“Stress, celebrity worship and rising complacency are fuelling a growing political ignorance.” The Fun-Herald on why no one’s interested in politics.
I think it’s because it takes so long to digest. It’s much quicker to get to grips with the finer points of Britney’s ups and downs, though I haven’t read much about her lately. There aren’t enough summaries and short ongoing narratives on politics.
For some news stories, it’s not even clear – if you’re not a newshound – whether they’re talking about state or federal politicians. And TV news just mangles everything. There’s no middle ground for people who just want to read summaries of poltics on-the-run.
Katharine Murphy’s piece “In the belly of the beast” makes it clear why politics is such a huge turn-off.
Dried rations are stashed under the desk. There are no family photographs because there are no families, dogs, lawns or detritus of any kind, apart from some long-suffering girlfriends.
… And the blokes absolutely run this show. They like football, and novellas, and blogs, and popular culture in boxed sets of DVDs they can devour down the back of the Prime Minister’s plane.
I enjoyed reading “In the belly of the beast”, though it confirmed what a pointless waste of time those staffers are with their skewed priorities.
Cotton Ward 