I totally agree with you on that point Knight87. Do you remember the old days when "60 Minutes" was once a credible current affairs show?
To fully elaborate on your point, I’d prefer to travel back in time to the 90’s any day, if given the opportunity: A time when Channel 9 was ‘Still the One’. You always spent your breakfast's watching the 'Today Show' with Steve Liebmann and co., if you had free time in the arvo you watched the "Midday" show with Kerri-Anne Kennerly, there was no other news than the 6pm news with Brian Henderson, Ray Martin was the one to watch for the then-credible “A Current Affair” program (before the infamous incident he had with John Safran), news bulletins weren’t infiltrated and saturated with American crap (such as the Middle East situation and George W Bush), reality television was an unknown medium (which only would become common place in the new millenium), Hey Hey It‘s Saturday was literally compulsory viewing on Saturday Nights, 60 minutes on Sunday Nights to reflect on the week that ways and the list goes on (not only to mention their cricket and rugby league coverage, which have made them millions of dollars over the years). Ch9 were light years ahead of the other 4 stations, it was not even funny. The only time Ch7 got good ratings was when they televised the Olympics and the AFL Grand Final. Primetime programs on FTA were quality television and worth watching, before the emergence of Foxtel. Also, there was a lot of programming that was geared towards family entertainment, so most age groups could enjoy it. Sadly, that’s been thrown out the window, and Generation Y (which I’m a member of) programming has taken a huge fall from grace (eg Big Brother) in the morals and values that we once stood for.
There's nothing original today. Everyone is trying to copy everyone, there's now been tonnes of movies and shows that have all revolved around the same storyline. Music....pffffft, don't get me started on that. I know I'm only 21, but most of mainstream music (which predominantly consists of RnB and Rap) is also crap. I dunno how ppl my age can genuinely call that music and attend those concerts. They've been sold majorly short of the quality stuff produced in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and to an extent, the 90s. And with other genres, everyone is trying to emulate the styles of those from the past decades, its not even funny. The word 'originality' doesn't exist in their vocabulary. I guess one of the things Aldous Huxley did propose in his book "Brave New World" about how originality would be done away with and we'd all be 'conditioned' is very true in todays world.
Overall, television was quality back then, and to a great extent, so was other forms of media. Most of the time, what you read and heard was genuine. Also, people could express themselves in a manner that although wasn’t offensive or derogatory, people would listen to it. Now, with all this political correctness crap, the truth has been substituted out of fear. People don’t want to express their full selves and tell how they feel, out of fear from lobby groups and to a further extent (which is what is happening to Vautin), legal action. The truth gets suppressed, and can easily be permanently surpressed using the ‘libel chill’ tactic (commonly employed by groups such as Scientology), with all the legal threats. Sadly, we’ve become Americanised, we’ve compromised a lot of our identity for this. Australia isn’t the country it was 10 yrs ago. The ads which use to promote the Australian way of life, persona and stereotype (eg Paul Hogan "shrimp on the barby", g'day mate) are nothing but a distant memory. I’m hoping things will change, but at the rate we’re going and this incident involving Fatty further emphasising how American society’s become, I’m not banking on any positive changes in the near future.
