Our media are a national tragedy

Seventh, everyone is selling something. Thus in a movie I will see time and again a reference to Starbucks. Or it seems to happen that they visit one of their stores. And so on. Product placement is everywhere. Capitalism grinds on, and products are pushed at us so much we lose track. That's great- subliminal advertising works (although there are some qualifications to be made). If you work in certain newspapers, you find cute ways of mentioning the book you're working on, the one that you're promoting in a tour, or the one that just got an award in Iceland. The promotion of gambling in sport deserves a separate article, but is a huge problem. And it seems connected to various rather dubious practices as well, such as surprising results in tennis, as we found recently.

Eighth, we are seeing media race to the bottom. The most sensational stories get attention. Kids attacking each other in the street- see how it's shown on Facebook! Some woman's bra fell off in the street! Some guy shows his butt! It will get worse, I'm sure. Ironically, this story was reproduced in the Sydney Morning Herald. Readers of that paper will smile faintly. It's all too true everywhere. I grit my teeth imagining what will be presented of the Sydney Mardi Gras- same old stuff, drag queens and muscle boys, with intelligent commentary shoved off to late-night viewing, if at all. Women complain that feminism is presented in a harsh light. I make the same point about how men are presented. It's all black and white, never ambiguity, subtlety or shading.

Finally, everyone talks about America. One huge benefit of having SBS radio and TV in Australia is that we hear about other countries and languages. Apart from the ABC, with its grandmotherly fondness for Mother Britain, it's all USA, USA! Especially on the commercial channels. I have occasionally written about the US myself, mea culpa. We have heard again and again about Jarryd Hayne, American football, and numerous other things of slight interest to most of us. Have we really got to hear about every tiny event along the road towards the election of a President next November? Every snowstorm in Ohio? Every twister in Kansas? Every two-bit actor who might appear at the Oscars or who comes to Sydney to promote his latest movie of minimal interest? Does anything happen in Africa or Europe? Here is a role for the ABC if it really wants to educate the masses. And if any readers have visited the USA, they will find that ninety percent of news and current affairs- or more - is about the USA. Australia usually gets mentioned when there is a crocodile or shark attack, or some poor American is savaged by a vicious snake.

I'm afraid that the media is on a downward path. The newspapers are losing money, sacking staff, and running items already seen in the media – often from the USA, Britain or even New Zealand. We urgently need more feedback from the public, as we used to get in Backchat on ABC TV. We need to fight the tendency to diminish the number of news sources; Australian media are already far too concentrated in the hands of the ABC, which seems far too often to have a corporate way of thinking, about refugees or leadership or anything else. And in the hands of Newscorp, which loves its own heroes and villains. Neither lets a hundred opinions bloom: it's usually just "the way we think around here".

I wish my story was more optimistic. But that's the way I see the media today. The tragedy is ours. We have to live in a society in which the media try to tell us that important issues are how to cook a meatloaf and how to lose five kilograms.