CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A Federal Candidate, whose election to Parliament House might prove inconvenient for media advertisers who don’t like paying tax – or at least paying back JobKeeper – has today been slapped down before the campaign even starts.
This comes after the candidate’s announcement of a major 2022 election policy was derailed by a 22-year-old journalist who has been advised to find a soundbite that could get relayed around social media and on every nightly news break across the country.
Recently-hired field reporter, Keegan Gumlock, says while he does dream of one-day busting open a watergate of his own, he understands the state of Australia’s dwindling regional media.
Meaning, unless he can suddenly learn a foreign language and get a job in the ABC’s Ultimo newsroom, he’s never going to leave this town.
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 is taking orders from the top today, and desperately attempting to steer a local politician away from any dry policy announcements surrounding housing, jobs or roads – and instead is trying to catch out politicians with gotcha questions.
“Yeah yeah yeah” says Keegan, interrupting the politician’s announcement of a major, potentially election shifting policy.
“I get all that, social housing, new roads yada yada”
“But can you name the price of the hotdog?”
“As in the market rate. Like how much would a hotdog cost right now?”
The politician, seemingly stumped by the bizarre hospital pass, is unable to answer on the spot.
“Haha omg” says Keegan.
“Are you kidding? You don’t know how much a hotdog costs??”
“Man, this is a fatal error. This early in the campaign too?”
“Haha talk about detached. Mate, you’ve lost the election already”
