This is why we, the voting public, refuse to take the main-stream media in Australia any more seriously than the Watchtower we so often find jammed under the front gate or in the letterbox. Frankly, from my perspective, this style of so-called journalism is just about as popular and needed as the ignominious JW’s at the front gate.Mesdames Ireland and Horton of the Fairfax stable ought to be rightfully ashamed of their efforts at cartoonish caricature of a fellow female on the basis that said female chose to wear her spectacles to a press conference yesterday, rather than her usual contact lenses. Many of us wear contacts, in fact I used to until around five years ago when I found my eye-sight was changing. I was advised I needed better corrective assistance for short vision and less so on long vision. In other words, I needed a progressive prescription. Something which used to be called bi-focal correction. Contacts haven’t evolved to the point where astigmatic progressive correction is possible in soft lens structure, so I’ve opted to go back to spectacles and a progressive prescription. I dare say the Prime Minister, being of my vintage, may well have had to make the same decision.
Of course, media being what media is these days, all about the 10 second sound bite, the candid photo capture and poorly drafted polemic, there’s little else we can expect. One would have thought that reportage on politicians, especially with the 8 month forward announcement of Election Day for 2013, would have centred more on policy. Unfortunately, it seems this years election coverage is more likely to be centred on personality, pusillanimities and pugnaciousness in so far as what passes for responsible journalism.