Crikey editorialises:
Beyond the continuing drama of Belinda Neal’s Night of the Iguanas, one other story has hogged the talkback airwaves and tabloid pages this week:
The woman, 28, who moved from Geelong to Adelaide three months ago, was refused bail in the Elizabeth Magistrates Court. She was charged with five counts of criminal neglect, two of acting to endanger life and three of acting in a way likely to cause harm.
The alleged offences took place between February 1 and Monday, when police raided two houses in Adelaide and found up to 21 children living in filth and squalor.
You know the one we mean.
Yeah, it’s all about the kiddies. Mal Brough emotes. And Brendan Nelson’s veins are popping. Crikey tries to take the high moral ground and claim this story - which punches all the buttons (TM !!!!) about the neglect of the children - is more worthy of loud denunciation or on the other hand, more… tabloid crud, but what’s their point? Why are the kiddies neglected? Why isn’t there an intervention into ADELAIDE? Etc. We all know that’s where the weird murders are. Bleh blah. Lordy, let’s not have any actual structural analysis of why such situations might arise. It’s all the individual pathology, stupid. Raise your eyes - just for a second - don’t blink too hard - from the important issue of why Belinda Neal hasn’t yet been burnt as a witch.
There might be a view that we - in the independent blogosphere - might be able to do a little better than this (without the huge financial and human resources that the MSM can leverage) but - based on some hard facts - you - the ejumacated readership of teh independent blogs would rather read about and comment on the SERIOUS ISSUES OF THE DAY. As stipulated by the said MSM. Maybe I’m wrong? (I’m not actually, and I could cite stat after stat to show that)… but….
You tell us. You readers of the independent blogosphere. We can run with serious posts on policy. But they attract far fewer comments and - as we read the metrics - far fewer page views than stuff we write about whatever the MSM narrative of the day is. For all the blogospheric warriors who live and feed off the condemnation of TEH EVIL MURDOCH blah blah blah, what’s more satisfying? The loud condemn? Or actually discussing policy and stuff that affects people’s lives? We’re having a bit of a think here at LP about trying to ignore the MSM altogether and running with serious policy stuff. But would you read that? The evidence suggests not. Don’t add your condemn to our condemn? You decide. Hey, this is a democracy here, don’t you know?
Yeah, I thought Melissa Batten’s tears were so moving, or that ACA was a commercial tv show (REVELATION!), and Murdoch is the evil - revelation of the day - but hey, how about that award modernisation process? Boring? Might actually affect your life? How tedious. Much better to get on with the important business of parsing the daily daily daily news. N’est-ce pas? Oui?
There does seem to a raft of neglected kid stories proliferating. I put this down to the imminent arrival of the media silly season. Parliament is winding down, its winter and something must be found to amuse the punters.
The problem with the antics here in Adelaide is that the two houses story intersects on several fronts. Povvos, neglected kids, aboriginals; poor upkeep of welfare public housing.
The last aspect was the sauce that gave the story real piquancy. ACA and TDT fans love vision of genuine pigsties, with junk all over the yard and drink cartons, baked bean tins and junk food boxes half way to the roof. EVERYONE can feel comfortable in their morbid sanctimony and it’s difficult to argue that even simple folk can’t perform at least a basic clean up of their homes once in a while.
So it has “grunt”.
Apart from the Pseph stuff, I only read blogs for the policy material, or at least deeper and broader discussion, or the highlighting of smaller issues.
So maybe I am in the minority. Maybe the majority of readers are cheerleaders for a party or political box.
But I think they’re more than served. I think page views would increase further if you focused more on funny animal stories as well.
I know page views pay the bills, but obviously if you value what you have to say enough to write it out, and more than that, written out with clarity and considered opinion….that might be enough.
Even more if you get the 1% who are neither apathetic nor cheerleading.
The wave of barracking may drown out the people that want to doubt, but they’re still there.
So….um….stay brave and true?
Thanks, Richard!
I think page views would increase further if you focused more on funny animal stories as well.
Okay.
I detect a whiff of “stories about electoral machinery (pseph) or policy wonkery, some of which is useful but some of it no more than the proverbial tits on a bull, are Important, but stories about housing, poverty and wimmin’s stuff belong in the wimmin’s mags.”
Mmm, I like the policy stuff, mainly the social policy.
Economic analysis is interesting sometimes, but usually only when it shines a different light on social trends.
That said, some of the more frivolous threads end up focusing on deeper meanings, and I find that quite facinating, and why I’ve been a dedicated LP reader (if not commentator so much) for the last 18 months or so.
Fluff, we need more fluff! Actually I think the mix is pretty good.
Yes, a lot of the stuff being talked about in the news-media at the moment doesn’t carry much importance. The Belinda Neal stuff is a prime example.
But, if Frontline taught us anything, its that many people turn on the television for entertainment. Always twas, and always shall be.
I think many people who identify as left find the constant need of other people to be entertained as something to be looked down on. The left like movies with a message, music that makes you think, comedians who made social comments. Other people like movies that make you thrill, music that makes you dance, and comedians who make you laugh.
We’re not about to see in depth discussion about complex policy issues debated at length in prime time television or on the front pages of newspapers of wide circulation. Railing against this is a fruitless exercise, kind of like banging your head against the wall.
And I still don’t get the “teh” thing.
As some may have deduced, and if I might flatter myself anyone cares, I love the frivolous threads for commenting, but mostly just read the policy wonkery and political shenanigens ones.
The balance is great. And no fences to Mark or Robert or Brian or anyone, but it’s also about the wimmins. I like smart wimmins.
“The left like movies with a message, music that makes you think, comedians who made social comments. Other people like movies that make you thrill, music that makes you dance, and comedians who make you laugh.”
I like both.
While much of the reporting on the issue of child neglect is sensationalist, the reporting and discussion on the local ABC station (I was off sick so got to here quite a bit of it the last couple of days) really did get down to the important issues and cast a wide net across issues of social inequality, lack of education, inadequate levels of resourcing for social services, etc.
I dunno - it does good sometimes to look at the real world. If you don’t do that sometimes then policy discusiions become not merely boring but misconceived.
And I read LP for amusement as well as profit - so keep some fluff going.
What DD said.
Once a psychology lecturer made us write down the story of our life in a phrase. I wrote “A search for meaning”. The woman next to me wrote “Looking for cloud nine”.
It takes all sorts and as FDB says a mix is no bad thing. The peace guru Johan Galtung after a visit to Australia came back here to be a visiting scholar at a university for a spell. When asked why he said that Australians had a talent for enjoyment and had it as a higher priority than he’d found anywhere else. If the rest of the world had similar cultural priorities there’s be peace everywhere.
So he came back to study the natives. The unasked question was why he chose to base himself in Perth!
That’s not quite on topic, but I couldn’t resist.
Well they have taken the kids away from both the mothers, and are now saying they need better communication between the states as they recently moved from Victoria. And from what Jenny Macklin has been saying aspects of the intervention will be rolled out to no aboriginal communities - eg welfare payments being held back if children don’t attend school etc.
Probably just one of those things where one story (in Queensland) where a couple of deaths occur ends up encouraging more media reports of other similar but not as extreme cases like in Adelaide and Canberra that wouldn’t have got nearly as much publicity otherwise.
A relative of mine used to treat children in their homes and it was not unusual for her to visit homes where parents were too drunk/drugged out to answer the front door. Hopefully the media coverage will lead to more resources being put into these areas so either the parents get more help (and I think that includes intervention style tools where people have lost what most would consider common sense) or the children are taken into foster care.
But it IS on topic, Brian!
Life and laughter and policy and poverty and jokes and social change and the whole damn thing; and yes to FDB about smart wimmins.
I agree with MsLaurie’s observation that sometimes a thread that starts on a light topic finishes up going deeper: could it be because LP has smart wimmins and smartish m*n posting?
I like coming in here to read the politics and some fluff. I don’t comment much as I’m not good t it or mostly some one has already said what and how I feel.
There does seem to be a lot of very young child neglect stories around.My wife and I put this down to the ‘Baby Bonus’.
Ah, can we blame Peter Co$tello then?
The baby bonus has been going for at least 7 years.Maybe they took Costello to his word and kept on going,doing it for the Country.Now the Country has to look after the children.
Child neglect has been going on for a lot longer than that. Normally overt child abuse where the line between what is acceptable what is not is much clearer takes precedence in the media.
“Child neglect has been going on for a lot longer than that”
I don’t think he was suggesting that child neglect was new since the Baby Bonus. You would have to consider, though, that there might be an increase in neglect cases due to people having children to get the bonus.
I like the serious policy threads, but I really enjoy the fluff. You must keep it going. As others have noted, the mix is pretty good.
Yeh I do not get the “teh” thing either … so can someone please explain. I used to think it was just the usual typo but it happens too often.
It’s meant to poke fun at folks who dash off knee-jerk responses faster than they can type. You might have noticed it used when referring to a position the writer doesn’t hold, and thinks unthinking.
Sort of equivalent to the use of a ‘1′ or capital ‘Z’ in a string of exclamation marks. It invites one to imagine a writer so apoplectic or stoked with enthusiasm that they can’t keep their finger on the shift key properly.
So there you have it - TEH LOWDOWNZ!!!!1!!!
it’s like kitten huffing.
TEH MORZ
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teh
Pollytickedoff - its pretty hard to measure the trend accurately though. Although the number of reported cases is going up, there’s been changes in legislation, policy as well as widening of compulsory notification.
I suspect the number of people really having a baby (let alone 7 like the woman from Adelaide) just to get the bonus is a very very small number. A quick look at the costs - medical, setup, ongoing food/clothing would show that it doesn’t go very far at all.
Is probably is often spent on stuff (eg the classic plasma tv) for the parents rather than the children? Sure, but that happens with all welfare payments that are primarily given for the child’s wellbeing rather than the parents.
That’s what I thought it meant, but I wanted confirmation.
And the generalisation was a little over the top. The point I was making is that some people just want to be entertained, and it ain’t no bad thing either.
Update.
You should have seen the commercial news services ( here in Adelaide ) go utterly berserk on the child neglect thing tonight; talk about a feeding frenzy.
At least one station found it a convenient lead in to a following story about an alleged aboriginal B and E gang. Curious coincidence, that!
all fault of teh left od course.
Kim,
I think most folk are stressed and exhausted by the toil of daily life (work, raising a family etc..) and therefore trying to get one’s head around some serious and meaty policy issues ends up feeling like more toil. On top of that, blogs are mostly read during breaks at work. Breaks are for winding down not winding up. Consequently blog readers are mostly after easy-to-digest infotainment, even if they profess otherwise. Tim Blair’s bog will therefore always attract 20 times the readership of Club Troppo. But don’t be disheartened- write the difficult to digest stuff alongside the infotainment and trust that some of the people who read it are in powerful places ….
“Why isn’t there an intervention into ADELAIDE? ”
But I must take you to task on this. Compare life-expectancy; murder; rape; suicide; child abuse and neglect; and rates of imprisonment stats in the most disadvantaged suburb in Adelaide with remote indigenous communities and you’ll have your answer.
Moreover in respect of child abuse and neglect, as any insider will readily tell you, indigenous families are judged by a different metric than non-indigenous families. Accordingly indigenous children must be in a significantly worse predicament than other children before the authorities will intervene.
You seem to know an awful lot about blog readers as a category, Con E Little. Got some research to back up your claims, or when you talk about ‘blog readers’ do you really mean yourself and a couple of other people you know?
“Moreover in respect of child abuse and neglect, as any insider will readily tell you, indigenous families are judged by a different metric than non-indigenous families.”
Another area where you appear to be very knowledgeable. Do I detect a pattern?
OK then wise guy, why do you think policy threads attract less views and comments?
As to your second point, I have a number of social workers in the family. I’ve discussed the issue with both them and their social worker friends. Chew the ear of a social worker who has worked with indigenous folk yourself if you don’t believe me. The very same point has also been made in “The Age” prior to the federal intervention in indigenous communities.
So is this a formal or informal practice on the part of social workers? If a ‘different metric’ is used, is it policy, or is it just something that these social workers do because they think indigenous families ought to be assessed differently? What I’m asking for is some evidence to give solidity to your vague claims. Also, could we be specific about where you’re talking about. You mention the Northern Territory intervention, so is it NT or federal policy you’re referring to? Is that the same as how indigenous families in Kempsey, NSW (or the like) are treated? Referring to something as enormous as ‘The Age’ - ie a whole newspaper - is not sufficient.
To return to your original argument:
“Compare life-expectancy; murder; rape; suicide; child abuse and neglect; and rates of imprisonment stats in the most disadvantaged suburb in Adelaide with remote indigenous communities and you’ll have your answer.”
Has this comparison been made, or are you merely assuming what the results of such a comparison might be? Genuine question. Also, which remote indigenous community? They aren’t all monotonously the same.
“The left like movies with a message, music that makes you think, comedians who made social comments. Other people like movies that make you thrill, music that makes you dance, and comedians who make you laugh.”
What bunk, what a way to stereotype dude. The left or is that TEH LFET ain’t no uniform group (it’s like saying all members of the right like to dress up in kinky gear and get whipped by someone resembling their mother). I like good movies, funny movies, stupid movies, Disney cartoons, arty movies, Judd Apatow movies, Jerry Lewis movies etc etc.
As what people want to see on blogs, well, there’s no one answer. I don’t think the Internet (or the INWETERWB) is the best place for long long posts or comments.
I thought I clarified myself Darlene, but obviously some people are just too angry after they read a post and just have to put their comments down in teh comment section as soon as possible.
(Gez, that was fun! I can misspell as well!)
Sorry Howard, reading a whole thread can be time-consuming. I’m not sure I put my comments down as soon as possible (what time did you make your comment?).
Incidentally, I don’t know where the whole TEH thing came from. Perhaps someone can let me know. I can spell either but it’s because I’m not the smartest spark on the thing oh bob.
Nobody could spell before Dr J’s dictionary and anyone who has to deal with English has a good excuse.
Klaus,
If you have a genuine interest in these issues I suggest you speak to social workers who have experience working in indigenous communities.
So you’re saying the relevant information that backs up your assertions isn’t available except by word of mouth?
Klaus, i’ve related this story a few times before, but in trying to process a visit to a community where an elder woman ‘begged’ me to take her grandchildren away with me to ’save them’, i was told by my supervisor( in the then Dept of families), as a young sw in the early nineties, that if we applied the same standards in community x (an hours drive away) as we applied to neglect and abuse notifications in the city where we worked, we wouldn’t have the resources (staff and foster carer’s) to respond, and even if we did, the dept would be politically crucified.
THings have improved substantially since then; the whole dept was abolished a replaced for a start; believe me, there has been times when political and ideological issues have impacted child protection practices on the ground.
I do believe you, sw, but I’m also conscious that Con E Little has made a lot of assertions, and while some things can’t really be backed up with documentation, other things can and frequently are.
I do believe you, sw, but I’m also conscious that Con E Little has made a lot of assertions, and while some things can’t really be backed up with documentation, other things can and frequently are.
Klaus K,
You must be incredibly naive if you think anyone is going to put in a policy document the kind of left-liberal racism the sc has referred to. This kind of racism is actually being reinforced in social worker training, at least at certain institutions, if I’m to believe what I’ve been told by a couple of recent social worker graduates. As I’m particularly interested in what you believe so I’ll leave it at that. My opinion is based on 25 years of living with a social worker whose mum was also a social worker and having numerous social worker friends.
But to reiterate, if you have a genuine interest in these matters you’ll get off your bum and research them rather than expecting me to hand feed you.
Klaus - do take a look at this short summary on incidence and prevalance, and factors affecting this here at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (from 2000)
http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/sheets/rs10/rs10.html
WOuld be very interested to hear your reflections on this sobering data.
Kim - I hope you are not in a despairing mood about your blog. The fluff gets more people commenting but I think that needs to be in context, particularly the quality of the responses that come out of the woodwork on the hard stuff. The sudden appearance of an unexpected professor of climate change under his real name on a recent thread comes to mind. Similar levels of expertise appear with more anonymity on a regular basis. The chances of me commenting on an East Timor thread when the international relations academics are in full flight or Robert Merkel’s “engineering for climate” post is minimal. I also might not read them but, most importantly, they are there. Having a blog where informed opinion is the rule rather than exception is remarkable. You cannot have that level of specialist participation without alienating some of your readership, some of the time. The only place you see all of us are in the threads we are all competent to engage with, the fluff and culture rather than politics and science.
Light entertainment as unifying force. The culture and MSM stuff is akin to the University caf. Scientists and sociologists gossiping.
Thanks for the link, sc. I’m not sure why you’re now responding to an argument I am not trying to make, but I do appreciate the input. My challenge is to Con E Little, and as it turns out the phenomenon being referred to is supposed to be undocumentable. My question is, if that is that case, how do we know what is going on when it comes to inconsistent treatment between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians? Anecdotes are not sufficient. Surely there is research in social work to support the argument. I believe left-liberal racism exists but I don’t know how wide-spread it’s effects are as compared to simple under-resourcing. I’ve only scanned the document that sc has provided, and I don’t see anywhere where this phenomenon is documented there.
“The only place you see all of us are in the threads we are all competent to engage with, the fluff and culture rather than politics and science.”
Yep. Lots of non-fluff I read but never comment on because I don’t have the knowledge or expertise.
“Lordy, let’s not have any actual structural analysis of why such situations might arise.” … damn shame that’s exactly what didn’t happen.
I’d love to hear some perspicacious opinion about how this extreme of human behaviour can exist in a continuum with human behaviour that allows someone to have a spare $85million to plonk doen on a square metre of canvas of a garden scene ( Monet’s water lilies this wek at auction).
It’s something about the obscedistance between
(ooops)… obscene distance between winners and losers in this franken-market/culture. Reminds me of the archetypal scene where the triumphant Achilles drags Hector’s lifeless body around in view of the women of Troy, just to rub it in.
Societies which the Gods will destroy they first make mad? At least it explains big brother.
What Dr S said. I think that the mix is terrific here and that you good people are doing a great job.