Gold Mine

I'm really chuffed that the two Tassie miners are safe and well, but I'll admit I spent the last few days in the lead up to their rescue knowing, just knowing, that I'd end up being sick of the whole bloody thing.

Sick of hearing the words 'heroes' and 'mateship' being mouthed by botoxed cadavers like Richard Wilkins, that smug, fat idiot Mike Munro and finance analyst turned self styled man of the people, "Kochie". Sick of pushy, loudmouth reporters shoving mics in the faces of the miners' very young children and forcing them to emote for the cameras before they'd even been rescued ('Liam! Liam! are you going to give daddy a hug!?'). Sick of hearing the opinions of bystanders and 'locals' on high rotation. I barely watch the TV, yet I knew there would be no escape from the headlines at the train station, the banners on the internet, the utter saturation coverage of the whole saga, from every. exhausting. angle.

I wearily accepted that before long I'd be trying to avoid soliloquies by sickeningly smarmy commentators like Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun 'thanking God' for their survival. In his horrid little column he talks about a rescuer 'getting down on his knees... as in prayer' to relay the news that the miners were alive. I'm sorry, but I don't need a cynical opportunist like Bolt using a genuinely happy piece of news to shove whatever ideology he's peddling (in this case the usual Bolt blend of conservative Christian family/Aussie mateship values) down my throat. I'll admit I'm a hardened cynic who will always think the worst of our media and government, but I do sometimes like to be pleasantly surprised. So why oh why did it have to unfold exactly the way I predicted... nay, worse!

The two miners are gearing up to earn squillions for their story, and I don't begrudge them that at all - but isn't that letting the mining company, which sent them down there even after a safety scare last year*, get out of jail free? As usual, our publicity mad society is driven by the notion that stories are there to be bought, and if you haven't got a story, fuck off. The family of the miner who died certainly don't have a bankable, feel-good story to tell - so how will they feel with the measly pay-out they'll be getting, given that his mates will be in clover courtesy of Eddie McGuire et al? Eddie's a clever businessman. He's made all the right noises, praising those 'working class heroes' and putting a tab on the bar at the local pub - but only because he can hear the coffers filling up with all that lovely advertising money he'll be getting when the miners cut him an exclusive deal!

There's something quite sickening about the mine owners being able to dodge their responsibility to their employees courtesy of the story-hungry media. They've even become quasi-celebrities by virtue of media coverage and interviews. It's pretty disgusting. They should have to pay for their failure to ensure that the mine was safe in the first place. The media, by throwing millions at the miners in pursuit of a hot spot exclusive, are allowing them to escape that responsibility. 'Chequebook Journalism' used to be an unwelcome perjorative in press circles. Now there's nary a tisk about it. It's all part of the process.

*The unfortunate, late Richard Carleton, with whom I rarely agreed when he was alive, was the only media person who actually drew public attention to the role of the mining company in all of this. He died shortly afterward, but in death he's less cadaverous than the rest of the media parasites still circling.