Straight Face Tweets
You would have had to have been living under a rock to miss the Logan street violence story during the week.
What was first a neighbourhood dispute between two families quickly escalated into gang warfare between Indigenous and Pacific Islander youths, all played out on Douglas Street, Woodridge. For four days small skirmishes broke out on a regular basis with the police doing a fine effort to calm things down and often got themselves right in the firing line of metal bars and fence palings to keep the two groups apart.
Cue the media frenzy with headlines implying ‘our suburban streets are at a flashpoint’ so we had live crosses from everyone to the local ABC radio reporter to Kochie and Mel on Sunrise. Some serious questions were raised as to whether the media was actually contributing to the conflict with their sensationalist reporting, but of course they were drowned out by the latest live cross to a police press conference or opinion pieces blaming it all on out of control ‘yoofs’ and social media.
One thing that certainly did not work to resolve things and take the heat out of the situation was this tweet from Federal Liberal MP, Andrew Laming:
Mobs tearing up Logan tonight. Did any of them do a day's work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap?
9:06 PM - 14 Jan 13
Notwithstanding the fact an elected Member of Parliament should actually be showing some leadership in a situation like this rather than inflaming things even more, this man is the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Health.
How on earth then, can someone who so readily employs massive generalisations and racial stereotypes about Indigenous people be responsible for promoting Indigenous health and holding the Government to account on Indigenous health issues?
It’s like a card-carrying member of the NRA being Shadow Minister for Gun Control. Or Pauline Hanson being Shadow Minister for Immigration. The mind truly boggles as to how the man still has that job.
But the funniest part of the whole saga was Laming’s ‘clarification’ the next day once he’d finished wiping the $hit from his fan and no doubt after a few calls from LNP HQ. Apparently what he really meant to convey was how unfortunate the situation was and he was merely raising concerns about training and employment prospects:
To clarify: Working together to resolve these riots the priority. Training and a chance for jobs are key.
9:51 AM - 15 Jan 13
Being a tweet, it’s hard to tell if he said it with a straight face. But being a politician, I’m sure he did and he actually thought it would work.
Death Match Cometh
The other big story for the week so far (as mentioned last week) has been the impending Armstrong vs Oprah ‘no-holds-barred’ death match coming up later today and tomorrow our time. I say death match given the way it’s been promoted with the most unintentionally funny television promo I’ve ever seen. All deep voiceover and thunderous drum beats. I’m sure Saturday Night Live could not have done a better job of satirising it to be honest.
Anyway, the whole lead-up to the interview with the early announcement and selective leaks has been so blindingly obvious in its attempt to recuperate Armstrong’s image that it may actually work in reverse. The strategies and tactics are so transparent that Media Studies 101 students could easily rip it apart for what it is.
Alas, here and here are two of the best articles I’ve read on the whole sorry saga over the last week that really demonstrate how stage-managed the event has been.
The other topic of interest with this is the role the interview will play in heavily promoting Oprah’s fledging cable television network. The network has struggled big time since its launch and Oprah needs a big ‘catch’ and a big moment to try and gain some traction and put her name back up in lights once again. Even Oprah herself is spruiking the Armstrong interview as “big for my career”.
Anyway, just some points that are worth reading about before the interview is aired in a few hours time. Millions will be glued to their televisions and I’m sure it’ll be a ‘water cooler’ discussion for the days that follow.
Just remember though that Armstrong isn’t confessing because he feels guilty and is contrite and sorry for his actions. It’s because he got caught not just for cheating, but for lying to us all for nearly a decade about the cheating. And not just in the media and in interviews. But under oath during multiple legal proceedings and court cases.
And of course there’s millions of dollars at stake. Not the most altruistic of motives.
EDM.
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