No one needs to be told that McDonald’s is out of favour
with the Age. The fast-food company is well run, which makes it an
incomprehensible oddity to those who work at Media Floor, and it turns a
profit, further compounding the general bafflement. Add that Macca’s is being
harassed by Greens-voting Age readers in the Dandenongs – the sort who define injustice as any VCAT decisionthat goes against their wishes – and the company makes a handy stand-in villain
whenever there is insufficient opportunity to remind readers that Tony
Abbott is (shudder) a Catholic.
One such report appeared last week, when business writer Eli Greenblat began a story thus:
One such report appeared last week, when business writer Eli Greenblat began a story thus:
McDonald's, the world's biggest fast-food chain, says sales in Australia are going backwards, citing incorrect figures on the level of youth unemployment to help explain why fewer people are buying its burgers and fries.
The “incorrect figures” refers to the assertion that McDonald’s
sales are down in Australia because, as the CEO told investors, “Youth
unemployment in Australia is about 25.5 per cent. So they're facing something;
unemployment for them has risen.” This was just plain wrong, Greenblat
explained, citing ABS figures. On the paper’s home page that day, one of his
colleagues wrote a teaser that all but accused McDonald’s of working
hand-in-glove with the Coalition to “talk down the economy.”
Greenblat will now have to publish a correction, and that is
not merely the opinion of a partisan Bunyip but the official, fact-checked view at former Age editor Andrew Jaspan’s TheConversation.
“The current full-time unemployment rate (that is, people looking for full-time work) for youth aged 15- to 19-years-old is 27.3%, according to the June 2013 ABS Labour Force Data. That is the highest rate for 15 years, when it hit 29.7% in 1998. The lowest level of youth unemployment was in 2008 when it fell to 15.5%.”
The Age needs to review its sympathies for those Tecoma protesters,
no matter how endearing their deployment of “a sacred fungus” at a
Litijus-Mordy’s smoking ceremony intended to drive Macca’s out of the Hills.
A few more McDonald’s outlets and burger-flipping jobs and, who knows, Greenblat
might actually be correct.
