Pathetic public speaking and the roots of media bias

Although my camera can hold about 18 minutes of video, I only shot about 2 minutes worth today at the anti-APEC rally. That was partly due to the lack of interesting things to shoot, but mainly because I found the first speech so dreadful to listen to, that I couldn't face having 10 minutes of it in my camera to listen to again. I got about 55 seconds of a screeching haridan and then gave up. I tried shooting some more a few minutes later, but gave up and went home. It was awful. I have posted the 55 seconds worth below.

The content of the speech is bollocks. The delivery - well, put it this way. I don't think she practiced it in the mirror every day for a week. The voice could cut glass. I'm thankful I was standing behind the speakers rather than in front of them. Listening to her at fully amplified volume might have done terrible damage to my innards.

I love how she thinks that Australia and the US (rich robber countries) are denying the Iraqis their democratic rights, and that it is ridiculous for John Howard to think that they want peace and freedom!




The organisers are claiming that 10,000 people turned up. I want you to think about that number whilst you listen to this speech - but listen to the noise of the crowd. Does that sound like 10,000 people to you? Been to a footy match (any code you like) lately where there has been a gate of 8,000 to 10,000 and heard such a wimpy response from the punters?

Pubs containing 300 people on a Friday night are noisier than this lot. The noise levels to me suggest that either:

• there are very few people here, or
• they think the speech is utter crap, and are responding appropriately

I am still amazed at the incredibly poor quality of this speaker. I've watched or listened to a range of people that know how to work and hold an audience. They can be breathtaking to listen to. Uplifting, moving, inspirational.

The exact opposite of this ranting harpie. If she was coaching a football team (assuming that she would indulge in anything so pedestrian as organised sport, which is just organised violence really) her team would be sitting at the bottom of the ladder. The poor sods in it would be those that would be relegated at the end of the season.

I should have filmed the entire thing and then marketed it as "Tips on public speaking - things not to do". It would be nice to make a dollar out of a socialist gorgon.

What really annoys me now is that the media never broadcast fruitloop speeches like this one. If they did, the average punters out there would either turn off their plasma TV's or quickly change the channel rather than face the horror that is the green/peace movement. The media is not showing us the whole, unvarnished truth. I guess that is why the media won't show the reality of these rallys, as it would be terminal for business. A complete ratings disaster - even for the ABC. A lot of luvvies might watch the ABC, but they are "soft" luvvies in the main. They think they are green, but they're not. They're wanna-be's. They have no idea what the reality of the green/peace movement is all about. They just have a rosy image in their mind. If they saw this, they'd probably start voting Liberal in a flash.

As for bias, I know that I am biased. I make no bones about it. A person who is not biased is someone too weak to hold an opinion of their own. My biases reared their ugly head today - I could not bear to stay at this rally one minute longer because what I was hearing and seeing clashed so badly with my core beliefs. I simply shutdown, ignored it and split.

The thing is, I now understand how an organisation like the ABC can be so biased, yet be so blinkered as to believe that they are not. The human mind is very good at shutting out the things it does not want to see or hear. That makes it so easy to put together a story by ignoring and discarding any information that, to put it mildly, gives you the shits. I have biased this whole post by simply not recording the entire speech by this raving lunatic. She might have had something useful or interesting or challenging to say, but I didn't want to know about it. It's so easy for journalists to be listening to a politician talking and to just close their ears to anything that they think is crap, and to only include that which makes their subject look good or bad. It's a fact of life - no use worrying about it too much.

The only solution that I can think of is to recognise that we are all biased and to have two journalists work on all stories that have a political bent (ie, just about anything except sport). Each gets to put an equal amount of footage into the story, and that's that. The viewer then gets to decide which half of the story suits their preconceptions, and everyone is happy. Or at least equally unhappy.