Disappointment comes on a daily basis

With DAVID BRAY

News is not what it used to be. After 47 years as a salaried newspaperman and another 10 or so as a contributor I am these days usually disappointed by the contents of one of the two dailies I see regularly, by the stuff put to air by television channels and by ABC radio news.

Reports from police rounds and courts tend to dominate the bulletins of the last two, more often than not, on TV delivered by young, dreadfully skinny females. If a policeman is shown or heard he almost invariably refers to male (or female) persons who are deceased. The man is dead, for goodness sake. How about cutting the false formality and talking sense. And as for the neighbours, witnesses of a house fire or living near a crime scene: “This is a quiet place. Nothing like it has happened here before. Lovely people. Quiet, mind heir own business, always ready to help.” There must be a library of such useless, time-wasting clips. Spare us this garbage, please, news editors all, And ease up a bit on the main newsreader prompting the young reporter or weather informer on the spot: “Some warm weather coming up, Mary?” Old, boring routine. And how about the way TV controls the timing of our major sporting events?

Sure there is huge money involved but in time the audience will, I hope, become tired of this tiresome routine. It would be good to have something worth watching between 6 and 8pm. In fairness, I am happy to say that I believe The Australian to be a good, professionally made paper, though I would prefer to receive a later edition than the one that lobs over my fence, just about three kilometres from the CBD. For example, any football match ending after about 8pm is unlikely to be reported upon in the copy I see.

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While we’re on the subject of effective communication, let me say that right now I do not much care for Facebook.

People unknown to me, total strangers, advise that they want me to declare myself their friend. Commit my friendship virtually to the wide electronic world. Some people who are known to me, unfavourably (I do not hate fellow human beings) have a similar ambition. I ignore them. Hope they desist and go away.

It seems to me, perhaps unfairly in view of the above sentiments, that Facebook thrives (if indeed it is increasingly popular) for three reasons – to gratify personal vanity, to help people pushing ideas and products and to help people avoid becoming isolated. The third makes it worthwhile. It was only recently that I ventured into what I now know to be social media. I was delighted to flush out a brace of friends with whom I had lost touch. But I do not maintain frequent conversations with them. Email would do the job.