White + Bogans = White Bogans

For a long time now, the Stuff White People Like blog has been a favourite of mine. It is written by the brilliantly witty Christian Lander and talks about - you guessed it - stuff white people like. It is outrageously funny - but I haven't blogged it because it's not Australian, and I like to stick to Aussie media on this here site.  Speaking of, here's Christian Lander talking about his blog, and now book, on Melbourne's Triple R breakfast show a few months ago.

So why am I blogging about it? Well, Stuff White People Like seems to have spawned an Australiana themed blog that is equally hilarious. And so it is time to share with you; Things Bogans Like.

Beginning with the explanation of the prototypical Bogan (Bec and Lleyton Hewitt - of course) it has since given a daily insight into the eccentricities of your garden-variety Australian Bogan. Highlights include #2 - Buddhist Iconography as Home Furnishings and #6 - Prefacing Racist Statements with 'I'm not racist but ...'.

It's only up to #22 so it's a great time to jump on board and get your daily fix of funny. The facebook  page already has 1,835 fans and from the comments section both the Bogans and non-Bogans are embracing the site.

Not so Punchy

The Punch website vowed to "live blog" through tonight's first episode of John Safran's Race Relations on ABC1.

Well, what a heart-stopping, informative and poignant live blog it was - for example, there were gems like this;

And of course, there was this biting commentary from Punch blogger Tory Maguire;

Meanwhile, over on the ABC Mr Safran was reminding me why I hold him in such high esteem as a naughty, intelligent, witty documentary-maker.

Oh how I missed his work.

Like a true addict, I'm off to watch my box set of John Safran Versus God.

* Oh, and Racebook? Pure brilliance.

Safran Takes a Punch

ABC's head of television has advised conservative viewers to steer clear of John Safran's Race Relations tonight on ABC1.

Whilst warning those sensitive folk away, Kim Dalton did defend the show and its ideas;

"Innovation necessarily involves a willingness to take risks, to be inventive and open to fresh ideas ... It also means pushing boundaries - boundaries that some, often many, would prefer not to be pushed."

The Punch website not only published the commentary but will be blogging throughout the show tonight.

News Ltd Pulling the Hartigan Strings

JOHN Hartigan, chairman and chief executive of News Limited, today addressed the National Press Club on the future of journalism.
Besides giving a pat on the back to News Ltd's own opinion website The Punch, (which he stated as being something completely new - but which is basically a blog) he tore bloggers apart;

(on Blogging) "We pretty much get what we’ve paid for - something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance".

I'm not saying that all blogging is intellectual or well researched or even readable, but he interestingly chose to single out one particular site (which I assume is Crikey) with the following attack;

"As Robert Thomsen of The Wall Street Journal says: 'The blogs and comment sites are basically editorial echo chambers rather than centres of creation. And their cynicism about so-called traditional media is only matched by their opportunism in exploiting it.'
One of the best known comment sites in Australia matches this identikit.
It started as a moralising soapbox; boasting about its lack of standards. Positioned as an underdog, it lectures mainstream media every day."

In my opinion, the greatest potential in citizen media is its ability to hold the mainstream media accountable. Where the media has traditionally been the 'voice of the people' (whether we like it or not) the growth in citizen media has shown the institutions of the world that we can speak for ourselves - thank you very much.

The majority of citizen media might not be worth any attention - but how much mainstream media is worthwhile? Sifting through the "Man Gets Penis Stuck in Vacuum Cleaner" and "Why Men want to Marry Women with Large Breasts" articles is a task I no longer have to undertake thanks to personalised news pages and twitter feeds.

Citizen media is mostly crap - but so are long speeches by people wanting to flog their wares and give hope to their distressed minions.

- But what would I know? I'm just a blogger.