The latest media-driven shit-storm in a tea cup is the result of a few comedians sharing some humour via twitter during the Logies on the weekend (for readers from outside Australia, the Logies are our equivalent to the Emmys or BAFTAs - except the Logies are, mostly, voted for by the public - ie. bad idea). And apparently a few tweets are all you need to piece together some two-bit hack of an article and have it published by a national paper. Hello media land, there are real news stories out there, why don’t you pull your head out of your arse and go report on something interesting/useful/newsworthy.

Twitter is not a news source. Seriously if media outlets wanted dumb shit to report on why haven’t they been writing about all the crap that countless dead-shits have been posting to their MySpace pages for the last 5 years. Unless of course they have been reporting on that too and I was just smart enough to not see it.

No spammers, no tweens, no media outlets watching semi-celebrities waiting for them to say something remote suspect that they might be able to rework to make themselves some quick cash.

Yes, I’m aware that twitter is massive, and everyone is on it. You don’t need to tell me that, I’ve been using it since long before the entire carnival joined up. And trust me, it was so much better back then. No spammers, no tweens, no media outlets watching semi-celebrities waiting for them to say something remote suspect that they might be able to rework to make themselves some quick cash. Twitter wasn’t a news source then, its not a news source now. Yes, you can get endless “real-time” information from it but its not a news source. I’ll disagree with anyone who thinks it is. Maybe that’s just because I’m a prick.

Ok, so maybe a couple of tweets that popped up skewed a bit away from the whole ‘humour’ thing (depending on your definition of humour, of course), but fuck me, can’t everyone just lighten up a little? They’re comedians, its what they do. I can almost guarantee that just about any show at the comedy festival would have pushed well beyond the boundaries that the tweets in question apparently stepped over.

So is it just the Australian media that jumps onto peoples 140-character thoughts and rides them all the way to the front page of what ever drivel ‘rag’ they write for? Or does this happen the world over. I’m sure it probably does, but the Australian media need a swift kick up the arse and then to get back to doing their job properly. Assuming of course they ever did it properly to begin with.

Were the Logies that boring that the only way to get interesting news out of them was to report on the 140 character commentary of a couple of comedians? Really? Ok then.

Catherine Deveny, author of the most ‘questionable’ tweets, lost her job because of what she said (or typed). And, yes, maybe she did go a little far with some of here tweets, but really was it worth even reporting on in the first place? Really? Were the Logies that boring that the only way to get interesting news out of them was to report on the 140 character commentary of a couple of comedians? Really? Ok then.

She says her comments were taken out of context, and I can understand that, if you read through her tweets from the night there were probably more that had a go at the Logies and the industry in general than there were that attacked/targeted individuals. But here’s the thing, had the media not made such a fuss out of it all how many people would have even been aware of what she’d said? Only about 5,000. Why? Because that is how many followers Catherine has on twitter, and they’re the only people who would have seen them. I wouldn’t have know what she’d said, because I don’t follow her, but thanks to the media I do know. Bu my powers of deduction that means the people responsible for this post are the media themselves. How unfortunate.

Frankly I’ve passed wind that was more offensive than some of the tweets from Sunday night that the ‘media’ are complaining about.

The other comedian to come under fire was Wil Anderson, his tweets were labeled “X-Rated” by an article on the Herald Sun website. Huh? X-Rated? Really? I thought they were pretty tame really, especially compared to some of the material/language he uses in his stand up routines (which are awesome by the way). Frankly I’ve passed wind that was more offensive than some of the tweets from Sunday night that the ‘media’ are complaining about. It’s a joke. Wait, or it’s not a joke. Fuck, even I’m confused now.

So who has lost their sense of humour? Is it just the media and their “we’ll do anything for a story” attitude to journalism, or has the whole of Australia gone mad. I certainly hope its just the media. That and there is pretty strong evidence that the general Australian populous is still fond of a joke. One such piece of evidence is ‘running’ our country. If KRudd’s ‘07 election victory wasn’t a joke then I’m not sure what it was.

Sadly Logie-gate isn’t the only example of the media taking something relatively small and inflating it beyond belief. You probably (if your from Australia) remember the uproar from the ‘Hey Hey’ reunion specials last year that featured a certain act on their ‘red faces’ segment. Let’s just say the act didn’t have ‘red faces’. I doesn’t matter what your opinion is on that particular event, I frankly don’t care. But again my point is would it have even made the news the following day had Harry Connick Jr not gone all sooky-sooky-la-la on live TV? I say no. Had Harry High-Horse said nothing it probably wouldn’t have even rated a mention. But, we’ll never know.

Had the media not brought it to our attention no one would have known anything about it and life would’ve gone on.

Then last month there was that ‘monkey’ comment made by a member (now ex-member) of the Young Liberals about a certain foreign leader. Somehow this tweet was spotted by someone in the media, not sure how that happened because I doubt the dude had many followers (he was a Young Liberal after all), but anyway they grabbed it and off they ran. Suddenly we’re all racists again. Fuck guys, it was a couple of tweets from some guy in Queensland that no-one cares about. Had the media not brought it to our attention no one would have known anything about it and life would’ve gone on.

Now if I were to post a tweet about a certain budgie-smuggler-wearing leader of the opposition referring to him as a specific type of primate in reference to a distinguishing facial feature would that make the news. No it wouldn’t, because apparently you can say whatever the fuck you want about white Aussie guys, just don’t say anything about anyone else. Also, that this person has a chance at becoming our next Prime Minister scares the living shit out of me.

Yes, I’ve gotten a bit sidetracked, sorry about that, but surely you can see my point, the media turn these small incidents into big poo-flinging sensationalised media storms. There has to be something, anything, else that they can report on that would be more interesting. Surely Britney or Paris have done something stupid on video lately.

A delay? What was the point? It’s not like it fucking worked, they still had people showing tit and saying fuck, if they can’t edit that shit out in half an hour then why have a delay at all.

But why were the celebs asked not to tweet during the Logies to begin with? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually for fear they’d tweet something offensive (even if that is the official line). It is far more likely that it was because the telecast was being broadcast with a half hour delay and they didn’t want people posting ‘spoilers’ - which by the way they did, almost everyone knew who ‘won’ the Gold Logie before it was announced. But a delay? Why exactly? What was the point? It’s not like it fucking worked, they still had people showing tit and saying fuck, if they can’t edit that shit out in half an hour then why have a delay at all. Morons.

The half hour delay. Lame. Slow boring bits. Lame. Channel 7 winning everything. Lame. Alf flamin’ Stewart winning Gold. Lame. Look, I’m sure he’s a great guy, and he’s been around forever, but if Harold Bishop couldn’t win last year why does Alf deserve to win. On the whole the ‘popular’ voting system is flawed because its basically just channel 7 staff spending their wage on voting for channel 7 people so they can keep their jobs. What? I can’t be the only one who’s suspicious.

Here’s a free suggestion. Ditch the popular vote. Completely. Make EVERY category judged by people who actually know what they’re talking about, award excellence based on what the industry thinks, not on which talentless wannabe male model/drug-lord currently has the worst bleached hair on Home and Away as voted by 14 year old girls. Or if they really must keep the popular vote, fine, but don’t actually award the winners anything and don’t give ‘em a trophy, just print their name in the next issue of TV Week. That said I’m OK with leaving the Gold Logie as a “popular” vote, but limit everyone to one vote each. One. Not 47,000. It’s not Big Brother.

If people don’t like what they’re saying then they can stop reading and unfollow them, its pretty easy.

Second suggestion. Leave the comedians alone, if they want to tweet jokes about people, let them tweet jokes about people. If people don’t like what they’re saying then they can stop reading and unfollow them, its pretty easy. No one is forcing you to read anything that’s posted on the web. But I’ve got a theory, people read the “controversial” stuff just so they can feel high-and-mighty at the end of it and leave a nasty comment. I know I read articles for that reason (but I don’t comment, I don’t see the point in wasting my time).