Sunday Life Magazine, The Sun-Herald, Sydney Edition
October 25, 1998

Media Mongrels

It's time newspaper ownership was seriously addressed in this country, arguesPaul McDermott

There is an ever-widening gap in this bountiful country, a gap between those who have and those who have not, a gap between the givers and the takers, a gap between those who use and those who are used. I am aware that I am adressing two radically different groups of people and it is essential that you discover which category we belong to. To enable you to do this we have designed a simple questionnaire. Please choose either a) or b) below:
a) I have purchased this item (the newspaper with its numerous sections, colour supplements and special lift-outs) with my hard-earned cash.
b) I have grabbed/found/stolen/borrowed this item (or bits of item, the aforementhioned newspaper) from my husband/wife/spouse/friend/family member, I have no intention of paying for it anyway.

If you ansered a), you are entitled to read this paper at your leisure, to savour the entertainment, envy the lively intellectual debates and read the comics. It's the right of ownership, and you may exercise it as you will for you are a valued member of society.

If you answered b) a sense of shame and debasement should settle on you as you read. You are a parasite, surviving on the kind, magnanimous nature of your host. The country as a whole suffers at the greed of a stingy few. The average adult spends $4 on the weekend papers. A measly $4 a week that over the course of the year will exceed $200. If we multiply this figure by a standard lifetime, you're looking at an investment of around $15, 000. I remind you that this sum is derived from the consumption of the weekend papers alone, one can only imagine the loss if you're buying a paper everyday and someone else is reading it.

The reason the Sunday papers were forced to print more sections was to create harmony within the home. (It was not, as some scurrilous sections of the community have suggested, to sell more advertising space.) This was a noble idea by the altruistic newspaper magnates and may have succeeded had it not been for the mean-spirited, vicious, uncompromising greed of the common people.

Individuals are not the only problem. Hotels, hairdressers, gentlemen's clubs, libraries and numerous other businesses diminsih the financial return and compromise the integrity of the newspaper. But by far the main offenders are coffee ships. They scatter newspapers and magazines like cerebal cushons to be picked up or discarded by heir latte-lapping clientele.

There are ways we can stop this terrible downward economic and social spiral: never leave a paper behind on any form of transport, expect family members to buy their own copies and destroy the paper completely when you are finished with it. After you finish wih one, you might toss it in a bin. It may be rescued from said bin and casually perused by the garbage man whilst doing the rounds. You may end up paying for it again, as a hidden cost, when you purchase fish and chips. Every man, woman, child, animal and insect under the sun is taking advantage of your generosity.

Are you sipping tea pretending to be interested in this banal article while the section you crave is held in the hands of someone else? Someone who's a "Sunday reader", not a dedicated follower of the news? This "someone" is the thief who didn't buy the paper in the first place. Look at them as they happily flick through the pages you own. Is it taking all your strength not to rip it from their ungrateful paws? Hands blackened by newprint, symbolically tarnished by that they've read. Take back your paper you paid for.

In this article I have taken care to address the purchaser of this paper, now I address those of you who chose b). Next week liberate your wallet of your purse and buy the paper yourself you miserable lumps of human detritus.

-Paul McDermott