Journalism
So a few days ago there was this hysterical front page of the Telegraph - "CLASSROOM COMRADES: Unions Recruit High School Students" - which was about a plan by UnionsNSW to have some sort of unions education in school subjects like commerce/business studies.
I don't think there's any group in society who needs to learn more about unions than high school students. I know so many people at Uni who talk about getting absolutely screwed over by employers while they were in school - not getting paid the right amount, not allowed breaks, unsafe conditions etc. And really, since when was maintaing some level of workers' negotiating ability only the domain of lefties?
Now, I don't think that the telegraphs portrayal of a Bolshevik-style union takeover of schools is that surprising, inasmuch as the telegraph is mainly read by misanthropic aspirational fucktards who hate unions. I think. But it was interesting to bit of research on the guy who wrote the article, someone called Bruce McDougall.
The first thing that came up was a pre 2007 NSW election writeup, purporting to be an account of the importance of "Education and Schools" for that election. The URL is [http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/election/story/0,24606,21154030-5011901,00.html if you want to read it. IMHO, in light of some choice quotes like
"All of this fuels the drift of students from the public system to private schools but that debate is not nearly as hot as in the past because thousands of people now want choice in the style of education for their children"
it seems fairly clear that the mainpoint of the article - that public schools are delapidated and shit - might as well be followed by "because private schools are better!".
The third thing I found from Bruce McDougall was actually a media watch piece. Remember that whole debacle a few months ago, where someone in the Daily Telegraph was basically purporting that the words "mum" and "dad" will be banned from classrooms at the hands of crazy fringe-dwelling queer activists? Yes, that was Bruce. [http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2223389.htm]
I think the media watch transcript puts the ridiculousness of the whole thing more hilariously than I can.
Anyway, a search for Bruce's name on the daily telegraph website [http://search.news.com.au/search/bruce+mcdougall/0/?us=ndmdailytelegraph&sid=5006063&as=NEWS.HOME&ac=DTM] result in lots of articles about unions being bad and World Youth Day being fantastic.
I guess the moral of the story is that some journalists are terrible people. Alternatively, the Daily Telegraph forces its writers to write terrible stories. Or maybe it's just that I'm a terrible person whose research has been selective and ideology-driven.
Shame on you, Daily Telegraph!
(I actually accidentally wrote "faily" telegraph. lawl)