This weekend's Australian press seems to have reached some craptacular heights in wastes of space in 3 columns:
* Phillip Adams in the Australian tries satire of Howard yet again. (You can really, really tell some weeks that he dictates columns while driving between the Hunter Valley and Sydney. At least I think that's his excuse.) Does anyone at all find this funny, or even vaguely witty?
* Alan Ramsey in the SMH does a cut and paste that must rival in word count some of his previous personal bests at how to write a weekly column with an absolute minimum of your own words or thoughts. Has he no shame as to how much effort one must put in to get paid?
* And over at The Age, Tracee Hutchison tries being clever, or satiric, or something, about how the Left isn't loved anymore, and fails spectacularly at whatever her aim was.
It's goal, goal, goal for self inflicted injury to reputation for all three. Congratulations!
2 comments:
Oh dear.
Poor, poor Traceeeeeeeeee.
She does try so hard to be the Gen X shining intellectual, combining laser clarity and delightful wit, wisdom and a depth of knowledge and worldliness – a mimicry of the best of journalists from long ago.
Yet, oh gawd, how badly she fails.
She’s like the unpopular girl who tries a little bit harder each week, becoming a little bit more ostracized in the process.
I’m almost certain that, given her pay packet, my little toe could rise to delivering a column with more originality and sparkle each week than poor Traceeeeeee can manage.
Yes, she definitely should give up the weekly column gig. I wander how bad a columnist has to get in order to be dumped. Are Australian editors just too polite to tell any columnist "sorry, your work just stinks now, and we are 'letting you go'". It happened to Gerard Henderson in The Age, come to think of it, but that was surely just because of his politics, not the quality of writing.
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