Monday 7 November 2005

Is this really happening?

When I came across this article on the BBC web site I had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn't the 1st of April. Things like this simply do not happen in real life. Certainly not in a place as civilized as France.

I find I have become so detached from the reality of the outside world, I may as well be in the fictional land of Oz.

I don't buy news papers as there too expensive. I hardly ever watch the news because I usually don't have access to a TV. On those sporadic occasions when I have picked up a paper or caught the news it has completely Australiancentric. The local news here really is local. House fires make the news complete with estimations of how high the flames get. Car crashes with fatalities are reported once there was even a report about a House Party where so many teenagers turn up the police had to be called. Local news here really is local.

I'm used to news about international affairs and current events. I'm used to only finding out by word of mouth that a shopkeeper at the end of my road was shot dead in a botched robbery.

It's strange to compare the priorities of the news services on opposite sides of the world.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you coming my blog!!
    Wow!! You've got 3 blogs!!
    Is here main blog??
    I saw your photos blog too!!
    They are nice photos!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I guess the geographical seclusion of Australia has much to do with it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. The french are always having problems like that. It is the birth place of good, old-fashioned civil unrest. Its what they do best. Liberty, equality, fraternity and all that.

    read this: http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1639111,00.html

    xxB

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  4. The attitude with news reporting down here seems to be 'if it doen't affect Australia and none of our citizens are involved then it's not worth bothering with.'

    All the repoting on huricane Katrina focused on the Australian tourists coucht up in it and all the news from the Packistan Earthquakes centres on the Australian relief efforts.

    ReplyDelete