Binnsy's Hovel

It has been an amazing week for journalism this week. Between the Bingle/Clarke ’scandal’, the upcoming Anna Nicole opera and the usual shenanigans accompanying the launch of a new Rugby League season, it seems journalists are spoilt for choice. Consider this beautifully-crafted piece from the Tele earlier this week about the Bingle/Clarke upset. That particular piece of news was best covered in yesterday’s Herald by Peter Roebuck, a link to which particular article I cannot locate, but I’ve managed to find another by Roebuck which, again, does justice to both the stupidity and futility of reporters in trying to cover the story, and the true issue which is the reality facing Clarke’s cricket career, and the possible ramifications for Bingle’s modeling life down the track*.

Bottom line: tabloid journalism is even less concerned with the news that matters. It has fallen far below what is considered ‘trash’ and is now almost completely devoted to perpetuating papparazi snaps and ’sources close to the couple say’ hogwash. Even The Age, The Herald, fell into to the same trap this week. As the public eye turns to scandal, such must the broadsheets just to sell papers. I have bemoaned this problem time and again, and my entire university degree was centred around this very issue, but there must be an accountability of the press outside the bottom line. I am predicting, however, that the possibility of any kind of redemption, beyond citizen journalism, is long extinct.

Until next time…

* – I have a feeling this is an early draft of the article I referred to.

I guess it was just a given thing.

Throughout my entire youth I could always count on going to the G to see the Aussies thrash any opposition, be they Pom, Paki or Springbok. My Dad is heavily involved in domestic cricket administration, so my childhood was spent either in the box with him, or down amongst the drunkards, bellowing out ‘Waaaarrrrnie’ or ‘Oy! Oy! Oy!’ or some such.

But this sparkling, rose-tinted view of the Australian cricket team is now a thing of the past. Younger Aussie generations nowadays will feel much like those of Indian, South African, New Zealander and Pakistani generations of auld, in the knowledge that their team is no longer ‘the one to be beaten.’

It’s a shame. I heard my father, grandfather, and other cricket aficianados around me comment constantly, as I was growing up, that the game would be better if Australia weren’t so bloody good at it. I guess that the time, then, has finally come, when the players, selectors and admin staff have to take that on the chin.

We’re not the best any more. We have to lift our game, not take any opportunity for granted and get on with what we’re paid to do – be the best at the gentlemens’ game.

That tattered little brown urn is settling safely in a glass cabinet in Lord’s at the moment.

We just have to figure out how to recapture the flame and fire of old, and claim the bloody thing back.

In times past, we must realise, it was just a given thing.

Until next time…