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For the last 18 months I've been relishing my newfound job as a stay-at-home dad. If I'm honest, though, I sometimes miss being a cog in the big ol' media machine. Mostly I get a bit wistful about the daily editorial conferences at the newspapers, magazines and online news sites I've worked for over the years.
Conferences are noisy, intense and often hilarious gatherings of senior staff in the editor's office where the events of the day are catalogued, analysed, probed for veracity and their importance weighed. Story ideas are pitched; some get up, some are laughed at. Exclusives are prized, as are the brilliant photos that can speak 1000 words. Classic headlines can be born in news conference and go on to lodge in a reader's mind forever. Consideration is given to the tone each item is handled with and where it should be placed. That's why yours truly is up here at the back of the bus.
Now, imagine for a moment the reaction a news editor might get if he or she piped up in conference with this story idea: "I have it on good authority that Aldi is about to launch new packaging for their tinned tomatoes. If we can get a good enough photo of people buying them, I think it could be page three, even maybe page one!"
You'd be out on your arse and never invited to conference again.
Yet in newsrooms around the country - from the Financial Review to the national broadsheet, all the TV networks and the ABC - senior journalists sat in conference last week and said, "Hey, don't forget Apple is launching a new iPhone on Friday!" Not that they'd really need to because the pending launch of anything that Apple Inc. produces is dutifully noted in news lists weeks or even months ahead of the actual release. This, dear reader, is a disgrace.
So today I'd like to send a message to editors everywhere: the launch of an iPhone is NOT NEWS. It's a flippin' telephone, guys. It's a tin of tomatoes. A gadget. It's carpet cleaner. The only way an iWhatever should appear in the news pages is via an advertisement, paid for by the venal gazillionaires at Apple Inc. Comrades, Apple Inc. has cunningly and deliberately zombiefied your news sense. Ad revenue is hard enough to come by without giving it away. Wake up to yourselves.
The battle rages on between some Illawarra dog owners and people who support Wollongong City Council's proposal to scrap the off-leash areas at McCauley's, Little Austi and Sharkeys beaches.
First the dog lovers took their pooches on a protest march on the sand. Next they whimpered about how council's plans to change the off-leash rules were the result of just 25 complaints from 15 households. More than half those complaints, they added with a little sob and sniff, were made by the same three households.
So barking what? A complaint is a complaint. And I'll guarantee a hell of a lot more than 25 people have been either frightened for their kids by a dog on a beach or trodden, sat or lay down in Rover's sand-encrusted s--t (and don't say you all pick it up 'cause you don't) but haven't made a formal complaint to council. I'm one of them.
Know what else? Whenever I go to the beach, I defer to what the lifesavers say because, frankly, they know what's best. Veteran Illawarra lifeguard Ken Holloway - a senior and credentialed protector of our beaches - knows a thing or two about what's safe, good and proper and he reckons dogs should be barred from beaches entirely. I'm with big Ken.
People need to think of it this way; when you buy a dog you also purchase 12-14 years of thrice-daily dogs--t.
Guess what? It's yours! You own it. Don't bring it to the beach. And, when you get a spare minute, wake up to yourselves.
On a random note, have you ever suddenly realised how utterly stupid some song lyrics are after hearing them for years, even decades? So it was when Elton John's Rocket Man* came on the radio the other day. As usual I sang along:
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids,
In fact it's cold as hell,
And there's no-one there to raise them, if you did.
Eh? If you did what exactly, Elton? Tried to find a Tiny Tots day-care centre on another planet? You need to wake up to yourself too, champ. As for hell being a cold place, I think you might want to think about sacking your researcher. I know Elton used to plough through enough drugs to put Keith Richards in the shade but the mind boggles at what sort of chemicals he must have ingested before he sat down to record Rocket Man.
* I know, I know - Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics and Elton wrote the music. But Elton sang it; it's his song and it's his silly space mission.