CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
An embattled Aussie journo has today doubled down, after taking personal offence to the Australian public’s growing frustration with the low-rent gotcha questions currently dominating the election news cycle.
Previously unknown political reporter, Keegan Gumlock, says the mild criticism of his calculatedly shallow and self-promotional approach to journalism has hurt his feelings deeply – and he has no option but to power through the backlash with more of the same shit.
“It’s personal now” he says.
“How dare anyone criticise me as a journalist.”
“I’m sick of journalists being the punching bag for a society that has absolutely no idea how to adjust to a 24-hour cycle in a changing media landscape.”
“It’s almost like everyone forgets how much we do for them… I mean, you could even argue that, during the pandemic, we were frontline workers too…”
While Keegan says while he does dream of one-day busting open a watergate of his own, he’s also realistic about the state of Australia’s dwindling media sector.
Meaning, unless he can suddenly learn a foreign language and get a job in the ABC’s Ultimo newsroom, he’s never going to get on TV.
And even then, he wouldn’t be able to report on the regional issues he knows anything about, because aside from Landline – the ABC seems far more concerned about Gladys Berejiklian’s love life than any issues that might affect rural voters.
The only other option is Sky News, and Keegan doesn’t know enough about Transgender New World Order to land himself a seat on one of Murdoch’s nightly programmes… that are syndicated on free-to-air in all of the marginal electorates across Australia.
With both 7, 9 and 10 syndicating almost all of their regional markets to the point where rural audiences are getting surf reports on the nightly news, there is very little room to move up in the world of journalism – unless you want to get a job as a political staffer.
That’s why Keegan, and every other poor bugger on the election campaign trail, is chasing the perfect TikTok soundbite to boost his profile amongst senior journalists who will die in their jobs, alongside the entire industry.
So today, with that in mind, he’s having another crack at asking politicians trivial and unrelated questions that are aimed at getting as much play time on social media as possible – out of spite for anyone who thinks he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Only this time, he’s going to do it to Scott Morrison – to prove that both he and his employers are in now way biased, or interested in maintaining the current status quo.
“Scotty..” begins Keegan.
“What’s your favourite kind of pizza topping haha”
