at Zero at the Bone.
Deadly Bloggers Challenge Week 15: Dear Concerned Feminists by Sarah Jane Innes at Sarah’s World of Procrastination.
Some women want to stay home with children and feminism needs to make peace with that by Andie at Blue Milk.

Great posts that didn’t neatly fit other categories
Vale Chrissy Amphlett by Kath at Fat Heffalump.
Attention, Whore! by Jessica Alice at Hersute.
The Tale of the Feminist and the Pop-Culture Convention by Jo at A Life Unexamined.
Songs I Listen To While Running #3: “Bad Reputation”, Joan Jett by Can Be Bitter.
And, of course, The Australian Cat Ladies.

A HUGE thank you to everyone who wrote the posts and sent me posts, and to Rebecca D and Chally for their help. Eddy at Maybe it means nothing is hosting the next carnival. Submissions to wilddamon [at] gmail [dot] com or the blogcarnival submissions page. If you’d like to host the DUFC, contact Chally at Zero at the Bone.

Update 6 May:
Oops, forgot to include a couple of links.

Retro arguments & division by Amy Gray at Pesky Feminist:

If articles continue to present feminists and stay at home women as different or in opposition, it presents the truly bizarre notion that women can only be one or the other, incapable of nuance or being a whole or complex person capable of multiple choices, talents and desires.

Why media gender equality matters by Violeta Politoff at New Matilda.

Update: I should point out, I’m not stressed at all by the doctorate or the work. I’m very “yeah, whatevs” about the whole thing. It would probably help if I was more stressed.

Pros
I get to be called Doctor.
I love my topic (how young adults get their political news).
I wanted to do a doctorate because I’ve never had a job that challenged me and figured this would. It does, and not always in the way I expected.
I’m very good with external deadlines, so as it gets closer, I’ll feel more excited and my work rate will increase.

Cons
I am sick of having no money.
I am sick of worrying about having no money.
I am sick of relying on ManFriend financially.
Days slip by and I have nothing to show for it.
I spend too much time by myself and I’m sick of my own company.
I don’t feel at all connected to my university.
I don’t want to be an academic.

So, what do I do now? Do I walk away, or keep at it?

Gina Rinehart, Julia Gillard (many articles in The Australian which I’m not linking to), Taylor Swift, Marissa Mayer, Beyonce. And now, Margaret Thatcher (in a piece that fails to explain why being a bad-ass Prime Minister makes her a feminist, but if you’re going to read it, make sure you read this Hadley Freeman one afterwards).

Don’t get me wrong, it is important for feminism to be a natural part of our public discussion. And it’s important that our public discussion includes rad fems and lib fems, because feminism isn’t a monolithic beast. There is still so much to fix and I think we benefit from having different voices focus on reproductive rights, violence, everyday sexism, women in management, equal pay, women’s voices in the media, parenting, and poverty. For one person to fight on every issue would be exhausting. Attack from all sides! But I just think that whether or not individual women identify as feminist is less important than talking about the other shit we have to fix. Besides, holding women up, one by one, for the public to assess them isn’t all that different to the “who wore it better” and “stars without make-up” sections in celebrity magazines.

The thing is, while we’re discussing whether or not Gina Rinehart is a feminist, who’s writing articles about how women account for only 13 per cent of managers in the mining industry, and what can be done to fix that?

While we’re talking about whether or not Julia Gillard is a feminist, who’s writing about the fact that the LNP and ALP support so few female candidates in winnable seats that in federal parliament, women make up 24.7 per cent of the House of Reps and 38.2 per cent of the Senate.

While we’re talking about whether Marissa Mayer is a feminist, or criticising Sheryl Sandberg because her book is for some women and not all women, there’s less space to talk about sexism and misogyny in the tech industry. Yes, these things are talked about on twitter and on blogs, but I mean in the mainstream media so it reaches a wider audience. There is precious little room there so we shouldn’t waste it by judging women who are at the top of male-dominated industries, rather than looking at those industries and why so few women make it to the top.

Over the last 18 months, feminism has become mainstream – largely thanks to the middle-class feminists who are now being mocked for their efforts because apparently, in the she-pee contest about who is doin’ it right and who is doin’ it wrong, being middle-class means your opinion doesn’t count. Are we really going to use income levels to judge who has a right to speak and who doesn’t?

We have a great opportunity here. Feminism isn’t going to be mainstream forever, but while it is, we need to get in there and fix shit.

(There’ll be a delay in pubishing comments this evening – I’ll be at the very first Tipsy Rabbit, a panel discussion with Sevana Ohandjanian, Caitlin Park, and Richard Cartwright talking about music and writing about music. Doors at 7pm for a 7.30pm start, Red Rattler, Marrickville.)

If you’re in Sydney, come to the very first Tipsy Rabbit.

The Tipsy Rabbit – for drinkers with a reading problem

The gorgeous Jen and I decided that writer talks should be more rowdy, with performances and dancing. So we’re putting one on in a very cool venue, the Red Rattler in Marrickville.

It’s going to be a bi-monthly event, and the first one is on music. Singer-songwriters Caitlin Park (music winner in the 2012 Spirit Of Youth Awards) and Richard Cartwright (from Richard in Your Mind), and music-journo-who-just-got-back-from-living-in-Berlin-and-we’re-insanely-jealous Sevana Ohandjanian will talk about writing music and writing about music, and it’ll be great fun.

You can also ask them questions. And, if you ask them nicely, they might even perform a song or two.

Afterwards, there’ll be drinking and dancing, because it’s the Red Rattler, after all.

Details at The Tipsy Rabbit.

Come along, it’ll be rad!

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How much do we need to know about what Adrian Bayley did to Jill Meagher? (Please note: Bayley has pleaded guilty to one count of rape, and not guilty to murder. The first sentence is about what he has pleaded guilty to.)

How much do we need to know about her personal life, in order to know that she was a real person who could be happy, sad, complicated, simple, hard-working and slacking-off, who made plans for her future, just like everyone else?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I do know that the level of detail being reported makes me uneasy. There is a line somewhere between humanising someone by reporting the details of their life, and slobbering over the details of their life. And I think the MSM is jumping back and forth over that line with each story.

I’ve often criticised the MSM for forgetting that they are reporting about real people. This is a particular problem in online newsrooms where the person putting the story into the CMS, giving it a “catchy” headline and adding photos, usually isn’t the person who wrote the story. The further you are away from conducting the interviews, from witnessing the grief, the more likely you are to see the story as just a bunch of words to dress up to attract readers. Hence the online headlines that list the brutal details of what Bayley did and is alleged to have done.

This post is about stories I’ve seen on abc.net.au, heraldsun.com.au and theage.com.au, and the photos in them. I am not going to link to any of these stories. If you want to see the photos I’m talking about, you know how to use the internet.

Do we need to see a close-up photo of a bin in the laneway where Adrian Bayley raped Jill Meagher? Of course there is value in marking a place, in saying “this is where something horrible happened” so that people know it. But a close-up of something as impermanent as a garbage bin? What purpose does it serve, other than to say “check it out, this is the exact spot, is that red stuff on the bin blood, did he put that dent in the fence?”. I don’t pretend to be a good person who doesn’t think these things – I am just as guilty of rubbernecking as everyone else.

Do we need to see a photo gallery of what Jill Meagher had in her handbag? No, we really don’t. Yet there are galleries of the contents of her bag on abc.net.au, theage.com.au and heraldsun.com.au. And probably more news sites around Australia, but I didn’t want to look.

Do we need to see a police photo of the boot of Bayley’s car? Do we need to see a police photo of the shovel he allegedly used? Both heraldsun.com.au and theage.com.au ran those photos. According to the story on theage.com.au, “Deputy Chief Magistrate Felicity Broughton agreed to allow media access to the police brief of evidence against Mr Bayley”. We all know what a shovel looks like. We all know what the boot of a car looks like. Readers are not being asked to weigh up the evidence and decide Bayley’s fate. So why publish them, other than to give those readers the opportunity to examine them for gory details?

Do we need to know how many times he may have raped her? Shouldn’t that be one of those details that, out of respect, is left inside the courtroom? Most journalists will answer, “it was said in court, so that’s a public place”. But there is a HUGE difference between the small audience in a courtroom – mostly family and friends of the victim and the accused – and the massive audience of a major masthead. Particularly once you put it on the internet, where it will be there for years and years.

Do Tom Meagher and the McKeon family need to have a dozen cameras shoved in their faces as they leave court? Of course they don’t. They aren’t on trial, they’re just trying to get somewhere they can grieve in private after hearing the details in court.

The Media Alliance Code of Ethics says:

11. Respect private grief and personal privacy. Journalists have the right to resist compulsion to intrude.

The News Ltd Code of Conduct says:

Reporters and photographers must always behave with sensitivity and courtesy toward the public, and in particular towards those involved in tragic events. No one should be put under pressure to be photographed or interviewed.

The Age Code of Ethics says:

14. People should be treated with sensitivity during periods of grief and trauma and wherever possible, be approached through an intermediary.

16. Photographs of victims or grieving people should not be published unless due consideration has been given to issues of sensitivity and privacy. Any restrictions placed on the use of photographs supplied by family or friends should be honored.

17. Gratuitous references to the state of a victim’s body or body parts should not be published.

The footage I’ve seen of Tom Meagher and the McKeons having to push past a bunch of journalists, camera crews, and photographers, all snapping away, shouting questions and filming, goes against all of these codes.

There’s a wider discussion to be had here, about what should be shown and what shouldn’t be shown. Particularly as these stories get reported all around the world. When someone takes a gun into a school and starts shooting children, should the media make him famous? On the other hand, if his identity is just a minor part of the story, it removes him from his crime. Should we just have a special rule for media reporting of gun massacres? What about suicide bombings? I’m convinced that if newsrooms showed what a suicide bomb looks like, if they showed the most gut-wrenching scenes of swollen bodies with their clothes burned off, there’d be a lot more public noise about peace. But I can’t reconcile that complete intrusion into the privacy of death, with my belief that reporting is often gratuitous.

I’m not suggesting that journalists shouldn’t report the details of someone’s crime. What I am suggesting is that with every detail, journalists need to ask themselves: am I crossing that line? Is this relevant, or is it gratuitous? In my experience as a journalist – admittedly a few years ago now – when questions are raised in the newsroom, the answer is always, “just fucking do it now, and we can talk about it later”. But there never is a later because there’s always another story that needs to be done, always another earthquake near a Pacific island so you have to call resorts to ask if anyone is dead as though they don’t have more important things to be doing than talking to a journalist in Australia, and there’s always another gallery of a crime victim’s belongings that needs to be created.

I don’t have the answers. But I think it’s something we need to talk about. And journalists need to be a part of this discussion.

Trigger warning – this post discusses sexual violence.

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It’s tough being a woman. We just walk down the street and then, out of nowhere, an assault happens to us. We need to be particularly careful of these disembodied assaults that just hang around until they can happen at someone. At least, that’s the impression I get when journalists report on violence against women: men don’t assault women, it’s just that women have assaults happen to them.

Today’s story is awful. On Sunday morning, a group of men kidnapped a woman and raped her. I can’t imagine how terrified she must have been and how much it must have hurt. I can’t imagine how any victim of a crime like this copes in the weeks, months, and years afterwards. I really hope that this post does not add to her trauma because that is not my intention at all. My intention is to make journalists think about why they report violence against women in a way that almost removes the perpetrator from the crime.

AAP was the first to report the story. On dailytelegraph.com.au they headlined it Sydney woman abducted and gang-raped by group of men, police say. On smh.com.au they headlined it Sydney teen abducted and sexually assaulted by gang. They are both passive sentences – generally frowned upon in journalism. But it becomes more sinister when you consider that passive sentences are usually used to deflect blame, to be vague about who is responsible, or because the person responsible is unimportant.

Four hours after they published the AAP copy, smh.com.au had an updated version (with two bylines and an additional nine words): ‘I don’t think it gets more serious’: woman gang-raped after men ask for directions, police say.

Call me crazy but I think the men did something more serious than ask for directions.

The journalist (Rachel Olding) even includes this sentence at the end:

The victim, who was not affected by alcohol at the time, has been receiving intense counselling and is being supported by her family, Detective Superintendant Kerletec said.

Now, I don’t know if Olding asked the alcohol question, or if another journalist asked it and she reported the answer, or if Kerletec anticipated the question, or if Kerletec believes it’s important, but how is it relevant to a story about other people committing a violent crime? What do journalists think it actually means if she had been drinking? That the crime those men committed is less of a crime? That it’s somehow her fault? That it’s ok for a group of men to assault someone who has been drinking? What? They obviously think it means something important, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked. I’d really like a journalist to let me know why they asked the alcohol question – why they always ask the alcohol question – because I’ve been a journalist and it never occurred to me to ask it.

Here’s the story on smh.com.au:

Standfirst reads: Teen allegedly gang raped after being forced into car by group who asked her for directions.

The men who committed the crime aren’t even mentioned.

Compare that to another crime story below it:

Standfirst reads: Four men attempted a brazen armed robbery near a Sydney shopping centre, witnesses say.

If the robbery story was reported the same way as the assault story, the standfirst would read: “AN Armaguard van was attacked early this morning while parked on a street in Glebe.” It might even include this sentence: “The van, which was not affected by alcohol at the time, had previously been at a bank where it collected a large amount of money.”

But wait, there’s more.

In one story, ‘I don’t think it gets more serious’: woman gang-raped after men ask for directions, police say, the criminals are barely mentioned in the first two sentences:

Police say an alleged gang-rape attack on a teenager in Sydney’s north-west is “as worse as it gets”.

The 18-year-old woman was abducted and sexually assaulted by a car load of five men after leaving a house party in Baulkham Hills on Sunday morning, police said.

In the other, Shot fired at Broadway: gang attempts to rob van, the criminals are the main part of the first two sentences:

Four men have attempted a brazen armed robbery of a cash-in-transit van outside a Sydney inner-city shopping centre, witnesses say.

A witness to the incident said three of the men approached the Armaguard truck armed with firearms outside Broadway Shopping Centre at 8:30am on Monday.

Two crime stories, both involving gangs of men, but reported very differently. Why is that?

Here’s the story on dailytelegraph.com.au:

Standfirst reads: A YOUNG woman has been abducted and sexually assaulted by a gang of men after leaving a house party in Sydney’s northwest.

The bit mentioning the gang of men is tucked into the middle of the sentence so you don’t really notice it.

Now, compare it to the story below it on the homepage:

Standfirst reads: TWO priests are under investigation by church authorities in Australia and the UK amid allegations they abused two boys in the 1960s and 1980s.

The focus of sentence is the alleged criminals, not the victims. Again, the opposite of the way journalists report violence against women.

We get this constant stream of “a woman was abducted on the way home, a woman was sexually assaulted while drunk, a woman was assaulted in her home, a woman had something bad happen to her because she was somewhere late at night” because journalists pretend that assault just hangs out on the street waiting for a woman to walk past so it can happen at her. Assault is not something that’s just part of being a woman, like periods or a squirty bot bot after eating three-day-old takeaway that was a bit iffy. Assault is a crime committed by another person. Yet it’s reported as though that other person doesn’t exist. There are two options here: one, journalists don’t bother to think about the words they use; or two, they want us to believe that men aren’t to blame for the majority of assaults against women. So, journalists are either stupid, or they’re arseholes. I don’t know which is worse.

Update: The smh.com.au story now has video. The caption reads: NSW police are warning women to be cautious on the street after an 18-year-old woman was abducted and sexually assaulted by five men after leaving a house party in Baulkham Hills.

No mention yet about NSW Police warning men not to rape women.

So of course I noticed this, on the SMH homepage:

Oh noes! Someone doesn’t like what someone famous is wearing!

It’s a column by Paule Joye, What’s with the outfits Kim?:

I’ve been sitting on my hands trying not to write this one. Predominantly because I believe we/me/society should leave pregnancy and pregnant women alone. Give them a break.

When you’re pregnant everyone has an opinion. About your body, the sex of your baby and what type of birth you might have. Suddenly you become public property and for nine months you must endure a peanut gallery whose members range from the neighbours mother-in-law to a stranger at the supermarket.

I’m pretty sure you can guess where this is going.

I know all to well what it’s like to be told ‘you must be having a girl because it’s stolen your beauty’. So Kim, it’s important you know that I write this from a place of love.

I know, I know, it’s easy to confuse “love” with “mean-spirited body-shaming”. I do it all the time.

What’s up with the maternity outfits?

Someone has to let that poor girl know that fashion and pregnancy go together like socks and sandals. Or nails down a blackboard. That the second trimester is not the time to be posing in a pink, neon jumpsuit underneath the statue of Jesus in Brazil. Or the moment to trial a dominatrix-inspired organza cape. Or a feather mini-skirt. Now’s the time for elasticised waist bands and no under wire. Now’s the time to take a fashion sabbatical.

Why isn’t it the time to wear those things? Seems to me that the time you want to wear a pink neon jumpsuit is the time you should wear it. So when she says “I believe we/me/society should leave pregnancy and pregnant women alone”, what she really means is “people should leave me alone when I’m pregnant, but I’m allowed to be mean and silly towards other pregnant women”.

Now Kim wears the kind of clothes we’re used to seeing on fashion editors, supermodels and Cate Blanchet. Not small, curvy women. Particularly not small, curvy, pregnant women.

You’re missing a t in Blanchett there, love. But typos aside – because we all do them and she did quite a few of them and god I hope there aren’t any in this post – women can wear whatever the hell they want to wear. And that includes “small, curvy, pregnant” women.

I’d like to draw Paula Joye’s attention to this video she created in August 2010, praising Instyle editor Kerrie McCallum for “breezing through” her pregnancy looking “glamorous” and “like a supermodel”:

In this video, Paula Joye says she still wore heels when pregnant – yet apparently Kim Kardashian needs to ditch the heels and wear ballet flats. In this video she also says you should wear things that “accentuate your bump”, and that you should wear skinny jeans so you don’t look frumpy and that, even when pregnant, your outfits should always be flattering. (The video also shows paparazzi shots of pregnant married celebrities to Beyonce’s ‘All the Single Ladies’. I’m really not sure what that’s about.)

I’d also like to draw Paula Joye’s attention to this piece she wrote in June 2012:

Meet the most stylish pregnant woman on the planet – Bronwyn McCahon.

At 37 weeks pregnant with baby number two she looks as she always does – cool, chic and polished… what I love so much about her maternity style is the ability she has to still dress like herself no matter what the bump is doing.

Ah, so it’s praiseworthy when her friends dress this way, but when a celebrity that she’ll most likely never meet does it, then it requires a nasty, body-shaming article on the website of a major broadsheet. Silly me for not seeing that difference.

And I’d like to draw Paula Joye’s attention to this piece she wrote in March 2012:

I went through pregnancy wearing non maternity clothes – except for a single pair of jeans – opting instead for lots of stretch jersey in jumbo sizes because I couldn’t relate to the pregnant bodies in the maternity catalogues.

Seems to me that Kim Kardashian is doing the same thing – wearing non-maternity clothes. Besides, between her reality show and the paparazzi mobbing her every time she’s out in public (to get photos that editors like Paula Joye buy), is it that surprising that Kardashian is making sure they don’t get a bad photo of her?

I guess Kim all I really wanted to say was that even though you’re a Kardashian and Mrs West you’re also pregnant and you should be allowed to dress for it.

But you’re not allowed to dress the way you want, obviously.

If pregnancy taught me anything it was that people like me need to learn to keep their opinions to themselves (clearly, I’m still evolving), that fashion will always be there and that elastic is a truly happy place.

That doesn’t even make sense. You either learned that lesson or you didn’t. And you didn’t. But keep trying, Paula, and maybe one day you’ll be mature enough that you don’t feel you have to body-shame a pregnant woman.

For the purposes of this short study, I counted everything with a byline, including opinion pieces. I also made a note of the small news briefs from wire services.

What I found was worse than I was expecting.

Monday 11 February
There are 29 stories in the sports section. Only one involves women’s sport and it’s AAP copy – ie, they didn’t bother having one of their own journalists cover it. There are 10 news briefs, two involving women’s sport.

On the smh.com.au sport homepage at midday there are 57 stories. Two are about women’s sport – one from AAP, one from AFP.

That AAP story that was in print and online – Stars crush Lankans to book spot in final – is about our women’s cricket team being in the World Cup final. Here’s how it’s promoted on smh.com.au/sport:

The value given by smh.com.au/sport to the women’s cricket team being in the world cup final.

That’s right, it’s BELOW two stories that don’t involve an actual game.

Tuesday 12 February
There are 19 stories in the paper copy. Only one involves women’s sport (cricket). Of the five news briefs from AAP and AFP, one is about a female athlete.

There are 40 stories online, and only one is about women’s sport: Star injury unearths teenage tearaway.

Wednesday 13 February
There are 13 stories in the paper version, and none about women’s sport. Of the five news briefs, two are about women’s sport: Laetisha Scanlan – Australia’s best female trap shooter, also a Commonwealth champion – won the Qatar Open (there were four Australian women in the top 10 but that wasn’t reported); and Torah Bright wants to be the first snowboarder in the history of the Winter Olympics to compete in three disciplines. Two good stories that are only mentioned in passing at the very end of the sports section, after coverage of domestic injury news for male athletes and speculation about which men might be in a team for an event later in the year.

There are 43 stories online, and only one is about women’s sport.

Thursday 14 February
There are 25 stories in the paper version, and two of them are about women’s sport. Of the five news briefs, only one is about women’s sport – Rachel Jarry joining the US WNBA.

Online at midday, there were 43 stories, and only 3 on women’s sport, tucked right down the end in “More sports”. No coverage of the cricket World Cup.

Friday 15 February
There are 24 stories published in the paper version. Two are about women’s sport. Five briefs from wires services, two about women’s sport – one begins “Accused of sexism last year, Basketball Australia is making the national women’s team coach a full-time job to boost the world No.2-ranked Opals’ quest for an elusive first Olympic gold medal”.

Online there are 51 stories, and 4 are about women’s sport. Two are even – gasp! – in the top section:

Woah! Two stories about women made it to the top of smh.com.au/sport.

However, one story is so wrong that it should cancel out the others: Love is all around me, says Sharapova. In a story about the Qatar Open, Richard Eaton reports THE MOST IMPORTANT TENNIS NEWS: whether Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka are celebrating Valentine’s Day. Yep. You read that correctly.

I’m not including the weekend in this little study because I was out doing stuff and didn’t get a chance to count the online stories, but I think it’s worth mentioning the paper coverage. The Weekend Sport section on Saturday had 26 stories and only one about women’s sport (golf). There were four news briefs – all male sport. The Sun Herald sport section on Sunday had 34 stories, with three about women’s sport (two cricket, one golf). There were two news briefs on male sport.

Now, you might want to argue that I picked a bad week to do this, because each day had two pages of the Australian Crime Commission’s Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport report. But you’d be arguing a dud point. The majority of stories published were about injury news in male sport, and who was maybe going to be in a team and who was maybe going to be left out of the team, and what the people in teams thought about upcoming games in male sport. Yet Australian women were competing in world events that barely rated a mention. Where were the stories about the Aussie Gliders at the Osaka Cup (wheelchair basketball, and they won, by the way), and the final round of the WNBL season? Netball’s pre-season games are about to start, so where’s the pre-season coverage that we get for AFL and League and Union? There was a Football NSW Women’s Sport Festival yesterday that wasn’t previewed on Saturday (a classic weekend story) or reported on today. Women’s football has 100,000 registered players, which is something editors might want to think about the next time they wonder how they’re going to get more readers. These are just the events that I know about, and I’m not a sports fan at all, so I’d expect that a sports reporter would know a lot more about what’s going on at any given time. You know, because it’s their job to report on sport.

You might also want to argue that women aren’t as interested in sport as men are, so therefore it’s a waste of resources to cover women’s sport at all. I’m calling bullshit on that one as well. You only have to look at twitter when a game of some sort is on to see all the women tweeting passionately about it. It’s also bullshit to suggest that men aren’t interested in women’s sport. And perhaps women aren’t reading your sports coverage because it’s always male sport that gets coverage. You’d think that with the newspaper industry in so much trouble, they might be looking at ways to get new readers, because business as usual clearly isn’t working.

And you might also want to argue that it’s not a sports reporter’s job to promote sport, their job is to report sport. Right. So report sport, then. Or change your job title to Men’s Sport Reporter.

So, from Monday to Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald published 110 sport stories, and only 6 were about women’s sport (5.45 per cent). On the same five days, smh.com.au/sport published 234 stories, and only 11 were about women’s sport (4.7 per cent). You tell me, is that good enough?

Oh, and for the record, South Korean golfer Jiyai Shin won the Australian Open yesterday, and this is how smh.com.au/sport is reporting Australia’s cricket win:

Smh.com.au/sport coverage of the Southern Stars winning the World Cup early this morning

Reeva Steenkamp was killed yesterday. Her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius, has been charged with murder. I can’t imagine the grief and the loss that her friends and family are feeling, and I really hope that blogging about the coverage does not cause them more tears. I decided to blog about it because I think there’s something sick about the words that journalists are using.

This is the way smh.com.au presents the story on their homepage:

The caption reads: Pistorius murder ‘shock’ Police attended previous “domestic incidents” before “Blade Runner” allegedly shot dead girlfriend.

Reeva Steenkamp is the main image, but she isn’t even named. I’m quite surprised they didn’t get “model” in there somewhere – “Model ‘murdered’ by Olympian” is more their style.

This is the headline: ‘Obviously we are shocked’: Pistorius charged with murder of model girlfriend. Again, no mention of Reeva’s name, she’s just a model girlfriend. An interchangeable pretty woman. But there’s something else going on here. The art of headline writing is lost online, because journalists include every term that someone might plug into a search engine to find the story (just as I have included both names in the headline and tags of this post). Which means the journos at smh.com.au don’t think anyone would be searching for Reeva Steenkamp’s name. Why is that?

This is how the story refers to Reeva Steenkamp, from the first par to the last:

South African police have charged Olympic amputee sprint star Oscar Pistorius with the Valentine’s Day murder of his glamorous model girlfriend, but played down reports she was mistaken for a burglar… charges of killing 30-year-old model Reeva Steenkamp… The blonde was shot four times… Steenkamp, once a FHM magazine cover girl…

These are the only mentions by the journalist in a 736 word story about her death. (There’s a quote from Pistorius’ father – “Our thoughts are with the family of the woman involved in this tragedy” – and a quote from Sarit Tomlins at Steenkamp’s management agency – “the kindest, sweetest human being; an angel on earth” – but I didn’t include them because they’re not the journalist’s words.) Keep in mind that of those 736 words, the last 383 are about his “colourful private life full of model girlfriends, guns and fast cars” and his achievements as an athlete.

Smh.com.au has a second main image on this story as well:

The caption reads: Reeva’s final love tweet: She was excited about Valentine’s Day. Hours later the girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius was dead.

The story – ‘A day of love for everyone’: model tweeted before being shot dead in home of Pistorius – is fucking appalling:

The leggy blonde model tweeted that Valentine’s Day should be “a day of love for everyone.” Instead Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead in the home of her boyfriend, paralympian superstar Oscar Pistorius, who was charged with her murder… the glamorous South African celebrity… The freckled blonde who appeared in scanty bikinis on magazine covers and sashayed down fashion ramps…

Wow.

This is how dailytelegraph.com.au presents the story on their homepage:

The caption reads: Paralympic and Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murder over the shooting death of his model girlfriend.

Although Steenkamp isn’t mentioned in the caption, the main image is the person charged with the crime (as is the case with every crime story, unless the victim is an attractive woman).

The headline is Oscar Pistorius charged with murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and this is how the story refers to Steenkamp:

PARALYMPIC superstar Oscar Pistorius has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend who was shot inside his home in South Africa, a stunning development in the life of a national hero known as the Blade Runner for his high-tech artificial legs… Reeva Steenkamp, a model who spoke out on Twitter against rape and abuse of women, was shot four times… Police have played down reports that Pistorius shot dead Steenkamp thinking she was an intruder, saying they had dealt with domestic incidents at his residence and will oppose bail… Pistorius was at his home at the time of the death of Steenkamp… earlier reports that Steenkamp may have been mistaken for a burglar by Pistorius did not come from the police… Capacity Relations, a talent management firm, earlier named model Steenkamp as the victim of the shooting.

The dailytelegraph.com.au story shits all over both smh.com.au stories and I recommend reading it. It’s less sensational and doesn’t focus on Steenkamp’s appearance. It’s by “staff writers” who have brought together copy from several sources, and whoever did it, well done.

(As an aside, here’s something that I just can’t comprehend: according to saynotoviolence.org, in South Africa “a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner”. Holy fucking crap.)

The version on the ABC website (from Reuters and AFP copy) starts well, but in the end has more words about how it might affect Pistorius’ sponsorship deals than it does about anything else. And, oddly, this bit:

Steenkamp, a model and regular on the South African party circuit, was reported to have been dating Pistorius for a year, and there had been little to suggest their relationship was in trouble.

Um, does that mean that if their relationship had been in trouble then the crime would make sense?

Journalists really need to think about the words they use. Because when I look at the coverage of this story on the websites of the ABC and a supposedly intelligent broadsheet, the impression I get is that journalists believe Reeva Steenkamp’s appearance/job is good for getting clicks, but it doesn’t matter that she was killed because she was just a model. If that’s really the way that Australia’s online journalists think about women – and keep in mind that most online journos are under 40 and tertiary educated – then it’s not just the crusty old guys in the industry who are the problem.

Update 16 Feb: Ok, since I’m criticising the SMH for their coverage, this is today’s story, these are the actual first five sentences of Pistorius breaks down at court appearance:

A tearful Oscar Pistorius has been remanded in custody after being formally charged with the murder of his girlfriend.

He was wearing a dark suit, tie and blue shirt when he appeared in the Pretoria magistrates court on Friday.

He broke down in the dock as magistrate Desmond Nair formally charged him with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, 29.

A sobbing Oscar Pistorius has been formerly charged with the Valentine’s Day murder of his model girlfriend.

The 26-year-old Paralympian gold medallist wept on Friday as Pretoria magistrate Desmond Nair announced a single charge of killing blonde covergirl Reeva Steenkamp.

I hope no one actually read that before it was published, because if they did they should get their arse kicked. (The story is dated yesterday, so it’s been online for at least 12 hours like this.)

It was so boring.

So just then I decided that this year I’m going to try out for roller derby.

Not like last year where in the late hours of NYE, @lozowl and I made a deal but then ignored it. (And in 2009, and in 2011 and for fuck’s sake lady just get on with it because this body ain’t gettin’ any younger.)

I need two things:

1. A pre-tryout training checklist so when I do go to the fresh meat tryouts (in September?) they’re all OH MY GOD YOU ARE THE BEST FRESHER WE’VE HAD IN AGES AND YOU SO TOTALLY CAN’T TELL THAT YOU’RE OLD ENOUGH TO COMPETE IN AUSSIE MASTERS EVENTS IF YOU WERE BEACHY AND SPORTY.

2. A really fucking awesome derby name. Go!

Anyway.

Today’s example of pointless journalism is All the better to see the opposition with, by Judith Ireland and Shelly Horton.

Here’s the story in the paper, on page three:

The large blue photo holds the story

Page three is important real estate. Yet almost half of page three is taken up by this story about the Prime Minister’s glasses. Specifically – ooh, it’s a glasses pun – what people on twitter said about the Prime Minister’s glasses.

It took two journalists.

To write 306 words.

About what three people said on twitter.

As the Adelaide writer and “vampire hunter” Michael Scott Hand posted: “I don’t remember seeing Julia Gillard wearing glasses before. Is it because THIS TIME SHE MEANS BUSINESS?”

Some punters hypothesised that the member for Lalor was courting the youth market with the trendy new accessory. “It seems @JuliaGillard is already campaigning to the hipster voters with those new glasses. Well played,” wrote Kath McLellan of Sydney.

Then again, the glasses were suspiciously similar to the pair sported by the outgoing US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. How hipster could that be?

Justin Colee (who describes himself as pro-carbon tax) had other ideas: “did @JuliaGillard borrow her glasses from Greg Combet?”

But they must be three influential people, right? People with thousands of followers, like @GrogsGamut or @HelenRazer? Nope. Michael Scott Hand has 215 followers. Kath McLellan has 29. And Justin Colee has 19 followers on twitter. Only the tweet by Kath McLellan was retweeted, and that was once. Now, I’m not trying to poo on their sandwiches. I’m just questioning the editorial judgement of using two journalists to write a piss-arse story about what three people said on twitter, and then filling almost half of page three with that piss-arse story.

I’d also like to know if Julia Gillard said anything else during her address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. Because the coverage would indicate that she rocked up, said “Election’s on September 14, bitches” and left.

Here’s how the story is promoted on the smh.com.au homepage:

It’s a pair of glasses. Get over it.

The caption under the photo of Julia Gillard reads: “What’s with the glasses? Election announcement plays second fiddle to PM’s specs.”

If a pair of regular, everyday glasses has played second fiddle to the Prime Minister’s address to the National Press Club, then it’s your fault, journalists. So what if a few people tweeted about her glasses? THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE NATIONAL PRESS GALLERY. If you thought the coverage of the last election was bad – and pretty much everyone did – then just wait to see the rubbish the mainstream media will call “news” this time.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think news has to be stuffy and serious all the time. If it’s stuffy and serious then you’re not thinking enough about how you can tell stories. But honestly, this?

I don’t think it’s because political journalists are stupid. It’s more that they write for each other and not for the public, and they don’t ever stop to think about what they are actually writing. When I was a journalist, I used to write in journalese, just like every other journalist. Every now and then, the news editor made half-arsed murmurs about not using journalese – like Person A “slammed” Person B, or “Thailand’s restive south” (go on, google that and see the 497,000 results for a phrase that no one but journalists use) – but journalese was only ever seen as particular words, and not the sentences that make up a story.

So, Rudd backers turn on PM for celebrity choice, by Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan (interestingly, if you look at the URL, the “news story” is filed in opinion…):

The move to parachute the Olympian Nova Peris into Parliament has re-ignited discussion about Julia Gillard’s political judgment and the value of so-called “celebrity” candidates.

Now, the article contains no discussion whatsoever about the “value of so-called “celebrity” candidates”. None. Not a single sentence. The online version includes photos of Cheryl Kernot, Maxine McKew, and John Alexander, without any explanation of why these photos are there. Which is pretty suckful when you consider that the online version is almost permanent and will be the information that other journalists use when they write their stories. The paper version runs a pretty lazy story on the side of the main one, also by Mark Kenny, using these three people as evidence that celebrity candidates don’t work. Kernot shouldn’t be in that list. She was a senator for the Democrats from 1990-1997, then for Labor from 1998-2001. That hardly makes her a celebrity candidate. After all, no one says Billy Hughes was a celebrity candidate and he changed parties five times while in federal parliament, including while he was Prime Minister.

So that leaves McKew (a former ABC journo) and Alexander (a former tennis player). McKew won Bennelong from John Howard in 2007. Alexander won Bennelong from McKew in 2010. I hardly think Kenny’s case is made by one seat. Particularly when you consider Peter Garrett, Andrew Wilkie, Malcolm Turnbull, cyclist Hubert Opperman and cricketer/hockey player Ric Charlesworth all had high profiles before getting into politics and lasted quite a while. (And these are just the recent ones that I’ve found with a quick search. Remember the days when journalists did basic research?)

Anyway, moving along to the bit about how the move has “re-ignited discussion about Julia Gillard’s political judgement”.

But Labor figures loyal to the former prime minister Kevin Rudd rounded on Ms Gillard on Wednesday, calling the drafting of Ms Peris to replace a sitting Labor senator for the Northern Territory “unprecedented”.

Who are these Labor figures? Oh, look, there’s just one:

“Because we are in an election year, most MPs will bite their lips, but people are furious,” said the MP, who wished to remain anonymous.

One. Unnamed. MP.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who didn’t have the guts to put his/her name to his/her words.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who wanted to undermine the PM and asked the journalists to leave out his/her name and they agreed.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who is a bit shitty about something and is using docile, unquestioning journalists to have a bit of a whinge. Can Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan seriously not see how they are being used? Are they that blind? But I guess “One MP has a bit of a whinge about something” isn’t as exciting as OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO KEEP WRITING ABOUT RUDD IN CASE THE PARTY DUMPS GILLARD AND RETURNS TO RUDD EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO INDICATION THAT ANYONE WANTS THAT BUT MY GOD WE AREN’T GOING TO MISS IT AGAIN.

But wait, there’s more.

In an article about Nova Peris being endorsed as a Labor candidate there is no mention of her suitability. Except this bit:

“Unfortunately Nova doesn’t realise she’s being used by Julia Gillard,” said Michael Anderson, a former leader of the Australian Black Power movement and a founder of the Aboriginal tent embassy.

“Ms Peris-Kneebone is only being used as a public relations exercise for Labor. She has not been involved in major political processes, rallies or otherwise. She has been missing in political action all the time.”

Which is wrong. The journalists should have indicated that Anderson was wrong, not only for using her old name (she hasn’t been Peris-Kneebone in over a decade), but for having no fucking idea what he is talking about. Nova Peris was awarded the Order of Australia, she was a treaty ambassador for ATSIC, she created the Peris Enterprises charity to promote health and education for Indigenous children, then there’s the Nova Peris Girls Academy. And she was an international ambassador for the World Health Organisation (for youth suicide prevention), and a national ambassador for Reconciliation Australia, and a delegate to the National Constitution Convention, and a national patron for Beyond Blue. And here’s a list of 17 things she’s been involved in that make her one of the best candidates for political office that I’ve seen in a long time.

I found this information in less than one minute. Yet Kenny and Swan didn’t even make a basic effort to point out that Anderson is completely wrong. They published his ignorance/lie, playing in to the narrative of Nova Peris being an unskilled celebrity candidate who will no doubt crash and burn and it will be ALL JULIA GILLARD’S FAULT.

I started this post by saying Kenny and Swan’s story is a pretty bad example of political journalism. But now that I’ve dissected it, and seen how lazy and how wrong the story is, I’ve changed my mind. It’s fucking appalling journalism and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Mmmm, boob cakes…

Two women rang the buzzer this morning, wanting to talk about a god. I don’t know which god.

The conversation went like this:

Suspected God-woman: Hi, how are you?

Me: I’m well, thanks. You?

God-woman: I’m good. We’re just talking to people about some community work in the local area.

Me: Is this a god thing?

God-woman: Yes.

Me: Oh, then sorry, I’m not interested. I don’t believe in your god or any other god.

Confirmed God-woman: Have you always felt this way?

Me: Yes, I have. But you have a nice day.

And then I smiled at them to let them know I wasn’t going to be nasty, and gently closed the door.

They had a small child with them, probably three or four years old, which annoyed me because I thought “they’re bringing the child along so people don’t abuse them” and “they’re indoctrinating that child”.

And the more I thought about these things, the more I realised I am an idiot. Maybe the mother couldn’t get childcare? Maybe she was a stay-at-home parent? Maybe she didn’t think twice about bringing her child along, since they go to church and other church activities as a family. And maybe she did bring her child because it stops people being arseholes, and is that really such a bad thing? Just because you don’t like what someone is selling, there’s no need to be a jerkhead about it. You can just close the door and then they are magically gone.

But the indoctrination point made me realise I am a hypocrite. I have no problem with people taking their kids to anti-war/anti-discrimination/anti-violence rallies. I say this as someone who doesn’t have kids – and so it’s likely that I’m talking out my arse – but I’d like to think it teaches them to be engaged citizens who stand up for things that are important to them. And that it’s important to create a society that doesn’t fuck people over. Yet I tut tut when I see photos of kids at anti-carbon pricing/anti-marriage equality rallies, when it’s exactly the same thing. Same with including your child in an activity to promote a religion that’s important to you.

I feel like there should be some sort of deep insight at the end of this post. There isn’t. Other than to say, I’d like to think I’m above being a hypocrite in my attitudes, but turns out I’m just like everyone else. That’s a bit shit.

This is the first main image on smh.com.au:

The caption reads:

As she looked on, there were groans – and a few laughs – as Family Guy creator put his stamp on the Oscars

As “she” looked on? Emma Stone has a name and it’s Emma Stone. Oh I know, it can be really difficult because sometimes she has red hair and other times she has blonde hair, but with a little effort, the tertiary-educated journalists at smh.com.au can probably figure out who she is. For example, they could turn to the person next to them and say, “hey, do you know who that is?”.

The story is Seth Macfarlane polarises Oscars audience, by Megan Levy. Here’s the image inside the story (for a crappy autoplay video):

The caption reads:

MacFarlane in Oscar trouble
Seth MacFarlane, host of the 2013 Oscars, is in hot water with a joke about Hitler at the announcement of the Oscar nominees.

Funny, I could swear there are two people in that image… Yep. I’ve checked a few times and there’s definitely two people there.

Another thing that’s funny is that, sure, Seth Macfarlane is hosting the Oscars and the story is about him making a Hitler joke (ooooh, controversial), but you know, there are two people announcing the nominations so it’s pretty dumb to pretend there’s only one person doing it. Particularly when we can see the other person.

The second main image on smh.com.au is this one:

The caption reads:

Downfall of a beauty queen
How Angelina Sandakh went from Sydney to winning Miss Indonesia to becoming a politician to ending up in jail.

The downfall of a pretty woman! A fallen beauty queen! An Australian connection! Exciting!

The story, How Angelina went from Sydney to Miss Indonesia to politics to jail, is by Michael Bachelard:

As former beauty queen and politician Angelina Sondakh awaited her fate in Jakarta’s corruption court this week, her defenders were extolling the intellectual feats of her long-past Australian girlhood.

A former beauty queen! Exciting! Oh wait. We’ve done that bit.

“Angie has many achievements behind her,” said one breathless article in the Harian Terbit newspaper.

A breathless article! Like this one by Michael Bachelard!

The rest of the article mocks the Indonesian media for being excited! By a beauty queen! In trouble! In Indonesia! Because the Australian media never ever does that. Noooooo, not at all.

According to the article (and you have to read a long way down to find it), Angelina Sondakh has been an MP since 2004. That’s almost a decade. But model! Breathless!

Defining Sondakh by a job she did almost 10 years ago is like calling me a checkout chick because I worked at Kmart as an undergrad in the 90s. It’s idiotic. It’s also fairly irrelevant: the story is about politics and corruption, not beauty pageants.

I called this post The Sydney Morning Herald’s problem with women, not because the journalists who work there are misogynists, or because they’re all “ew, women are icky”. Their problem is that they either ignore women altogether (and read Chrys Stevenson’s The Blokeyness Index on the SMH’s massive failure at having women on the front page), or they think that a woman’s appearance trumps everything else does.