There is a journalist at the Examiner, whose role seems curiously restricted. He writes the odd book review, and a weekly column of purported “humour” and that’s about it …
Martin Stevenson’s columns are frequently rants against the Greens, an astonishing thing given the general understanding that a modern newspaper must at least pretend some objectivity or balance; in twenty years he has never attacked the Liberal party and very rarely Labor. Criticizing the Greens, and masking this as humour, seems to be Stevenson’s main purpose.
Criticize is probably too flattering a term, for it implies some analysis or research, some journalism in fact. Misrepresenting is a better word for it; there is almost no contact with reality. (Its a strategy that has worked for Alan Jones, or for that matter Pauline Hanson. As the Tea Party experience has shown, its a great way to manipulate hatred and fear in folks who don’t have the education to know better.)
But back to Stevenson’s parochial efforts. A recent example, purporting to discuss Green Party input to the government’s economics strategy, rolled on for paragraph after paragraph about muesli-munching, dope- smoking, moon-dancing, though with a rare touch of restraint the term tree-hugging was not used.
Perhaps worn out or gone missing from the Examiner’s cliche-tray.
Stevenson’s writing comes across like a remnant of something we all thought was gone – a particularly shallow subspecies of the 1950’s man. This kind of man’s worldview seemed entirely populated by stereotypes. Anyone over fifty remembers this world. It’s a place where shiftless Abo’s and their sloe-eyed gins head off on walkabout right on mustering time. Where garlic breathing Dagoes needed watching closely, lest they con onto our sheilas. (Slopes or towel-heads hadn’t even been thought of, those terrors were yet to come).
And have I mentioned the poofters ? Those pillow-biters that were a threat to a man’s very being, but at least offered some socially sanctioned Saturday night sport, along with an odd frisson that we won’t talk about, as you smashed their heads against the toilet block wall.
And then, at the very heart of it all, there was the little woman. Best kept safe at home, and given the odd touch up to “keep ‘em keen.”
But then came the 1960‘s. That astonishing day, when through the Quadrant mall strolled a couple of young men with hair to their shoulders, a sight that emptied shops. And not long after, young women with breasts bobbing beneath tie dyed singlets, their fresh sweat haunting the air. And each and every man was faced with that choice, to turn hard and cold and steely jawed, or loosen up, just a little, and let a sideburn grow or even, shocking thing, begin to feel connected to the living earth.
These were not cosmetic changes. An opposition to war, of which there was a very ugly example going on right then, with actual death counts on the nightly news creeping towards three million. A turning away from consumer greed and enslaving pointless jobs. A recognition that we might actually poison and kill the very world we lived on. A respect for difference, for diversity of race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality. The times they were a-changing.
Of course there was self indulgence, superficiality and misdirection in the changes of the 1960‘s and subsequent decades right up to today. But there was also unprecedented progress in human rights, social justice, development aid, democracy, education, sustainability. None of this seems to have touched Martin Stevenson. He rants on, frozen in his timewarp.
In a newspaper that struggles not to be a laughing stock in its community, he seems an extraordinary Achilles heel. But he’s also a most useful reminder of how far we have come, and an insight into the mindset of those who still don’t get it. Paul Lennon would probably have enjoyed his work. And Tony Abbott too. John Gay and Robin Gray, and in his time Edmund Rouse might have bought him a beer.
Please let me be very clear here. I am not in the business of counter-stereotyping, tempting as it is. Martin Stevenson might be a very decent bloke. I am certainly not saying he is a racist, misogynist homophobe, or a corrupt tool of the forest barons. I doubt that he is. But I just wish he would stop writing that way.
