Father Bob – is it time to hang up the collar?

It looks as if Father Bob Maguire will hang onto his job after all – with one major clause.

Fr. Maguire is supposedly in talks to hand over financial management of his South Melbourne parish.  That way he’ll keep his job as a priest well past the age of “statutory senility” (those are Father Bob’s own words, not mine).

Now, being from Sydney and formerly an avid JJJ listener, I had no idea Father Bob was such a well-loved pillar of the Melbourne community.  In fact, I had assumed that JJJ’s “Father Bob” was simply some old bloke masquerading as a Catholic Priest so as to offer fine juxtaposition to John Safran.

But it has amazed me how much media coverage Bob has wrangled over the last few weeks.  Channel Nine’s Today show has featured Bob almost every morning, giving him the chance to put his case forward time and time again.

Why should Bob retire?  In an age where The Catholic Priest is synonymous with something sordid, Bob is undeniably a shining light for the priesthood.  A regular twitterer, Fr. Bob probably knows more about technology than I do, which proves he’s quite switched on for an old bloke.

But on the other hand, if the allegations he has been mismanaging parish funds are correct, then he should accept the compromise and hand over the reigns to a more qualified person.  I mean, the guy is 75.  He shouldn’t be worrying about balance sheets and creditors.  He should be doing the things I plan to be doing at 75: basking in the Queensland sun, watching Matlock re-runs and buying All-Bran cereal in bulk.

That way everyone wins – and I don’t have to wake up to a 75-year-old man every morning…

Packed to the Rafters: is there room for one more journalist?

I’ll confess to watching Packed to the Rafters the other night.  Why? Well, I was bloated after a generous serve of spaghetti bolognaise, and couldn’t be bothered getting up to change the channel.  Why don’t you have a remote, you ask? Well I do, but it needs new batteries.  So to avoid this ever happening again I should probably get some new batteries – or at least invest in a large stick to change the channel manually.

But one of the characters, Sammy, is studying to become a journalist.  She, on Tuesday night’s episode, interviewed an ex-boyfriend for an assignment on the Global Financial Crisis.  Now as the learned students of RMIT are aware, interviewing a friend or relative is a big no-no.  As such, I leapt from my foetal position on the couch and yanked the TV cord from the power-point, disgusted by the lack of realism (and my lack of stick).

Now I would hazard a guess that “the journalist” is one of the most commonly featured professions in pop culture.  There is something idealistic about the scoop-chasing, stop-at-nothing investigative journalist that has seen the profession immortalised in movies such as State of Play and Citizen Kane. And if a comprehensive list of journalism in pop culture is just what you’ve been craving, you can check out this exhaustive page:

But is it really that glamorous a profession?  From my experiences so far as a student of journalism, I would contend it is not.  It is damn near impossible to get people to consent to interviews without being jerked around somewhat because, let’s face it, people are inherently difficult.  One of the major motivators behind me finishing this course is to get a job and be able to ring a source and introduce myself as “David Edwards from *insert reputable media group*, rather than “Hi, I’m David Edwards from RMIT University… and this is for some assignment which has no bearing upon your life but will require your time and effort.  Interested in helpin’ me out?”  Watch this YouTube video if you want to see a student journalist get shot down in public:

So far this year we have been told that “there are fewer jobs”, “things aren’t the way they used to be when I was a journalist”, “I just walked into the office and asked for a job… and they gave me one – imagine that!”, etc.  Gone are the days when a bit of news sense and an ability to write would suffice; we must now be ultra proficient across TV, radio, print and online.  I’ve even heard a rumour the Leader group is prefacing its job ads with the following: Nobel laureates and atom-splitters only need apply.

If someone wishes to hire me as a journalist, please, be my guest.  I will do a more than capable job if you’ll just give me a chance.  If not – and I’m warning you – I may have to become a TV script-writer in order to end the clichéd journalism references so prevalent in pop culture today.

More Bile for Kyle

Kyle in happier times...

Kyle Sandilands, you’ve done it again.  You really are a douchebag, my friend.

Kyle has catapulted his portly frame back into the media spotlight with another foul-tasting comment that managed to offend both overweight people and the Jewish population.  Sandilands suggested on-air, inexplicably, that Magda Szubanski would lose more weight in a concentration camp.  Given Magda is arguably Australia’s most loved media personality, Kyle might have picked a better target.

To add context to the insult, Magda’s father, a Polish man, actually escaped the Nazi concentration camps during WWII.  Bad luck for Kyle, I guess.

As of yesterday he is off the air (again), suspended (again), and Public Enemy Number One (yes, again).

Well, at least this guy still loves Kyle.  Read this if you like vomiting.  And if you haven’t thrown up enough, try this YouTube parody out for size:

2Day FM management will sit down with Kyle and re-draw the line in the sand, which has presumably been washed away by the overflowing bile he continues to choke on.

If we just stop listening to him, then maybe he will go away – like the terrorists hopefully will?

The Punch’s David Penberthy says this latest misdemeanour is “the end” for Kyle; that he will be driven out of the industry by market forces.  Do advertisers want to be associated with a mouthy shock-jock prone to the occasional Nazi one-liner?  No.  It is a fair point Penberthy makes; and  “toothless” watchdog ACMA is unlikely to step in and drag Sandilands off air – or any major personality, for that matter. ACMA’s powerlessness was exposed after it took the best part of two years to give Alan Jones a slap on the wrist after he publicly incited violence against Lebanese gangs in the wake of the Cronulla Riots.  Poor little ACMA.  Damned if it does; damned if it doesn’t.  But, generally, it doesn’t.

I’d love to know where Kyle will be in 10 years.  Will he tidy up his act to make the seamless transition from FM to AM radio, like an all-grown-up Adam Spencer?  Or will he age badly and continue the cacophony of un-PC jokes well into his 50s, alongside some ubiquitous, generic blonde?

Here’s hoping.