Thursday, February 2, 2012

Yawn Of The Dead

IN TERMS of politics, this baby of a year promises to provide the best entertainment since 1975, when readers of a certain age will recall another genius prime minister’s terminal stagger through his government’s litany of shame and scandal. Craig Thomson’s brothel-creeping, Peter Slipper’s nocturnal missions, the curious lassitude of Fair Work Australia’s investigators and, not to be overlooked, prime ministerial staffers prompting race riots – 2012 has got the lot, even before the carbon tax comes into effect and unemployment vaults, as it surely will.

One might imagine that such a chocolate box of delights would have professional journalists salivating at the thought of all the scoops and front-page sensations out there to be had. Straining at the leash, they must be, howling to get on the trail of corruption in high places and defend the public’s right to know. That’s what journalists do, right?

Some journalists perhaps, but apparently not climate change worrywort and Phage environment editor Adam Morton, who has shared with the world via Twitter just how he views the political landscape, and that is with a big, disiniterested yawn:

@adamlmortonAdam Morton
It's not even Feb and Aus politics has jumped a full shiver of sharks.
For those not down with the youth, jumping the shark means something just isn’t worth watching and following anymore, like the final episodes of Happy Days.If Gina Rinehart comes to exert an influence on Fairfax she might wish to make note of Morton’s galloping boredom and do something about it. Cleaning out his desk might keep his mind occupied for a few minutes.

7 comments:

  1. Analogy of the Week:

    http://twitter.com/samanthamaiden/status/164132285761855488

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  2. P.S. Tony Abbott doesn't jump the shark. Tony Abbott f**kin rides the shark.

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  3. Naturally, Adam Morton invites us to share his lassitude should the political boot be on the other foot. I mean, no doubt he would be similarly uninterested were Abbott's office the origin of the Australia Day scuffle stimulus.

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  4. If you read Morton's Twitter feed, you'd think any newspaper would be alarmed that its environment reporter is an activist. That it isn't explains why The Age and Fairfax have no future.

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  5. Similar comments were made last year on a Sky News political panel show by the SMH's Jessica Irvine.

    She said words to the effect that the general public are bored with political news and just want government, ie federal ALP government, to get on with it.

    That's just what you want from a panelist - oh, the topic we're discussing bores everyone.

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  6. That's not the real meaning of "Jumping the shark" - Wikipedia does a good job of summarising it:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

    "Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery."

    Labor is certainly beyond recovery.

    Often when people talk about something 'jumping the shark' it means it has become completely ridiculous.

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  7. Anonymous, Then I think Gillard jumped her shark a long time ago...maybe when she knifed Rudd??

    Everyone I talk to and read about has given up listening to her or even watching her on TV, whatever the occasion!

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