Who the hell is Justin Bieber? I知 not even going to take the time to find out whether I知 spelling his name right. More importantly, why would 3 News start their report of the day's events by investigating the frenzy and hysteria around a musical spawn of Satan entering the country?
The hypocrisy of the whole thing is that 3 News enjoys a self-styled reputation as, well, reputable. They have fun playing dress up in flak jackets overseas in their ‘getting the news as it breaks’ advertisements, when really they’re probably just running around in foreign suburbia and drinking Mojitos, while everyone else does the real reporting. If he wasn’t a pacifist, Robert Fisk would scissor-kick Mike McRoberts in the head for even implying that he too runs from bombs for a living, or even gets close to being a reputable foreign correspondent.
In an unnervingly jocular introduction to the ‘story’, Hilary Barry sheepishly stands beside the techno-looks-like-it-does-something-but-really-doesn’t-at-all-touchscreen, close to cracking up, then pointlessly touches it. Oh, did I mention the touch-sensitive screen is shiny and new? It helps to give pseudo-news stories a veneer of respectability if the go-go-gadget-distractor is shiny; you know the thing – it looks like it was stolen off the set of Minority Report when Tom Cruise had his back turned (he was probably busy converting teamsters and lighting techs to his kooky alien cult). Either Bazza had been candy popping, was a massive Bieb fan, or more plausibly, her abashed and giggling disposition was brought on by the fact that she had to grin and bear presenting a news story that even Fox News would laugh at, on what was supposed to be the evening news.
I’d love to have a record of the masses that must have changed the channel during the ten-minute coverage of this non-event. I’m assuming it was ten minutes long, of course, as with no end in sight I changed the channel – I mean they had a psychiatrist waiting in the wings, ready to analyse the hysteria (the go-go-gadget-legitimiser), and then they were probably going to follow up with a clunky Beatlemania reference. I just couldn’t wait that long for the real news to show up. With any luck everyone voted in the same way as I, by feverishly clawing for the remote and changing the channel. 3 News will hopefully get the message, and mercilessly beat their producer with a sack of oranges for being so stupid.
The Media and Me - 10
