Dec 05
2
Manipulating The Front Page
In Sydney today there was a lot of street action today. People
demonstrating about the execution by hanging of a young Australian man
in Singapore for drug smuggling.
In Martin Place early this morning apparently there were over a 1,000
people. By the time I got to Martin Place for an appointment in an
office there, the crowds had diminished and there were almost as many
photographers there as ordinary people.
I don't mean in any way to trivialise or reduce the horror of capital
punishment, but let's look at this topic through a different lens – the
lens of the Front Page.
What gets things on or off the front page? There has been a media
frenzy about this execution. But there have been executions before and
pretty much everyone on the planet knows that there is little or
nothing that anyone is going to be able to do that will change the mind
of the Singaporean Government.
So what is different this time?
Well – one interesting thing that occurs to me is this: In the UK Tony
Blair is on the ropes. In the US Both Cheney and Bush are on the ropes.
Yet in Australia Howard is still riding high. And at during the last
few weeks and the coming week some of the most contentious legislation
that has ever been undertaken in Australia is being run through
parliament. Legislation that effectively takes away worker rights and
the right of free speech.
Is it all possible that the media frenzy about the execution is keeping
the real news off the front page – the news that is going to affect
every living soul in Australia from this moment forward – by ensuring
that an emotionally spinning tack is taken by media? Is it possible
that Howard has himself ensured that there is heat in a drug dealer's
execution?
It is up to us in the blogosphere to examine this stuff. Noone in the traditional media is going to.