And in further noise...

'Dobber' Julian Assange voted the most un-Australian by Zoo Weekly

How much wrong can be packed into one news.com.au headline? How many kicks can those of us who naively search that website for actual news cop at once?

Let's start, as a news story should, with the source. Zoo. Picture without nipples. So, News Ltd has decided to make a national news story out of this article; a piece that the actual purchasers of the magazine probably didn't push past photos of Bouncy Inabikini to read. How does this occur? Do the website's advertisers require a certain percentage of stupid on the front page, to lower the defences of the reader, making them more susceptible to ordering weight-loss shakes and watching Rules Of Engagement? Is a sub-editor's family being held in a remote garage under a collection of vinegar-covered chainsaws, which will rev into action if a space is left blank? As the world becomes more environmentally conscious, will there be a cosmic imbalance without an upped dose of word pollution?

And pollution it is. Calling Julian Assange a “dobber” is a wonderful combination of lazy and dumb. Before I carry on, don't mistake this for a Save Assange rally... from what I have seen of the output of Wikileaks, Assange is less of a whistle-blower and more of a vuvuzela-sounder; the noise is more about bringing the noise-maker attention. But this barb misses the mark. A dobber is someone who tells of a person's misdeeds to an authority, not one who tells officialdom's misdeeds to the general public. The dobber is the one who tells the teacher of little Johnny texting in class , not the one who tells the kids about a teacher stealing from their bags. So, while news.com.au deserves a backhander for calling anything in Zoo “news”, that backhander should be with a barbed-wire tennis racquet for this waste of ink. And yes, I realise naming the rag in question in this blog brings it a small amount of further attention, but I felt it was important to give full context – if I'd said “a men's magazine”, there may have been one or two readers wondering if Men's Health had moved into social commentary.

And as I type, Channel 9 morning news “reports” on the same piece. This has almost moved me to violence, but I will restrain myself for the sake of the world. If my act was big enough, then there would be news reports about the reaction to news reports of a magazine article, and the world may implode.