Glutbusters

November 03, 2005

Get Your Rants On

There are few publications, print or otherwise, that I loathe as much as MX. The sight of hundreds of people gleefully picking up their copy ("Awesome, a free newspaper, how generous. Now, what shall I consume next?") for their train/tram ride home makes me want to somehow obtain a job lot of cheap, readable paperbacks (I don't know, Dickens or Tim Winton or something that rollicks along - nothing too heavy) and stand by the little MX dispensers saying "no, don't take that, take this. It'll respect you in the morning". Unfortunately the lure of a double page spread on Lindsay Lohan's tits is too much to resist for most (including, sadly, me).

But there's plenty of shit out there (I got a free subscription to The Bulletin - yawn) why spit such vitriol at MX?

Because it is shamelessly a dumbed-down version of the Herald-Sun. Let me say that again, it derives its content from a newspaper that already appeals to the worst elements of human nature with techniques of generalisation, jingoism and straight-out selfishness, but DUMBED DOWN. And it doesn't even have the (mostly shonky but occasionally bold) journalistic ethos of the Hun.

Because it demonstrates our willingness to consume what is little more than advertising, just because it's free.

Because it is able to blithely report, say, the death of 10,000 (admittedly brown) people in a landslide in India, or another 3,000,000 Africans infected with AIDS, in a sidebar entitled DOOM AND GLOOM.

Because over the page from Doom and Gloom is BORING BUT IMPORTANT, a handy little sidebar precis of such sleep-inducing events as the election of a new Bulgarian Prime Minister, or a coup in Latin America. A tacet perpetuation of the idea that, sure, things are going on around the world, but you don't really need to worry about it as long as you have A NEW TV (see full-page Megamart ad, opposite).

Because it has the nerve to describe itself as "concise, upbeat, intelligent and sexy". Read: "able to be read on the train while texting and eavesdropping on the conversation across the way, no bad news (because there isn't any, really, when you think about it), covering Europe in a paragraph, and heaps of tittie. (Celebrity tittie if you're lucky)."

And because we seem to love it.

Filed under Media