Yes, this is yet another internet blog talking about Kyle Sandilands and Steve Fielding. The combined two have dominated blogs, Twitter and oh yeah, the news for the past 24 hours.
Much was made of Fielding’s latest gaffe where he criticised Kevin Rudd’s ‘physical’ policy and then corrected himself by spelling it out as F-I-S-K-A-L. Fielding later came out and attempted to handwave it all by saying he had a learning disability. Naturally this led to the likes of Penbo at The Punch and Miranda Devine claiming it was brutal intellectual elitism at play and bizarrely, for Ms Devine, because Fielding is a climate change “agnostic”.
The Sandilands story barely needs rehashing. Kyle does something Kyle-like, journos listening to everything Kyle says for any sort of controversy, strike for gold and raise the rabble-rousers. mUmBRELLA did an excellent analysis of where Kyle is now and what his future potentially holds.
The thing that struck me about both these incidents, besides the blatant attention-seeking from both involved, is that the anti-intellectualism audience that the likes of Devine and Penbo play to in defending Fielding, is exactly the sort of people that give 2DAY FM and Kyle Sandilands hit ratings (if not the sponsors).
Jason Whittaker’s post today nailed it in highlighting the problems of this kind of anti-elitism that is the oh-so-common defence used by conservatives in defending one of their own. And something that seems to be, depressingly, standard fare in politics today. Politicians must be seen to be the everyday man, and intellectualism equated to latte-sipping elitism.
I think the epitomy of my realisation of this was seeing Kevin Rudd’s tweet today about Jarryd Haynes [sic] and the Dally M awards. Kev wouldn’t give a toss about rugby league but there’s that popularist everyday man back again. I long for the days when we had a Prime Minister who wasn’t afraid to admit his love for the Opera, even if he did have to sit awkwardly through a rugby match or two.
But perhaps in this culture of, let’s face it, appealing to the lowest common denominator (Fielding is good at maths), politicians and the media are creating the kinds of audiences who switch off from the real news and would prefer to listen to a radio shock jock jack off on-air, question a 14 year old girl about her sex life, or make off-colour holocaust jokes. Shouldn’t we praise intelligence and encourage people seeking higher office have qualities far beyond their ability to eat a meat pie and hold some sort of tinny record with their mates?
Encouraging Kyle’s style of radio, as Austereo does, to the tune of constant ratings wins is no different to defending a man who holds a critical vote on legislation in the senate but can’t spell fiscal.
