This week's lecture was a belated follow up to the previous, with the minor interruption of mid-semester break in the middle. As such, I had completely forgotten what the last lecture was about, and had to do some quick note flipping to jog my memory.
Last time, we discussed commercial media. This week its counterpart, public media, stepped up to be judged. And boy did we JUDGE it. A summarised analysis is judgement, right?
I like public media. It just seems to have so much more to it than commercial media. As mentioned last week, commercial media is dependent on the whims of advertisers, and other such evil beings. Public media relies on the whims of the public. And that's how it should be. "Public media should have 'public value'."
Furthermore, ABC and SBS, the two major public media TV stations, seem to have a much higher quality of content than their commercial counterparts. I will take Summer Heights High, Psychoville and anything by the The Chaser over The Voice, MasterChef and The Bold and the Beautiful any day of the week!
A major problem I have with commercial media (that I don't think I mentioned in the relevant blog post, whoops) is the junk that commercial programs and newspapers etc consider to be 'news'. Take today's Courier Mail, for example. It started promisingly, with a portion of the front page dedicated to a story about a 'suburban arms race'. Yay! But then they ruined it, by slapping an enormous picture of one of the dudes from One Direction holding a koala. Cutting edge stuff!
Public media news just has that serious quality to it, as Bruce mentioned. I don't know about anyone else, but heavy-hitting stories keep me interested longer than tripe about boy-bands and marsupials. Unless One Direction kidnapped a koala. Or the koala attacked them. That would be funny!
All this aside, my favourite part of public media is Triple J. Why? Because they actually play (good)music; they don't talk your ear off for hours on end. Shocking! Not really, because that's what I, and many others, actually want to hear. Not only that, but the various hosts actually use listener feedback when selecting the next song. Unlike 97.3FM. Dear lord, I HATE 97.3FM and their 'Greatest Hits of the 80's, 90's and Now'. I'm going to blog about my dislike for it one day. Until then, hearing Kelly Clarkson's 'Mister Know-it-all' three times a day over the radio at work will fuel my hatred. I'm coming for you, Robin, Terry and Bob in the mornings!
Anyway, back to the lecture. Public media is also the last real bastion of proper investigative journalism. Not the chasing people down the streets rubbish on A Current Affair. More like the Fitzgerald Enquiry, is what I'm getting at. It's not often enough that we hear, see or read that kind of reporting anymore. But as Bruce said, "The ABC and SBS are not 'owned' by the government. They are held in 'common' by the people." We have a say (of sorts) in what goes on public media. Maybe, instead of joining the sheeple watching Australian Idol and The Biggest Loser, we should flick to the ABC or SBS more often. More interest, more money from the government. More money, more of what WE want to see. Good idea? I think so!
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