THE NAKED CITY: HARD NEWS, SOFT NEWS AND A BAN ON FAIRY BREAD
Image: The Toastie Award.
Switch onto one of the morning TV breakfast shows these days, either on the commercial stations or the ABC, and you will be confronted with a jumbled mix of so called ‘hard’ news and mindless feel-good fluff. Unless there is a major natural disaster, a gruesome murder or political scandal, the pendulum swings very much to the trivial and stories inflated well beyond their real significance.
The breakfast shows aren’t the only culprits, and admittedly they are designed to make us feel upbeat and positive before we head off for another dreary day at work. The evening news bulletins often promote the more overblown stories, many broken earlier on the breakfast shows, to headline status.
The most recent example, one which gathered oxygen throughout the day, was the almost absurd Kate Middleton “photoshop scandal”. As the war raged in Ukraine and dead children were still being pulled from the rubble in Gaza, the moral outrage of the media focused on a family photo which had been given a few sneaky touch-ups.
Forget about Prince Harry once sporting a swastika on his arm or the Palace harbouring an alleged sex trafficker, this was an act of royal impropriety that was supposed to shock us all (apart from many in the community who no doubt responded “who gives a fuck?”).
The ABC TV breakfast show thought so much of the issue that they called upon no less than two “royal experts” to comment on the brouhaha, as well as having repeated discussion throughout the program. Even the usually hard hitting 7.30 Report chose to regurgitate the issue as if some sacred rule of photo journalism had been breached for the very first time.
British Royalty and their continuing soap opera is an omnipresent filler on Australia TV news programs, usually slotted in late in the broadcast as both a reminder and acknowledgment that we are still a constitutional monarchy. It wasn’t all that long ago that TV stations here signed off their nightly broadcasts to the tune of “God Save The Queen”, with some devout royalists even rising from their lounge suites and Jason recliners as a mark of respect.
Today’s loathsome Royals are part of an anointed pantheon of media pleasers that suck up totally disproportionate coverage, particularly on the breakfast and morning TV news programs.
Granted the majority of breakfast and early morning TV viewers would not want persistent exposure to the horrors of war in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. Likewise there’s a range of other disturbing and traumatic subjects which both the ABC and the commercials prefer to avoid at the very start of the day. The commercial broadcasters in particular carry huge advertising content and hard, confronting news does not sit well with the flogging of a whole range of products.
There are alternatives, of course, to shows like Today and Sunrise and even ABC Breakfast. Radio National’s breakfast program doesn’t shun the kind of news that might upset, admittedly without the graphic images and you can always source your own coverage and updates by trawling through the internet.
The annual Walkley Awards for excellence in journalism are a recognition of outstanding contributions to the Australian media, with a wide range of categories in print, radio and television. Maybe we need a single separate award for the most insignificant, spurious and banal news item of the year on breakfast and morning TV. The competition would certainly be hot and the judges would have a hard time searching through hundreds if not thousands of nominations.
Let’s call it the “Burnt Toast” award. Here are a few possible nominations, some of them real, some of them bogus. See if you can spot the difference.
ABC Breakfast highlights Justin Timberlake’s reunion with NSYNC in LA after an eleven year absence.
Seven’s Sunrise chats with Mr Methane after it’s revealed Phil Collins has finally given permission for a spoof version of “In The Air Tonight”.
Annie Sprinkle appointed director of a SEXPO 2024 – issues invitation to Kings Charles and Camilla and other well known swingers. Story broadcast across all channels.
Michael Rowland whistles “Bad Moon Rising” on ABC Breakfast as a news story shows Territorians baring their bums to passengers on The Ghan to celebrate a twenty year anniversary.
ABC Breakfast fuels the outrage at a ban on fairy bread in school canteens in South Australia.
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