Its funny about the Penrith rise and the distain of the media. Sometimes the public defines its limits by expressing outrage. The running of a story that seems too unsettling, or the airing of an image that seems too graphic, can set off a storm of protest -- twittershiere, bloggers and radio talk-show hosts, "woke" warriors and enraged citizens -- all denouncing the messenger as an unbeliever, even treasonous. outside the religious like fervour that supporting a team can impose - In this swirl of menace and hate, even the most determined supporter can feel cowed.
People like Gus Gould or Matty Johns or Hooper or the NRL360 team or even Waleed Aly see themselves as a gatekeeper of all social discourse on issues but upset that that people don't need gatekeepers any more. As with many in corp media, he wants to be the conduit of discussion, people don't need to stop at gatekeepers these days and can discuss without the need to be herded into a view.
We respond in bad faith because we presume bad faith from everyone else we deem not to be on our side, and democratic debate simply disintegrates. The result is a public discussion that risks becoming overrun with nonsense.
In his reflections on people, teams, like minded groups, politics and language, George
Orwell operated on the assumption that people want to know the truth. Often, though, they don't. In the case of Rugby League ,the many instruments George Orwell felt would be needed to keep people passive and uninformed -- the nonstop propaganda messages, the memory holes, the rewriting of history, Room 101 -- have proved unnecessary. The public has become its own collective Ministry of Truth -- a reality that, in many ways, is even more chilling than the one Orwell envisioned.
