Country Girls

Wendy Machin is a girl from my home town, just a few years older than me. We’ve met probably half a dozen times in total, and our families know each other. It’s even possible that we may be distantly related, but I’m not sure about that. Wendy and I attended the same high school – it wasn’t hard. Our small town only has one high school. Wendy studied Communications at the Institute of Technology (now UTS) and a few years later, I studied Communication at Mitchell CAE (now Charles Sturt University.)

Wendy is without doubt a feminist role model for small town girls like me. She was elected to North Sydney Municipal Council at 25, until she stood for election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in the seat of Gloucester, which included our home town. That was the first election I voted in. The seat of Gloucester was a very safe National Party seat, and Wendy won the by-election as a member of the National Party. Wendy was the first woman to represent the National Party in the Legislative Assembly, rising to be Deputy Speaker while still a single woman in her early thirties.

These days, Wendy is the President of the NRMA (Road Service, not insurance). She’s also a mother, a farmer, a wife, a private consultant in PR and Issues Management and has served on the boards of various NGOs, including Save the Children (NSW), the National Council for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. She has also been the Deputy Chair of the Australian Republican Movement. She is a master at multiskilling – and has a Masters in Commerce.

Wendy Machin is the perfect example of a women who can, and has, done what she wanted to do. I'm not suggesting that Wendy's life has been perfect, but it has been blessed by the opportunities created by feminists of previous generations, not notably, the 60s.

Wendy is a puzzling blend of conservative politics and progressive actions. With her history as a member of the Young Nationals, then a National Party politician, she is without doubt comfortable with conservative values and policies. Having said that, she has broken through barriers and blazed a new trail for women in conservative politics in Australia, she's blasted a hole through the glass ceiling at the NRMA, and she continues to set the bar in multi-skilling.


Yesterday, the NRMA under Wendy’s leadership, refused to withdraw their advertising from the Alan Jones Breakfast Show. The NRMA is the first major company to remain with Alan Jones’ show. An explanation was posted yesterday on their Facebook Page (left).

I know that Wendy is aware of Mr Jones’ recent comments, and that she finds them as inappropriate as I do. I also know that she is a Communications professional like I am, and that she is are aware of Mr Jones’ history of bombastic and biased political pronouncements, his half-truths, his extreme climate change denial and on-air provocation and intimidation of guests who do not share his opinions. The fact that Wendy is a National Party member means she might well share a few of his opinions and might not have felt the wrath of Mr Jones herself. That's not relevant.

The crushing response to Nic Lochner’s petition asking businesses to pull their advertising from 2GB – 116,000 signatures – and the successful and sustained campaign by Destroy the Joint prove that this new conversation is not just another social media meme.

If anything good has come from the Mr Jones’ comments, it’s that it has been a catalyst for a new conversation in Australia, a conversation not just about women and misogyny, but also about standards of behaviour, about respect, and about what we are willing to accept from our media, our colleagues and our society. Finally, we're talking about where the line is drawn. 

More than 80 major advertisers have decided that the line is drawn on this side of Alan Jones’ style of broadcasting and public speaking. They have cancelled their advertising on The Alan Jones Breakfast Show and are standing together to support the women (and men) who are driving the appeals for more respect, more civility, more care within our communities.

The town where Wendy and I grew up is a small town. We would have known many of the same people, the same classy women who set the standards in small town Australia in the 1960s and 1970s: my grandmother Queenie Easton, our cousin Isabel Carpenter, Grandma Queenie's peers Joan Lucock, Ina Mallyon, Glad Skinner, Ruth Gardner and of course, the Machin family. They would never accept the kind of bully-boy tactics and verbal insults that we’ve heard on the radio in recent years, and they’d be disappointed in us if we did.

I don’t want to return to a time where I have to wear a floral frock from Osti, and a pair of gloves to play canasta while I wait for my husband to come home from work, and I can’t believe Wendy would want that for her daughters either. What we do want – and what we deserve – is an informed media that respects its audience, its government, and the society in which it operates. Alan Jones does not meet that criteria, and by associating the NRMA with Mr Jones, Wendy Machin is aligning “Our NRMA” and herself with his now tarnished brand.

As a communications professional, I would advise the NRMA to cut ties with Alan Jones and cancel any advertising booked on his show. It's not simply a commercial decision; it has meaning. It doesn't matter how many times the NRMA publishes its denials about supporting Alan Jones, or how many press conferences they give, as long as the NRMA still advertises on Mr Jones' show, it has positioned itself on the Jones side of the line, and the wrong side of history.


Wendy has responded via my Facebook page: Wendy Machin Hi Sally - I thought it was you, another Wingham girl. I read your blog. Pretty fair and I am glad to see yet another product of Wingham out there and doing well. You are right when you say I do not like the remarks Jones made. You new my Dad and when he died that was a great loss to me. I felt hurt for Julia Gillard when I saw what Alan Jones had said - it was so unkind and just so so wrong. Her Dad, like mine, was no doubt a proud father as he watched his daughter get to the top of politics in this country. I too have a similar Communcations degree as you and I appreciate that people will be critical of the NRMA advertising schedule including the Jones time slot. As you can imagine I am now being subject to a lot of personal pressure. There are several important issues here and they should not be confused. The really important one is proper standards of decency in our community - particularly in our community and political leaders. The media has a crucial role in leading the standard of debate upwards. I fully support that and I think the record will show that I have never indulged in personal attacks or "sledging" (although I have received a bit). The other issue is about businesses of all sizes trying to get on with their job. For many this includes advertising. The 2GB morning time slot has a lot of listeners and for the NRMA this is an important group for us to talk to. Some of the ads you are concerned about were in the traffic report - pretty logical oplace for a motoring organisation to go to given who we need to talk to. Social media is just like a lively debate at the pub - only online so more can see it. Everyone has an opinion and that is their right. But here too, as on radio or in Parliament, we should respect each other. The nasty targeting of some small businesses as part of this wider issue is unfortunate. They and good companies like NRMA should not be punished for another's wrong actions. Surely the best way to send a message is listen to another station?

Car Crash Radio

People like to watch action-disaster movies; the slow detailed and often preposterous unravelling of a plot where a single, unlikely hero leads a group of misfits to a miracle survival, defeating the bad guys along the way. Just how many times can Bruce Willis save the world? (At least once more, it seems!)

From the televised insanity of OJ Simpson’s car chase through the Los Angeles freeway system, to September 11, to scout troops of eager weather reporters getting blown off over and washed away just to prove that…well, I never knew what they were trying to prove. It’s a hurricane, you fool! Get inside!

Even better, if there is any chance that we can experience the disaster first-hand, we’ll chase the ambulance. It’s a race to get the best pics on your mobile phone and post them on Twitter before anyone else does.

The point is, when something bad is happening, we watch. If nothing too bad is happening, we watch fictional substitutes. Somehow, within the last century, we’ve become a society of rubber-neckers, always on the lookout for the next disaster.

Today is radio ratings day, that day when the results of the most recent metropolitan radio surveys are released by Nielsen. In Australia’s biggest radio market, and around the country, eyes are on Alan Jones, whose ratings have gone up 0.5%. Up. Half a percent. Jones.

But that can’t be right, can it? Surely all of this agenda-setting joint-destroying activity has had an impact? Hasn’t it revealed Mr Jones as the disgusting woman-hating right wing spokesman for all that is wrong with society? That’s an exaggeration, although just how much of an exaggeration varies, depending on my mood (and his).

How on earth could Alan Jones audience have increased during a time when his very right to exist as a broadcaster is being questioned?

It’s not that hard to fathom, if you look at the detail.

Firstly, take into account the dates of the survey. The Survey released today covers two distinct periods: July 29 – Sept 1 and Sept 16 – Oct 20. Overlay that with the dates of Alan Jones’ two major faux pas, and you get this.

There’s no doubt that the “destroy the joint” comment was not well received, and stirred up some media attention. Out of that emerged #destroythejoint – one of those annoying internet memes that are a Big Thing for about two-and-a-half minutes, while the hipsterest of the hipsters play with them, then the rest of us cotton on and meme away happily for another few hours before never thinking of it again.

Except Destroy the Joint is still going strong two months later, with a national and international profile. Destroy the Joint has a flourishing Facebook page with over 20,000 Likes, and they have spearheaded the campaign to encourage advertisers away from Alan Jones. DtJ is not just about Alan Jones though – it’s the new expression of female pride in Australia. The Destroy the Joint Facebook page was established on September 2nd, and highlighted crass behaviour by men towards women for almost a full month before Mr Jones’ “died of shame” comment became public.

Logically, if there was going to be a fall in Mr Jones audience, it would’ve been during the weeks after the “died of shame” comment, when Destroy the Joint actively campaigned to major advertisers to remove the Alan Jones Breakfast Show from their advertising schedules. Of course, a fair number of non-traditional 2GB listeners would’ve tuned in to hear what all the fuss was about; some may even have found Mr Jones’ style of talkback to their liking and stayed. Some listeners may have been attracted to his bombastic style of bigotry and dominance.

Mathematically, the Destroy the Joint Campaign was only active from September 29, and the ratings period closed on October 20. That’s 22 days out of a 63 day ratings period. 36.5%. On that basis alone, anyone who thought that Destroying the Joint would destroy Alan Jones ratings is living in fantasy land.

Let’s go back to why ratings are measured: it’s a way of providing a number, a commercial convenience that says is B has more listeners than A, then B is a better vehicle for advertising than A, and therefore B can charge more than A. Alan Jones ratings are up 0.5%, so accordingly, 30 seconds of his airtime is worth more than 30 seconds on opposition station 2UE…except that there are no major advertisers who are willing advertise on his show. Only small, local businesses are safe – and they aren’t the businesses with the big dollars to spend.

2GB took a financial hit close to half a million dollars per week during the period when the Alan Jones Show went to air with no advertising at all, and their parent company’s share price dropped significantly, although it’s now bounced back.

What we don’t know from the radio survey results is the week by week breakdown of the audience, so we simply can’t map numbers against specific events.

What we do know is that Alan Jones credibility is increasingly in doubt. More people may be listening – or the 0.5% increase may reflect a larger increase earlier in the ratings period, followed by a decrease. In any case, he’s not worth what he was as a radio property, and he has lost his influence, which was always his power base.

He’s just preaching, loudly, at the converted.



As unpalatable as Alan Jones’ opinions and bombastic style are for many of us, he is one in a long and distinguished history of commercial radio in Australia. It’s like listening to a toddler commentating on a slow motion car crash every morning. If you’ve never listened to one of his broadcasts, put it on your bucket list for sooner rather than later. I doubt that Mr Jones will be broadcasting much longer.

Pro-Choice

If Tony Abbott felt that he needed prove his great relationships with women, his superior understanding of women and how we work, he should have stayed in bed this morning, or sent Margie in his place. Instead, he fronted the post-MYEFO media and declared that the Government doesn't really understand families; if they did, they would never have monkeyed around with the Baby Bonus.

Echoes of 2007, when Bill Heffernan called Julia Gillard "deliberately barren" bounced around Twitter. Was the Leader of the Oppostion really drawing attention back to the Prime Minister's choice to remain childless, and using it as evidence that the Government doesn't understand the pressures on Australian families...during a time when he's trying to appeal to women voters?

Journalist and academic Julie Posetti tweeted:

"You've got to be kidding me - Abbott played the 'Gillard isn't a mother' card. Again?! Interesting misogyny accusation deflection strategy."

Gold Coast Columnist Sue Lapperman tweeted:

"I can't believe @TonyAbbottMHR has not learnt anything from the past couple of weeks. Badly done Mr Rabbit, badly done."

There are probably more than a few people who are surprised that the conversation about equality, misogyny, sexism and respect has lasted longer than just a few days. It's more than a wistful post-mortem to a surprisingly successful social media campaign. The latest opinion polls are reflecting the gender divide, with Prime Minister Gillard pulling away as preferred PM.

The initial blast was triggered by Alan Jones claim that the 'women are destroying the joint', the murder of Jill Meagher, and the emergence of Tony Abbott's family on the national stage. The rage subsided just a little, only to have Alan Jones throw an entire warehouse full of ammo with his "died of shame" comment in front of a room full of future conservative leaders.

After worldwide attention, countless editorials, panel discussions and blogs, plus fifteen minutes of unforgettable honesty from the Prime Minister, the women of Australia show no signs of sitting down or shutting up. Even women who acknowledge that they avoid the news are talking about Jones, Abbott, Gillard and why its so much harder for women. Plenty of men are standing beside the women this time. A new generation is learning the lyrics to I Am Woman.

That early conversation about destroying the joint has made way for a whole range of new discussions, from the acceptability of the word "vagina" in polite conversation, to questions about the continued existence of a corporate glass ceiling, the cost of tampons and the right to choose to be a stay-at-home Mum.

More importantly, it's not just hipster-talk. As late as yesterday, big companies were still choosing to withdraw their advertising from the Alan Jones Show on 2GB. Assuming that they'd allowed enough time for the heat to dissipate - or figuring that they'd lost enough money - 2GB reintroduced advertising during the Alan Jones show. It didn't go well for them, with several ads from companies who had withdrawn from the Alan Jones Show "accidentally" going to air. 2GB has underestimated the attention span of their foes.

We'd have to include MRN's Mr Jones and Mr Tate in the list of men who are surprised that the women are still destroying the joint. This is no storm in the Royal Doulton, dear. This is serious.

It's no longer a protest or a campaign; it's becoming an oestrogen-propelled perpetual motion machine with the power to reignite the processes of change our mothers and grandmothers started back in the sixties. This time there's a difference: women have nothing left to prove. We can choose whether to burn our bras, run them up a flagpole or strap ourselves into lacy underwired torture devices. They're our bras, and it's our decision.

Equally, we can choose to focus on career and crash through the glass ceiling like Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop have done, we can reproduce like bunnies and care for the family full-time, or we can plan to balance career and family.

If you stay on the right side of the law, and well away from those who need to apply their version of propriety to everyone, you're fine, but right now, the focus remains on the levels of balance and respect between men and women.

The latest Essential Poll asked about perceptions of sexism. The results aren't good for anyone, with the possible exception of Prime Minister Gillard. Sexism is very much alive and well, and this goes some way to explaining why her infamous speech about Tony Abbott's misogyny is still reverberating.

Margie's Abbott's appearances to help her husband look softer and more (politically) appealing to women are backfiring too. With the greatest respect for Mrs Abbott, putting her in front of a cynical media simply strengthens her and weakens him further. She becomes the story.

Those of us still fighting the battles against misogyny don't mind if women want to stay home with the kids. In fact, that might have been my choice, had my situation been different. The point is, it's a valid choice, every bit as worthy as any other choice a woman makes - what to wear, when and if to have children, how to cook a decent sponge cake. That's the point that Heffernan, Jones, Abbott and the rest of the Misogyny-R-Us Superleague just don't get.

It's our choice. We don't need permission, approval, or guidance...but if we want any of those, that's fine too.

There was one guy on Twitter this morning who had a 140 character pouty. His point was that he was sick of hearing every gender-related comment reframed against the current environment, and measured for sexism. His frustration is understandable...but he might need to get used to it, at least for now. We don't want our daughters and granddaughters fighting the same old battles.

Keeping Up With The Jones

Keeping up with the Jones story has been almost impossible in the last 48 hours. Just when you think you know what's going on, something else happens, and much of it is just plain ridiculous. The irony is that this blog post will be obselete before I've finished writing it.

Jones started yesterday fired up, defiant, ready to stand his ground against the baseless attacks born of jealousy and spite.

RT @latikambourke Shock jock Alan Jones says he is ‘astounded’ by the ‘hatred and jealousy’ shown in the aftermath of his PM’s Dad’s died of shame comment.

With that out of the way, it was business as usual:
From his previously secret position as Marine Biologist specialising is Climate Change and it's impact on tropical reefs, Alan Jones railed against the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Professor Jones, a graduate of the Far Right University of the Closed Mind, claimed this morning that "research on shrinking fish populations and rising ocean temperatures is a joke".

I may have taken a few liberties there, but hey, it works for Australia's number one talkback broadcaster, doesn't it?

Tony Abbott addressing Alan Jones' disciples

Meanwhile, advertisers are dumping Alan Jones in a display which puts his recent comments into a commercial perspective, makes Kyle Sandilands look like an amateur, and makes his conservative audience blush. At last count, over 40 businesses had cancelled their advertising during Alan Jones' show, pulled their advertising from 2GB, or had their online ads removed from the 2GB website. The damage to MRN’s cashflow is estimated at $80,000 per day. Yesterday, Macquarie Radio's shares fell 6%, reducing their market capitalisation by about $3milllion.


The businesses that have walked away from Jones have the support of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, too.  I would not have called Mr Jones "deluded" on air, but Kevin Rudd did, and I can't find it within myself to disagree.

In fact, many politicians have chosen to weigh in on the issue of whether or not Mr Jones' comment about Prime Minister Gillard's death is acceptable, and indeed, whether the insult was political or personal in nature. It was, of course, a vicious personal assault on Ms Gillard and her family, yet the motivation was also political, and the fallout even moreso. From the initial, apolitical response on Twitter from former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, at 6:57am, Sunday...

RT @TurnbullMalcolm Alan Jones' comments about the late John Gillard were cruel and offensive. He should apologise to the PM and her family.

...things turned ugly, quickly, particularly if you are Alan Jones. Suddenly, both sides of politics had turned on Australia's most shocking Shock Jock. Throughout the day, politicians, commentators, journalists and members of the public expressed their disgust. In fact, if Mr Jones could, I'm sure he'd shove the whole affair in a chaff bag and dump it far, far out to sea. Liberal Party Elder Statesman and former PM Malcolm Fraser has this to say about Jones', who had failed to secure pre-selection five times for the Liberal Party:

RT @MalcolmFraser That is just an absolute disgrace. No one should be allowed to say that regardless of who you are or who it's about.

Kevin Rudd, Australia's most followed politician on Twitter, had his say:

RT @KRuddMP: Alan Jones’ comments are lowest of the low. Abbott must dismiss Jones from Liberal Party now & ban him from future Liberal events. KRudd

Even Jones's most loyal buddies conceded that he'd gone too far. Andrew Bolt weighed in early with comments on his blog:

“Those who were there and are quoted in the article deny hearing any such comment, but if it was indeed said it was very cruel, very wrong,"

“UPDATE: No, the tape confirms it. The remark is shameful. I wish the few Young Liberals who laughed in apparent surprise or scorn had booed or otherwise protested instead. Alan Jones is a colleague, and I've long valued his courage. But this is very wrong."

Jones made the decision to man up. Instead of a media statement and a personal, handwritten apology to the Prime Minister, Jones' ego took over, just as it did when he chastised Ms Gillard for being late for an interview. He decided to front a 45 minute media conference in which he almost apologised to Ms Gillard, ranted that it was all Labor's fault, and boasted that his advertisers weren't about to leave him.

Jazz Hands

It's a media conference he should never have attempted. The apology was weak, rudely impersonal and insincere. On 2GB, Mr Jones gets away with his unique view of the world because he's shouting at an audience that believes his distorted perspective. In front of a real-world media mob, the shouting, the insults, the natty pocket kerchief and the jazz-hands only emphasise the gap between his reality and ours.


Ms Gillard, the target of the initial attack, is not prepared to speak with Mr Jones; according to Mr Jones few supporters, her refusal is petty. The fact is, she's not talking at all, about anything.

Several hours after Mr Turnbull’s condemnation, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made a wishy-washy two line statement, considered by everyone to be inadequate:

''Alan's remarks regarding the PM were completely out of line. It's good that he's recognised this and apologised for them."

And then it the whole disastrous (for Jones) chapter became less of a controlled bonfire being fed by a few malicious leftie trolls, and more like a raging-bushfire heading for his house. Facebook campaigns, hashtags, petitions, accusations, boycotts, polls, promises, denials.
One Shock Jock said something disgraceful, and it consumed the country for days.

Attorney General Nicola Roxon was amongst the first to suggest that it was Tony Abbott's fault that Alan Jones is dragging the tone of Australian political discussion into the gutter, and making personal attacks acceptable. Ms Roxon may be right, but it was the wrong response at the wrong time. The issue was not political…until it was. She also suggested that it was time for 2GB to take Jones off air. Anthony Albanese followed up with a press conference of his own, and fell into line behind Ms Roxon, and a collective sigh wafted through the suburbs: Rise above it, for god’s sake!

Tony Abbott waited to see which way the wind was blowing before committing himself yesterday to a full throated condemnation of Alan Jones putrid comment:

"What Alan Jones said was wrong, unacceptable, and offensive. I was shocked and dismayed."

The rest of Abbott's presser was more about how mean the Government is for blaming poor Tony for everything, and about how he always tries to keep himself nice, focus on policy and avoid personal nastiness.

Insert your favourite Pot Calling Kettle Black cliche here...except that in this one instance, he is correct. Tony Abbott has driven a spiteful, negative and personal campaign against the PM for two years, but we all know that the only person who runs Alan Jones' mouth is Alan Jones. Let's not blame anyone except Jones for this.

Was that good for you?

It had been a debate about civility, about holding grudges, about the expectation of privacy. These are concepts worthy of discussion over a bottle of decent red. By yesterday evening, we had Leigh Sales interviewing a bewildering John Laws about his former colleague. It’s bizarre, must-see television.

Now there's talk boycotting the advertisers that boycott Jones, and of rallies to support Mr Jones' god-given right to free speech. I don't know that anyone is trying to censor his opinions, as batshit-crazy as they might be. I think most of us would be happy if he’d just show some respect. He doesn’t have to like Ms Gillard, but he should respect the office of Prime Minister. Similarly, as noted American Senator and thinker Daniel Patrick Moynihan said,

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

It's not about left and right, Gillard and Abbott. It's still about the casual callousness with which Jones mocked the death of a woman's father, and it’s about this being the latest in a series of scandals for this one man: the London loo, the plagiarism, Cash for Comment, climate change denial, the chaff bag, destroying the joint, and now this.
Neil Mitchell summed it up nicely on Twitter:

RT @3AWNeilMitchell Talk about trashing the brand. Jones the insensitive gorilla and Laws looked like a Dickensian buffoon. Help!

While there are very few ways in which I would want to emulate Mr Jones, perhaps constructing my own reality might just be one of them...at least for a while. I think I'd leave the rules of science as they are, and tinker with the rules of broadcasting instead.

Jonesing

The Alan Jones insanity continues to gain momentum, with several high profile advertisers pulling their support from Radio 2GB in the past 24 hours. Like thousands of others, I've signed my name to petitions; I've emailed companies that I buy from, and I've asked them to consider whether they want their brand name associated with 2GB. 

Half a dozen nationally known brand names have publicly disassociated themselves from Mr Jones; Woolworths, Freedom Furniture, Lexus of Parramatta, Challenger Financial Services, Captain Snooze, Dilmah and Mercedez Benz have pulled the plug. More will follow because this campaign has not peaked. 

One of my favourite tweeters is the ABC's Philip Adams. This morning he tweeted this dose of reality check: 

RT @PhillipAdamsABC: No dead parrot at 2GB. Look at Sandilands's career .0r Limbaugh's. sewer radio? Flows into rivers of gold.no bottom  ...

So far, Adams is right. 2DAY-FM was the target of a near-identical campaign when Kyle Sandilands displayed his complete lack of class by calling a journalist a "fat slag" on air. His faithful listeners didn't desert him, even though his advertisers did. He still has a job - the same job - and he still earns big money doing it. His on-air behaviour is monitored more rigorously, and the station has some extra conditions related to on-air standards attached to its licence.

In America, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have weathered similar campaigns. They are still on air, although Beck is no longer presenting his increasingly bizarre Fox News television show. New sponsors barely hesitated to backfill the gaps left when sponsors deserted Limbaugh after his comments about Sandra Fluke. Despite their extreme positions on all manner of issues from sexuality to the environment, they have audiences who follow them with near-religious fervour. Jones' pompous right wing blathering and Sandilands' unsophisticated "humour" have similarly loyal audiences.

Commentator and academic Peter van Onselen tweeted this today, as 2GB's advertisers started looking for their escape clauses:

RT @vanOnselenP: The best way anyone on social media can fight back at the likes of Alan Jones is to name and shame sponsors who stick with him...

We can do that, and we will. But why? What do we want to achieve? We could take the high moral high ground and wait for Mr Jones to make real apology, but it won't happen. He still believes he had every right to make those despicable comments in private. Personally, I'd be ashamed for just thinking that way. So right now, we're campaigning to add pressure, forcing advertisers to cut ties with 2GB on the assumption that if we hurt the mothership financially, it will cut Jones loose. It's working insomuch as advertisers are pulling out, yet what is the end game? What do we want to change? Do we want

to

hurt 2GB financially?
force 2GB to sanction or suspend Alan Jones?
force 2GB to sack Alan Jones?
force shock-jocks in general to raise their standards?
change Australia's attItude to media commentary?
raise the standard of public debate in Australia?

...or are we just creating a stink because Alan Jones has, again, stepped way over the line that divides what is acceptable and what is not, and we're angry. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it's no longer enough to participate in a group tantrum, have a little nap, and wake up a little less disappointed and a little less angry. 

Of course, when the offender is politically motivated, there's an additional layer of approvals and condemnation. A five-time failed Liberal candidate, Mr Jones' appalling comments about the Prime Minister's father have become politicised with members from each side blaming and shaming each other. While universally condemning Jones's words, some conservative politicians - Tony Abbott and Campbell Newman in particular - have been less than committed to distancing themselves from Jones. Karl Stefanovic is another who failed to cut his old friend loose. I suspect their regret is in line with Jones's remorse: he regrets being caught, he regrets the hullabaloo it's created, but his words remain in his heart.
Mr Jones own piece in today's News Limited publications have done his own cause more harm than good. Jones uses his "apology" to simultaneously attack the Prime Minister, while playing the victim because Ms Gillard won't take his calls.  

Recent experience suggests that we're getting good at making a noise when one of these serial radio offenders forgets to use his inside voice - and his brain. Nothing seems to change, though, and I'd suggest it's because we don't know what comes next...and that's because we don't know where we want to go. 

Think about it. Get serious for a minute. We already know we can effect change. We just don't know what to change. If you're not sure, take another step inside your mind. If you're angry with Alan Jones & 2GB, think about why....Then think about how to fix it. 

A campaign to hurt Jones' employers will be effective, if that's what we want. I want more. 

No More

There have been so many blogs that I've wanted to write this week, from some very personal stories about hope, to my thoughts on Jill Meagher, to Australia's campaign for  seat on the UN Security Council, to Alan Jones. I didn't write any of these. I watched the twitter feed scroll, and concentrated on my own life: Rob's new job, my new project, my mother's medical procedure tomorrow, two birthdays and the overdue realisation that a friendship has ended.    

Two things won't leave me alone: Alan Jones and Jill Meagher. It feels as though a tipping point was reached this week: two acts, very different in motive and scale, brought defiantly positive responses and proof of power in numbers. 

Yesterday, the streets of Brunswick were filled with people. It wasn't an organised Reclaim The Night function; it was people, the majority female, coming together to share their different emotions: grief, solidarity, relatedness, fear, revolt. What happened to Jill seems to have effected us all so much more...I was going to say, more than other rapes and murders we hear about. And then I remind myself that this is not an episode of Law & Order SVU. I am disgusted with myself, with us. This is not acceptable. Every single violent crime, regardless of who or where or when, whether captured on CCTV or not, is abhorrent.

For all the different people that gathered today for Jill, because of Jill, and for those who weren't there but shared the emotion, it was as simple as this: No More. We are not going to accept this.

When my psychologist was taking my history, she asked, straight out, if I had been abused. Attacked? Raped? She was surprised when I answered no; few women that walk through her clinic doors can answer no to those questions. It's far too common, and not talking about it, not fighting it, is tacit acceptance.

I remember in the 70s, Grandma Queenie was in her 60s and a shade under five feet tall, and at 11pm, she would walk home alone from her Wednesday night canasta games. It was a small country town, but we didn't think twice. She would not have accepted less.

And then Alan Jones "did a Romney", and I'd hate to think what she'd say about that. At a private function, this far-too-public man uttered one of the most insulting statements I've ever heard. His attempted apology yesterday did nothing to help his cause. It was a mishmash of "It wasn't me; I just repeated what someone else said", with "it's not my fault; I didn't know the media was there". 

So it's okay to be a complete arsehole unless the media gets wind of it? No! It's not! The simplest way to be perceived in a good light is to act in a good light. 

Alan Jones has long had a credibility problem with many Australians. Over twenty years ago, when I was a junior publicist, the company I worked for represented Radio 2UE. At that time, Radio 2UE boasted a lineup that included Jones, John Laws, John Stanley, Mark Day and Stan Zemanek. One of my tasks was to take the more controversial comments from Jones' Breakfast show, and try to place them in Sydney's afternoon paper. It wasn't that hard, despite being being just a year or two after his adventures in public loo in London's West End, and his switch from Fairfax to News Limited after being exposed for plagiarism. He was controversial, with high profile guests, but he wasn't unhinged. Yet.

Not long after, when I no longer working for 2UE's publicity agency, I was set a challenge by Jones' manager: get him on the front page of the Saturday Telegraph. It was easy enough to do: he was a big deal - not a celebrity, exactly, but extremely well known. He'd been in hospital - I don't recall why - and the Tele ran with a huge shot of Jones, sitting up in a hospital bed, waiting to be discharged. I wonder how I'd go if met with the same challenge today.

At what point do we say "No More" to Alan Jones and 2GB? In the past few months, he has targeted the Prime Minister, particularly regarding Carbon Tax, and referred more than once to shoving her in a chaff bag and dropping her out at sea. He's shared a laugh with Barnaby Joyce and commented that these women are "destroying the joint." He's been called out by ACMA for broadcasting lies about climate change, and now, he's suggested that John Gillard "died of shame".

I'm saying "no more" right now, and so are JJ Metro Airconditioning, Lexus of Parramatta and Freedom Furniture, who have cancelled their Advertising buys during Jones' show. I'm not in Sydney, and I wouldn't listen to 2GB even if I was, but I can choose not to deal with companies that spend their money with 2GB. Sure, it sends a message. Is that enough to change the situation? 

So here we are. We've said "no more". What's the next step?