On the front page of certain newspapers you can reasonably expect to see a vitally important story like “Can Oz Idol Survive” or even more importantly how “We could have done more” to save a certain whale. Not so very remarkably Crikey reported yesterday that media mentions about the baby whale outnumbered the next biggest story (some dying river system) by almost 2 to 1. So it seems that as far as the mass media are concerned, a dying baby whale is much bigger news than the fate of the Murray Darling. Even the ABC thought so, yesterday’s midday news was slavish in its coverage (live cross etc etc) of the now departed whale and totally bereft of any mention of the ecological disaster unfolding out west. Strange really, when you think of which one has the potential to affect more lives. Oh well…
