One story

I think there is something that need to be said in this curious week of reporting about the media's need to have one story to obsess about.

It has been one of those weeks when an awful lot has happened.

Last Friday, when William and Cate got married, there was also an awful family tragedy in Adelaide when a gunman shot down multiple members of one family. There were wild tornados in America, then Os B L got shot. SA Cricket Association members voted to allow Adelaide Oval to go through a redevelopment. .

Amidst all this interest rates stayed on hold. The Libs bleated that they would be able to get the budget into surplus faster than Labor ( quite how they could do this when they are not in Government I don't know)

It seemed almost impossible for the media (of all varieties) to actually deal with more than one story. So in the process all sorts of stuff seems to have gone unreported.

I did hear former Minister Lindsay Tanner having a go at this as part of the promo for his book.

In this he seemed to suggest that

• The media are treating the public like idiots
• the public are allowing the media to treat them like idiots

His analysis causes us to think carefully about the sort of effect this may be having on public policy where so much is now not done for ideological reason but for political effect.

One wonders where the slaughter of Bin Laden sits in that scenario?