What’s with the body-shaming, Paula?

Posted on February 22, 2013 by | 20 Comments

My name is Kim Powell, so if a headline mentions Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, Kim Kardashian, Colin Powell, Julie Powell, Baden Powell or Powell Peralta, I’m gonna notice it.

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

Article by Paula Joye about Kim Kardashian, on smh.com.au

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.

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Women play sport? Never heard about it

Posted on February 18, 2013 by | 33 Comments

At the beginning of last week, twitter told me there were a couple of big things coming up in women’s sport: the Australian Open (golf) and the World Cup (cricket). I was curious to see what coverage they’d get in my paper of choice (Sydney Morning Herald – I don’t read News Ltd papers), so from Monday to Friday I counted the number of stories in the SMH sports section. I also counted the number of stories on the smh.com.au/sport homepage around midday (when online newsrooms are well-staffed and the page is ready for the lunchtime increase in traffic, so theoretically any gaps in coverage have been identified and filled).

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.

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.

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

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

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Reporting Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp

Posted on February 15, 2013 by | 24 Comments

There’s something quite sinister about the way the mainstream media reports violence against beautiful women. The focus on the woman’s appearance always has a touch of “she drove him mad with her beauty” (he couldn’t help himself) or “he loved her so much he had to kill her” (aww, romantic) that sits very uneasily with me.

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

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 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.

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.)

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I’m putting it in writing

Posted on February 11, 2013 by | 26 Comments

I just went to the gym for the first time in ages.

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!

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All the better to see pointless journalism

Posted on January 31, 2013 by | 26 Comments

Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to be blogging a lot about stooopid journalism between now and September 14? I kinda feel bad for the Sydney Morning Herald because I always focus on them, but I don’t read News Ltd rubbish so I don’t blog about their nonsense.

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:

Story about Julia Gillard's glasses in the Sydney Morning Herald

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:

Smh.com.au makes a big deal out of the PM's glasses

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?

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The everyday shit they call journalism

Posted on January 24, 2013 by | 50 Comments

There’s a story in the Sydney Morning Herald today that’s a great example of how meaningless political journalism has become. It’s not about a manufactured scandal, or a gaffe, or something that happened decades ago, but is just the everyday political journalism that is, frankly, rubbish.

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.

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A post in which I examine my attitudes towards stuff I know nothing about

Posted on January 22, 2013 by | 30 Comments

This is one of those posts where I’m mainly talking out my arse. Feel free to just look at the picture above and think about boobs and delicious boob cakes.

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.

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