Skip to main content

There Ought to be a Law... #SydneySiege #mediacoverage #IIIridewithyou

If ever a successful terrorist action was demonstrated, you'd have to say the Sydney Siege in Martin Place was mostly a success thanks to virtually every major TV station in Australia dropping their programming and replacing it with live, rolling coverage for hours.

Not only live coverage but seemingly endless talking heads looking at every possible angle, waxing on and on to fill the gap between nothing has happened since the last time we reported nothing had happened. Which, although nothing happening is a good thing, doesn't make for very interesting TV.



I don't want to take anything away from how police handled the siege. In hind sight it's always easier to see that something could be done differently but at the time you can't know what you don't know. I also don't want to take anything away from the people caught up in the ordeal. Especially those that lost their lives. I can only guess at what they all went through and how all have been affected.

You also have to wonder if it would have made any difference if the gunman, who appeared to be acting alone, was on any terror watch list (as our Prime Minister was questioning before more information was known - though it does seem the gunman was well known to police)?

But back to my point. Although the gunman tried to link his cause to a terrorist group, he wasn't actually linked in any way to that group beyond his extremist views. However, such groups may be looking at the world wide attention he received and be thinking... is it really that easy to stop a country and draw attention to a cause?

Other than people in Sydney, who really needed ongoing media coverage of the events unfolding?

Why did the media need to draw so much attention to what looked like a possible terrorist attack where wide media coverage is usually a desired outcome for the perpetrators?

Far from being helpful, nation wide coverage often fans the flame of cultural ignorance. Creating a need for campaigns like the hash tag #Illridewithyou (which I think is the single most awesome community response to such an extremely confronting event in recent years. You're wrong George Christensen. You know perfectly well there are segments of the Australian community in every state that would see this as their moment to speak up and harass people just going about their every day lives. I'd go so far as to say,if you weren't an MP, you'd be one of them based on your history).

I'm not one for making laws but if the media can't reign its self in and just report enough so that we're aware that something is happening, and perhaps a special 'breaking news' report if something significant happens, then maybe there ought to be a law restricting coverage of these attention seekers? Did this really need to stop the country?

Thankfully the media did seem to dial it back some what and didn't report the gunman's demands at the request of police. Even though I'm sure many were curious as to what they were (myself included... and it would've given all those talking heads much more to talk about). Sometimes it is better not to know.

The media I happened to watch (because, like I mentioned it was on virtually every station) also seemed to make a point of distancing the gunman's beliefs from the wider Islamic community. If this kind of nation stopping news reporting is going to continue then more of that 'one nutter or extremist group isn't representative of an entire culture/religion' reinforcement is definitely a step in the right direction. (It shouldn't be necessary but it is, Mr Christensen, for the same reason #Illridewithyou shouldn't be but is a great response).

I really don't get why the various media need to compete on something like this? It just seemed like a 9/11 response to a small scale hold up. Would it have received this kind of attention without the links to a Terrorist Group?

Maybe we need to start going back to pre 9/11 thinking where you could have gun man shut down your street for hours in a stand off with police and it barely makes the local news (yes that did happen in my street just over a year prior to the 9/11 attack).

Comments

  1. I was wondering why it took the same attention as the 9/11 too, it being on every station and all day and evening. (did it need that?!!) It was the same on the radio too, such as the talkback stations, they kept crossing to it, it was just full of it all day and into the evening.

    I didn't really know how serious it was as I didn't know how many hostages there was. When they said five of them had got out, I thought that was all of them. It was sad to hear of the woman being shot who had three children, but it didn't say how old her children were. And the manager being shot.

    'Course I was miffed that Hot Seat wasn't on which I watch every week-night and then Mad Dogs wasn't on on ABC1 at 9-30pm as they were still going on with it. It's a bit sad when all we can think about is the inconvenience of our TV programmes not showing up or our radio being full of it too. A lady on the radio who rang up said it was driving her up the wall.

    I didn't think it needed the same coverage as the 9/11, just what you said would have been enough. Last week we had the outpouring of grief for the cricketer Philip Hughes, and now we have the one for this. No wonder people are saying we need a laugh with all that's going on in the media at the moment. The news is all bad news with accidents, shootings, robberies etc, etc.

    The chap who's stepping in at midnight on 6pr talkback radio for Jon Lewis, who's gone on his Christmas hols, as a lot have and others filling in, last night said he was going to keep things light with some music and comedy and not talk about any heavy topics or politics etc, so that was good, as it's nice to keep things light sometimes.

    I suppose we should be thankful that it hasn't happened to us, but it's strange how there's always something to take the place of the last news headlines. Philip Hughes has been pushed out now. Wonder what the next big thing will be in the news now? Hope there isn't going to be 'the next big thing' but that's hardly likely with Christmas coming up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not only were my shows not on, their time slots weren't even interrupted by the coverage. However the station in question chose to put on replacement shows not even listed in the program guide for any part of that evenings viewing.

      Unfortunately real life drama rates well, especially if it's a life or death drama. Feel good news is for light entertainment and isn't really news. When something really great and exciting happens, worthy of making the news, it never gets anywhere near as much screen time as bad news... unless it's an Aussie cricket team or Footy team winning a grand final or similar.

      Delete
  2. I forgot to say, what about the other shooting where someone's gone mad randomly shooting school children, some as young as 12yrs it said, and they also saw their friends shot. One girl said she saved herself by lying among the dead bodies pretending she was dead! That didn't get much coverage, only been on the news a couple of times, but that was pretty horrific too! I've forgotten where it was now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That school was in Pakistan... since they're all terrorists over there, and that was a school of future terrorists, it doesn't really count as news worthy of stopping a nation... now if one of those children was an Aussie that would be worth a lot more coverage.

      I don't actually believe that, I'm actually paraphrasing a a comment some random person left on an article I read about it. I think it was just unfortunate timing. A possible terrorist attack locally will trump almost any international drama every time because the closer we are to an event the more it will effect our psyche and get eyeballs in front of screens.

      Delete
  3. I don't think any of our programmes were replaced, it was just the news coverage of it the whole time. Now, we've got the eight children and Mother being shot by a woman in her early thirties, don't know if she was related. One child was a cousin who was staying over. I think that one was in Perth, but not sure. The 20yr old brother came home and found all that. What a thing to come home to! I don't know how you'd cope with that! The bad news just goes on and on!

    A few years ago Channel 7 began ending the news with some good news, because of all the bad news then. It lasted for a few months, then fell off. They haven't done it since. I guess they couldn't find enough good news to end on. Pity if they couldn't try it again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They do actually report good news though. They just tend to lead with the bad news because it has wider interest... and let's face it, you remember and talk more about bad news than you do a good news story... unless the good news story is featuring a celebrity, then you might remember it more.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

TV Series Review: Skeleton Crew (2024) (Disney+) *No Spoilers*

I f you saw the trailer for  Skeleton Crew  and decided the show looked too much like Star Wars for little kids, and didn't watch, you missed out on a real treat. While I will say this show was definitely targeted at bringing in younger fans to the Star Wars universe, it is very much more like family viewing than kids only TV. Not to mention, characters are literally gunned down or murdered on this show, but without the really graphic violence you might see on a more adult orientated show. It's actually no more kid only orientated than the first series of Stranger Things  (2016), or even the original  Star Wars  (1977) movie. In fact the whole show is a not so subtle homage to original Star Wars (1977), Treasure Island  (1950), and eighties movies like The Goonies  (1985), ET  (1982), Explorers  (1985) and others. The plot is very straight forward. A group of children, living in the Star Wars equivalent of the suburbs, find an aband...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

TV Series Review: Creature Commandos (2024) *No Spoilers*

O fficially, Creature Commandos is the first show of James Gunn's kind of reboot of the DCU. Technically though, it starts with James Gunn's, The Suicide Squad , and includes his series, Peacemaker , as the events of both are either referenced or felt within the show. Potentially that means Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn in the DCU, but I'd be surprised if she would even want another crack at it, let alone that James didn't recast the role. However that's a whole other rabbit hole for a character that may not appear again for at least a few more years. Creature Commandos is Suicide Squad but with monsters, and no real threat of Suicide - well, having your head blown off if you stray from the mission at least. Though I don't recall that being a thing in Gunn's Suicide Squad movie since the team was renamed 'Task Force X'? Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) somehow still has a job, but is no longer allowed to use humans on her team, so she assembles a team of...

TV Series Review: The Penguin (2024) *No Spoilers*

W hile we wait for an eternity (well an eternity in movie fan years anyway) for The Batman Part 2 , sequel to Matt Reeves acclaimed, The Batman  (2022), we have, what is essentially a direct sequel with  The Penguin , a limited. eight episode, TV Series set within a week or two of the end of the first film. Unfortunately it's a direct sequel to Colin Farrell's Penguin rather than Robert Pattinson's, Bruce Wayne/Batman. Fortunately that's the only real disappointment I have with this series.   Right from the first episode The Penguin establishes itself as a show for grown ups who enjoy actual character development, that hooks you in, is thought provoking, and raises questions that you expect will be answered as the story unfolds. After the events of The Batman, there is something of a power vacuum left in Gotham's crime world that Oswald 'Oz' Cobb a.k.a. The Penguin, sets out to fill using his experience, quick thinking, and his ability to hustle his way into...

Real Flying Car Prototypes That Look Like What the Movies Promised - Ace VTOL GT Slipstream, Alef Model A, and the Bellwether Flying Cars

Ace eVTOL GT Slipstream Flying Car. I've been a little obsessed with flying cars of late and I thought I was done with the subject for now but then Google News put  flying car company, Ace Vtol , based out of Perth, Western Australia in front of me. How could I not take a look?  The GT Slipstream's next-generation Arc Reaction Engines. Images: Ace Vtol website. Especially when their flying car, the  Ace eVTOL GT Slipstream , kind of looks like a regular car (in terms of size and shape) and has engines that look like they're straight out of a sci-fi movie. Even more surprising is you can actually pre-order one of these vehicles . Ace Vtol has done a USD$250 million deal with Palm Beach, FL based Aeroauto , the leading retailer of eVTOL vehicles in the United States to sell the craft to future owners. The GT Slipstream is described on Ace Vtol's website as follows: The aircraft, named the GT Slipstream, is a two-seater flying “muscle” car that will reach spee...

Introducing Resident Dragon: The Trials and Tribulations of Living in a Shared House with a Dragon in the Suburbs

Resident Dragon Cast: TET, Red the Dragon Cool Froyd the Cat, and Grrr Dog. Buy Prints of finished toons . L ast year (2024), for my birthday in May, my sister bought me a quality, metal bodied, ball point pen (black ink).  As someone who likes to sketch with ball point pens, and with a big concern that these last few years I really wasn't drawing as much as someone who considers themselves to be an artist should, I decided to put the pen to good use. In June of the same year I bought two A5 sketchbooks and spent as much time as I needed to fill a page with ball point pen 'doodles', each morning after breakfast.  I'm predominantly a cartoonist who's always drawn from imagination, so filling a page in a sketch book is not a challenge. I just draw a line, or a circle, or whatever and see what emerges. Filling Sketch Books Just to Draw More Filling an A5 sketchbook page would take me about 20-25 minutes. I drew all kinds of random things, occasionally using the time to...

Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024) *Minor Spoilers*

W hen I initially heard they were making a movie version of the TV series, The Fall Guy (1981-86) , I was definitely interested, as a person who tuned in to that series, weekly, when it originally aired. I had intended to see The Fall Guy in the cinema but, for whatever reason, didn't get there, and didn't prioritize seeing the film as the reviews, and more importantly, general information about the movie came out. Specifically, The Fall Guy makes no effort to capture whatever magic it was the TV show had that made it the show it was. A fact that is driven home by the reworked TV series theme song, played over the end credits and behind the scenes footage of stunts in the film, that removes all references to real world actors and replaces iconic line of "I'm the unknown stuntman who made Redford such a star" with the nonsensical "I'm the unknown stuntman who tries to win your heart." - sure... I guess... I mean, the original song is about never gett...