Quizzes. Live blogs. Explainers. Podcasts. Vertical video. Then they let the kids take over the keyboard and reach for sweary words.
First it was Andrea Vance with the c-word — aimed at female ministers, carefully reviewed by experienced editors, of course. Now it is Verity Johnson, already exhausted by an election that hasn’t started, taking the Lord’s name in vain.
I doubt she would use Allah as an oath.
She’s not that brave. Or that progressive.
Will it work?
Nope.
Swearing in print is the last trick of a brand that has run out of readers and arguments. It is meant to sound authentic. It sounds like a teenager who has discovered the adults aren’t listening.
In an argument, the guy who starts swearing has already lost. He has traded the point for the noise. The room remembers the noise. It forgets the point — if there was one.
Vance’s column didn’t land because of the analysis. It landed because of the slur. Johnson’s fatigue piece will be shared for the same reason: the spice, not the stock.
Media managers call it cutting through. They mean clickbait with a pretend authenticity. They will not swear at the sacred cows of their own side. That would be brave. This is selective blasphemy — safe shock for a declining audience that still likes to feel edgy over coffee.
Circulation doesn’t rise because you said a naughty word. Trust falls. Standards fall. The next column needs a bigger bang.
If the product is good, you don’t need sweary opinion writers. The swearing is just reason 1,001 not to read Stuff -- except to be impressed by just how far it can fall.
She’s not that brave. Or that progressive.
Will it work?
Nope.
Swearing in print is the last trick of a brand that has run out of readers and arguments. It is meant to sound authentic. It sounds like a teenager who has discovered the adults aren’t listening.
In an argument, the guy who starts swearing has already lost. He has traded the point for the noise. The room remembers the noise. It forgets the point — if there was one.
Vance’s column didn’t land because of the analysis. It landed because of the slur. Johnson’s fatigue piece will be shared for the same reason: the spice, not the stock.
Media managers call it cutting through. They mean clickbait with a pretend authenticity. They will not swear at the sacred cows of their own side. That would be brave. This is selective blasphemy — safe shock for a declining audience that still likes to feel edgy over coffee.
Circulation doesn’t rise because you said a naughty word. Trust falls. Standards fall. The next column needs a bigger bang.
If the product is good, you don’t need sweary opinion writers. The swearing is just reason 1,001 not to read Stuff -- except to be impressed by just how far it can fall.
Rodney Hide is former ACT Party leader, and Minister in the National-ACT Government from 2008 to 2011. This article was first published HERE
7 comments:
With television it's "jump the shark". With movies it's "nuke the fridge". With newspapers it could be Vance's C word, but I think Stuff fell years earlier than that. We had the Fire and Fury, the campaigning for Tori, the apology to Maori.
Maybe the ultimate was during the week prior to the 2020 elections, amid relentless criticism of Judith Collins, was the story that Jacinda was a front runner for a Nobel prize. The source of this normally secret information? A London bookmaker. I thought it was just a joke, but it wasn't. Then Stuff repeated the story over the next days. I'm wondering what they will get up to this election (but not wondering enough to spend money).
Verity Johnson used 'Jesus Christ' as an expletive. I would probably use 'Bloody Nora' or 'Cor blimey'. What people would find these offensive? The adjective 'bloody' has long lost its punch as a swear word. Only religious believers would regard 'JC' as offensive. Most of them would probably not regard 'Cor blimey' as offensive but that's because they don't realise that it's a contraction of 'God blind me' which is a profanity. Not that profanity or blasphemy are 'against the law' any more. But to me as an educated person I regard the use of 'swear words' of any etymology other than to make a rhetorical point as an indication that the speaker has a rather limited vocabulary.
Quite right. But the intellectual feather weights at Stuff simply mirror our own lazy thinking and intellectual dishonesty.
Public discourse is rife with logical fallacies, category errors and oxymorons. Nobody cares. And from there it is a short route to corrupting our own characters by swearing.
We all do it. But to me it is a matter of shame not pride or even edginess. Let's clean ourselves up and then we can critique others.
The Post ran an Editorial 7 September which drew from Harry Frankfurt's essay 'On Bullshit' and I sent the following Letter to the Editor in response.
No doubt you will be as shocked as I was that they did not publish it.
Dear Sir / Madam,
I was particularly interested to read your Editorial “There is a lot of bullshit in this election.”
You give a number of examples from both National and Labour, such as “Labour wants the biggest tax on small businesses in NZ history” and “National are keeping their cuts secret until after the election…”
Now, these are matters of fact and I expect the writer thinks that what is said, or what is likely to be understood, is not true. By Frankfurt’s meaning of these terms, they are therefore not bullshit, but lies.
An example of bullshit is when you write, “Bullshit isn’t trivial. It matters and should be guarded against.” That contains both a ‘lost performative’, because it is not stated who made the judgment, and a ‘modal operator’, because ‘should’ indicates a lack of choice. One could respond by asking: “According to whom?”
As Frankfurt says (p. 48), “The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong.” And Laurens van der Post (SOED ‘mote’), “The mote in our neighbour’s eye is invariably a reflection of the beam in our own.”
Yours sincerely,
Barrie Davis
Dear Rodney. Hi Mate.
Now a 'word of advice', if you are going to read anything penned by Verity Johnson (which you should research who she is and what her work place is) - then following "said readings", you need to -
- find a quite place, with couch
- from your wine rack select a good Pinot Noir (suggest 2 Paddocks) as it is in your residential domain
- you could place a CD (some mild Classical Music) in the Music Machine
- lie back, enjoy the wine, music and ask yourself -
" Why do I bother reading such drivel".
Verity is pitched at the cool, self-styled progressive socially active younger set who maybe read Stuff, especially in Wellington
Upset by a single curse word? This isn’t how kiwis roll, Rodney. Sort yourself out, man!
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