Culture

The Daily Tele Got Confused Between The Greens and The Grinch, Gone Splashed It All Over Their Front Page

Sometimes the journalisms can be tough.

by Meg Watson  2 December 2014

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Sometimes the journalisms can be tough. Yesterday, Greens Senator and spokesperson for women Larissa Waters expressed her concern about the well-documented problems of gender stereotyping inherent to much of the kid’s toy industry. “At this time of the year, many of us are looking for children’s gifts, and it’s important that we think about how toys are marketed to children,” Waters said. “While the starkly separate aisles of pink and blue might seems harmless … setting such strong gender stereotypes at early ages can have long-term impacts, including [on] self-perception and career aspirations.”

It can all be summed up nicely by this little girl’s excellent face.

But here’s what The Daily Tele heard:

“The Greens hate Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be, perhaps, that our shoes are too tight. It could be our head isn’t screwed on just right. But I think that the most likely reason of all, may be that our heart is two sizes too small.”

They then whipped together this stunning piece of take so hot you could use it to light your Christmas barbie (not Barbie, obviously, as those will all soon be destroyed by the Greens).

“For years the Greens have been hell-bent on ruining the economy for everyone, and now it appears they want to ruin Christmas as well,” reads the front page article of one of our nation’s highest-selling papers. It also comes with a picture of the Senator in question and Greens MP Adam Bandt as a hippie princess barbie and G.I. Joe “Climate Warrior” that they helpfully label as a “digitally altered image”.

In fairness to Tele reporter Lauren Wilson, the full piece she published is not as batshit crazy as that front page would have you believe. Discussing the issue in a seemingly level-headed way, Wilson outlines Waters’ thoughts in full and gives a deserving outline to the goals and objectives of the No Gender December initiative the Senator is campaigning for.

While the article does give the last word to a child psychologist who opposes the idea saying it is “a nail in the coffin of common sense”, it also outlines Waters’ most controversial point in her own words without any kind of editorialising.

“Outdated stereotypes about girls and boys and men and women, perpetuate gender inequality, which feeds into very serious problems such as domestic violence and the gender pay gap,” says Sen Waters. “While such serious problems seem so far removed from choosing children’s toys, it’s important that we think about this issue, especially when so many children’s toys are being bought.”

But this genuine and logical point is then thoroughly undermined with an accompanying opinion piece, ‘A Dolly Girl Gets The Mung Bean Makeover‘. Trust us, it somehow gets worse from there.

“What would Barbie look like if it received a makeover from the Greens?” asks professional spew sprayer Tim Blair. “First, the name has to go. Say goodbye to Barbie and hello to Barb, a women’s refuge counsellor, coal seam gas protester and cisgender vegan poet.”

“Barbie smiles all the time,” Blair continues to spray like a case of particularly explosive diarrhoea. “Is she not aware that under the cruel ­Abbott government, refugees are now denied the right to drown at sea? Barb will wear a permanent scowl of displeasure.”

It goes on like that. There’s even a mention of burkas because fuck it, he’s come this far.

We know that none of you take The Daily Tele seriously. We know that they’re a national laughing stock. In today’s paper they had to issue a month-old correction and apology to a guy they mis-identified as a professional anti-mining protestor: “The Daily Telegraph accepts that he … is not a mug”. That is a thing that they genuinely had to write.

But here’s the problem: The Daily Tele is a main source of news for a bunch of Australians and they deserve to be held to account. Yes, they’re good for some solid lols over Putin or Palmer, but they’re also a legitimate newspaper that is read by millions of people. There’s a reason they had to stipulate their front page image was Photoshopped. Believe it or not, some people are taking them seriously.