ACMA links Alan Jones to Cronulla violence

Alan Jones: I'm the person that's led this charge

Howard says Jones voices Australians' views

Jones lashes out at Cronulla ruling

Sydney radio personality Alan Jones broadcast comments likely to vilify people of Middle Eastern descent and encourage violence in the lead-up to the Cronulla race riot, the Australian broadcast regulator has found.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said Harbour Broadcasting Pty Ltd, licensee of commercial Sydney radio station 2GB, had twice breached Australia's broadcasting code in the days before the December 2005 riot.

It said compliance measures could range from suspending or cancelling 2GB's licence to lesser penalties including fines and requiring staff to attend compliance training programs.

The station's Breakfast with Alan Jones program came under ACMA scrutiny following complaints from listeners about material aired between December 5 and 9, 2005.

The regulator found the Commercial Radio Code of Practice 2004 was breached by comments aired on Jones' top-rating breakfast program during that period.

Those comments contravened the code by being "likely to encourage violence or brutality" and "likely to vilify people of Lebanese background and of Middle Eastern background on the basis of their ethnicity".

ACMA's report focused on Jones' broadcasting of correspondence from listeners about tensions at Cronulla in the days before the December 11 riot.

It said while the comments were "presented for a purpose in the public interest, being discussion of factors contributing to unrest in Cronulla ... ACMA was not persuaded that the relevant comments were presented reasonably and in good faith".

In a statement, Macquarie Radio Network chief executive Angela Clark dismissed ACMA's findings as "seriously flawed and ill-founded".

She said 2GB and Jones were opposed to violence and had repeatedly said so on air at the time.

Talkback radio, by its very nature, aired the sometimes controversial views held in the community, she said.

"A broadcaster's use of listener material does not always indicate agreement with that material," Ms Clark said.

"In this case ... Alan Jones repeatedly urged listeners to refrain from acting on the calls for violence.

"Instead (he) called on the police and state government to ensure a full and appropriate police response to community divisions and tensions and for lawbreakers to be dealt with swiftly by police."

On December 7, Jones read on air a comment from a listener who recommended that bikie gangs confront "Lebanese thugs" at Cronulla train station.

"It would be worth the price of admission to watch these cowards scurry back onto the train for the return trip to their lairs," Jones read on air.

"And wouldn't it be brilliant if the whole event was captured on TV cameras and featured on the evening news so that we, their parents, family and friends can see who these bastards are."

ACMA found the listener's comments breached section 1.3(a) of the code.

It found that comments made by Jones in his December 8 broadcast implied that people of Middle Eastern background were responsible for raping women in western Sydney.

However, ACMA dismissed complaints about other comments aired on December 5, 6 and 9.

ACMA will be writing to Harbour Radio shortly about proposed action against the broadcaster.

ACMA says Jones' broadcasts are the third breach of the vilification provision of the code of practice by Harbour Radio in the past two years.

In a separate matter, Jones is facing 12 months jail and/or a fine of up to $5,500 for naming on air a child witness in a murder trial.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Helen Syme is due to consider penalties, which also apply to Harbour Radio and Nationwide News, on April 20 at Downing Centre Local Court.

ACMA press release

The Australian Communications and Media Authority details its findings in the case of broadcasts made by 2GB in the lead-up to the Cronulla riots.

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Invasion of the Idiots

It seems like they're everywhere. You can't turn a corner without an idiot getting in your way. Kevin Airs can tell an idiot a mile away and he's got his eye on you, too!

Take a look out the window. See that? That's the world of Idiots. They're taking over. They're at your door, Save yourself.

YOU! Yes, you... the guy who can't work out how to use a baseball cap, in the car that's bouncing because of the doof-doof beat that's deafening you and everyone within 50 metres. Your in the Eastern Suburbs, not East LA. Your an idiot and you've got a stupid haircut.

And you. Yes, you...with the lychee martini, fake tan, plastic breasts, botoxed face, texting while you drive and saying "Whatever". Lara Bingle and Paris Hilton are not role models. You're an idiot.

There was a time when I genuinely didn't realise there were people who were even more stupid that me. Obviously, there were the class dummies, but, you know, everyone else was pretty smart, weren't they?

I was wrong. Stupidity rules. The idiots are everywhere. Why else do spam emails, Nigerian banking scams, mobile phone ringtones and the Liberal Party still exist?

We live in a world where people have to be warned not to use toasters in the bath, where Kylie's broken heart is (again) the most important story in the world, where the planet is boiling itself dry so we can buy giant LCD TV screens and where politicians focus on the micro so they can get away with the macro.

Thousands are dying in the Middle East and farmland's turning into dustbowls but we're all worked up about whether or not we should be drinking recycled water. We're denied a republic because the debate dumbed down to whether Ray Martin might get elected President.

The idiots are winning. They're pandered to by business and government which just makes them feel more important and, worse still, makes them think they're right. And smart.

It's unlikely ever to change again now - keeping the populace dumb means politicians can replace actual policies with glib one-liners that polarise everything into black or white. Snappy soundbites have killed debate.

The idiots are now glorified. TV shows like Jackass hail them as heroes. The title should be a clue that people setting fire to their genitals aren't too clever, but the idiots still copy them. And then video it on their mobile.

Other shows like Australian Idol and Big Brother transformed karaoke and watching people sleep into surefire ratings winners. Why? How did it come to this??

But it's just going to get worse. The idiots are on the verge of evolving into the master race with a collective IQ of a bowl of salad.

Today, the government has to bribe women to have kids because capitalism is breeding itself into extinction. The smart young women of today are choosing their career (and nice car and good home) over having children.

Meanwhile, Idiots with no career are having kids purely for the baby bonus payment....which is promptly spend on pokies or booze, or anything apart from nappies, prams and university trust funds.

The idiots think they're owed it. And 'it' means 'everything'. They think they're entitled to be rich and famous without ever having to work at it. All it takes is a slot on a reality program or a really short skirt.

Geniuses who could save mankind are living on the breadline while idiots who can barely tie their own shoes are multimillionaires simply because they can throw a ball or look good in a bikini....while the other idiots cheer them on.

It's insane. Help stamp it out. If you see an idiot, point at them and say: "You are an idiot and a waste of good water...." Then charge them for the air they breathe. They're dumb, they'll pay.

Hang on - why are you pointing at me?? How much a breath? Oh okay.

The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense

Are you annoyed by celebrity chefs, BlackBerries or corporate mission statements? Do overseas call centres make you want to scream? Did you sympathise with Prince Charles against Diana? If so, you could be suffering a reaction to airheadism.

As defined by Shelley Gare, airheadism is a broad concept. It includes, but is far from confined to, the most obvious manifestations of shallowness and stupidity in our midst: Big Brother, Paris Hilton, the cult of Bridget Jones. Gare devotes a chapter to "ditsy fatuousness" and parodies its language throughout the book ("really", "whatever", "like, totally", "ohmigod!"). She covers everything from teeth bleaching to $4000 handbags.

The wider subject of Triumph of the Airheads is our neo-liberal, postmodernist society. It's spiced with anecdotes from everyday life and lots of wry black humour. But at core, this is a highly serious book. Gare is Australia's Lynne Truss, with larger ambitions.

According to Gare, there are seven key features of the contemporary airhead: insatiable consumerism, obsession with statistics, an aversion to reading books, selfishness, short-term thinking, love of theory and jargon and a tendency to bully. Other telltale traits are pride in ignorance, dislike of the serious and the absence of contrition if things go wrong.

Airheadism is not about intelligence or gender or honest absentmindedness. It's about values - or the lack of them. It's elevating style over substance and forgetting (when convenient) that actions have consequences.

The results of airheadism can be merely farcical, like the cash-strapped CSIRO spending $70,000 on a "communications conference", complete with magician. Gare enumerates many such follies but she also shows that airheadism can lead to tragedy. She cites Iraq, HIH, Enron, Dianne Brimble, "children overboard", obesity and the AWB kickbacks scandal.

The "perfect example", though, was Hurricane Katrina. It illustrated how "a phalanx of decisions made by airheads, or made by people under the influence of airheadism, can pile up into catastrophe".

Thus, expert advice from climatologists was ignored, the levees protecting New Orleans were underfunded and unqualified political cronies were appointed to key disaster relief agencies. Inevitably, the poorest citizens suffered most. Yet Barbara Bush could say of refugees camping at a sports arena: "Many of the people ... here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, [chuckles slightly] is working very well for them."

Gare concedes that airheadism isn't new. Her thesis is that it's "on the rise" and increasingly goes unquestioned. The causes are rapid technological change, unprecedented affluence and the prevailing ideology of "individualism", which distorts thinking on both sides of the political divide.

Right-wing economics is savagely scrutinised. Gare decries huge CEO salaries, the proliferation of MBAs and HR departments. She lauds the sensible middle class, the virtues of meaningful labour and spending within one's means.

As for the cultural left, Gare rejects the idea "that holding on to what used to be called traditional values, especially when they get in the way of fun or entertainment, is old-fashioned, repressive and, worst of all, judgmental". This mentality, Gare argues, contributes to the "moral slurry" of underage drinking, sexual promiscuity, New Ageism, recreational drug use and high divorce rates.

All of Gare's preoccupations converge in her discussion of education. She laments the "pincer movement of economic rationalism and postmodern theory". The right treats schools and universities as "industries" devoted to narrow vocational training and the bottom line. The trendy left has abandoned the basics: rote-learning, discipline, exams, grammar, spelling, the canon, phonic reading, the reality of objective truth.

Gare was schooled at a Catholic convent but at heart she's a Calvinist, strict and austere. I mean that as a compliment but occasionally she lapses into uninformed crankiness - investment banking, golf and intelligent design theory are subjects about which she demonstrates a superficial, faulty knowledge.

More generally, one may ask whether Gare's definition of airheadism is so broad as to be meaningless. Is there really a connection between $4000 handbags and Iraq, other than human insipience, which has always been with us? Gare makes a convincing case that there is. The small examples of thoughtlessness in society can be just as telling as the momentous ones. And even if airheadism isn't new, we must always be vigilant about keeping it in check - especially when it's displayed by the rich and powerful.

Personally, I reckon Shelley Gare would make a fine Minister for Education. But she'd never get there in this airheaded world.

An excerpt from the book The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense