Tonight I had the misfortune of viewing channel 7's Today Tonight. Somewhere I can hear a child in rural Western Australia gasp, but why? Honestly, I have no excuse other than I am sick. So before this post progresses any further, lets make one thing very clear- I would rather have my hands set alight and run over by a series of vehicles deemed heavy weight than endure another episode. The prospect of enduring another episode outside of my sick induced stupidity doesn't really appeal to me. It is defiantly up there with reading Jodi Picoult.
Over a period of half an hour, I could feel myself loosing multiple braincells. Today Tonight's just as uneducated twin sister, channel 9's A Current Affair is reportedly the most complained about aired program on Australian Television. Last year my year 11 English studies forced me to analyse how the particular stories aired by both programs breech of the Journalist Code of Ethics. It was such a waste of my time; any educated half wit can see that every single segment aired is either blatant propaganda of the network or breeching the code of ethics. The kind of stories both programs air contain frequent propaganda, obvious bias and racism. Tonight's Today Tonight provided some hard hitting investigate journalism: a recap of the Voice and other reality television shows as well as a bias investigation into asylum seekers.
The story Destination Australia literally left my mouth ajar as it allowed personal beliefs to dictate the direction of the story, failed to use fair means to obtain the story and failed to respect personal privacy- but what else did I expect? It did get me wondering whether programs like Today Tonight and A Current Affair only use news values like predictability to develop a leading story like, Destination Australia.
Today Tonight and A Current Affair are low points in Australian journalism. Vogue held a forum (linked below) titled, Today Tonight is Stupid Full Stop. This basically sums up my sentiments with the program.
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