Now, those who regularly lampoon these kinds of shows (rightly, for the most part), mainly do so because of the tabloid-like, formulaic, cliched journalism - if it can be called such (and there you have a whole new can of worms, indeed). Night after night they wheel out the Battling Invalid Pensioner, the Hard-Done-By Single Mum who will be battling The Dodgey Tradesman/Mechanic (perennial favourites), the Obstinate Beaurocrat, Slick Fraudster and so on. But what used to be sticking up for the little guy has turned into a whole new ball game: it's all about the ratings kids (for which read: truckloads of money), and if you can't find a story, you create one - you MUST out-rate your commercial rivals at any cost, it seems.
Like this gem, served up by Tracey and co last night: it seems that a butcher in Leichardt (in Sydney's fairly affluent inner-west) was caught in a random audit adding the SO2 (sulphur dioxide) preservative to some mince. Fair enough - it's illegal becuase people have allergies to it, and it is also a way to make old meat keep looking red, therefore appear fresh. All well and good, you might think.
Not the way that ACA present it: the butcher shop in question is owned and run by Asians - the subtext here is palpable, and an absolute disgrace. The ambush interview with the poor guy who manages the shop is a case in point (English is very clearly his second language, and this was exploited), as was the (voluntary) interview with the shop's owner (and good on her, I say, for standing up to this lot). The explanation was simply this: meat was put through a mincer which had been used prior for a product (sausage) which needs SO2 - the mincer had not been washed properly by an apprentice. The owner then went on to say that in ten years of business, this was the first infringement - this is what could at best be described as a 'beat up' - i.e. there is actually no story here, we might just make one up.
Cut to the clean and pristine butcher shop which, quelle surprise, is run by a white, anglo-saxon guy who (in his immaculate butcher's clobber-does he actually do anything hands-on?) tells us of the horrors caused by the use of SO2 in the meat industry. (Personally it's never caused me any problems - how about you?). My bullshit radar went off the dial when they showed him putting something which looked like eye-fillet into his impeccably clean mincer. Unless, of course, this is the standard demanded by the folk of Leichardt, which I very much doubt, because it would probably cost them north of fifty bucks a kilo - tres expensive bolognaise, even for those with a social conscience.
Then to wrap up this sad tale, we have Tracy reluctantly offering up modicums of truth (with that frown) - but it's way too late. By now your average redneck watcher is probably thinking that all asian butchers put god-knows-what into their minced products. Conversely, we don't get to know whether or not our pristine white butcher ever failed an audit - naturally, he isn't asked.
It's easy to think that this is a trivial tail, but it's not. Think about our last federal election and where the 'bell weather' seats were - the ones that really count. Many were in Sydney's west, and I dare say that this demo is replicated around the nation. The people who watch this bullshit and who also vote are possibly influenced by it (just think 'boats', 'Hanson', 'Climate what?' etc.)
It gets worse - in the same episode ACA had a story about people smuggling, out of Vietnam I think (sorry - I had lost interest by then - my pets had more intelligent things to say). Again, you could hardly pack more cliches into one story - I actually laughed out loud when they did the obscured face interview with their deep-throat source (who apparently might otherwise be killed by the triads).
We should all be very alarmed that this is our mainstream and very pervasive media - despite the digital revolution, most people still get most of their news and information from television. The oft quoted (and misunderstood) remark by Churchill about us getting the kind of government we deserve in a democracy unfortunately holds true for the media too.
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