Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Gerard picks it

Writing in his Media Watch Dog last week Gerard Henderson fingered The Age's Catherine Deveny for only recycling four topics; God is dead, marriage is out of date, private schools suck and "it's week four write about the family".

She obviously doesn't read Gerard - if she did she might have tried to break the mould and write about something different. What's worse her stuff now gets published in The National Times.

This time it is a supposedly witty diatribe about the agony of taking one's children to the show, and how she started with instructions about their healthy eating but "by 10.30am, we'd scoffed toffee apples, fairy floss and coloured popcorn, and we were on to the battered hot dogs on sticks."

She manages to try to make fun of her apparent ineptitude as a parent and a complete lack of understanding of the cultural significance of our great agricultural shows. As a parent I loved taking my kids to the show every year (in Sydney) and we never had expense blow outs (literally one ride, two show bags - an apple purchased at the fruit and veg displays etc).

Meanwhile we talked a lot about the challenges of farming, the significance of many of the skills on display.

I'm with Gerard - we don't need this kind of rubbish writing - certainly not under the masthead of The National Times (not sure about The Age - it is a Melbourne paper and hence has always been a little suss).

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