In the January after the end of Year 12, I got a phone call from Herald Sun. The university offers were to be published in an early edition of the paper and for some reason, a journalist thought I would make a nice photo. I still don’t know how they got my number. Perhaps someone from my high school thought I was particularly photogenic.
The idea, the journalist explained, was to get a shot of me looking up at the Herald Sun printing presses, as those make-or-break editions of the paper were being churned out.
Mum and I were very excited. Together, we put together the perfect outfit — casual, young, unfussy but flattering. I wore my new pink Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirt and grey 3/4 length pants.
On the evening the university offers came out, mum and dad rushed to the newsagent and brought home the paper. We weren’t keen to see my offer, oh no, we were looking for my photo.
We flipped through the paper (cursory glance at my offer code, yeah, whatever, ho, engineering, what a surprise) then flipped through it again. Lots of photos of other earnest, smiling, casual-yet-elegant teenagers, but no Joan-amongst-the-printing-presses.
Disbelief! Betrayal! Disappointment.
From that moment onwards, I lost all respect for the Herald Sun. Not only do they publish populist, trivial, sensationalist, blatantly manipulative “news”, not only do they shelter Andrew Bolt, but they also hurt my feelings. Die, Herald Scum, die.
Something similar happened to me too, except it was with The Age.
Near the end of year 12, I was interviewed by The Age about my uni prospects for the special uni offers edition of the paper.
We spent a LONG time trying to stage a photo of us jumping in the air and throwing sheets of paper above us (you know, like “hooray, school’s finished, I’m so happy I’m throwing my notes in the air” type thing).
It was supposed to be the cover of the section with the uni offers. I got the paper that day, and I quickly flipped to see that section to see how the stupid photo (it felt stupid posing for it) turned out.
Must’ve been bad, because they replaced the photo with a caricature of us (me and three other students) jumping and throwing papers!
Oh well. They still ran my interview, and I still had a real photo in the actual article, so I didn’t really care.
(And yeah, what’s with Andrew Bolt? I can’t believe he’s still there.)
Heh, well, in the local paper when I got a high distinction for one of those science Australian Schools competition, they referred to me as a he. That was more injuring. A HE!!!! Didn’t even bother finding out what GENDER I was!
Didn’t John Lim get onto the front of the newspaper when the year 12 reports came out? He had to wear school uniform.
He didn’t even tuck in his shirt.
I believe John and Sheau Sze got onto the front cover. It was also one of those ‘paper throwing in the air’ shots, but Vera, the Herald Sun digitally added paper into it. It didn’t even look like real paper. It was like, clipart, or something.
Do you have your article from The Age? I’d like to read it.
Lainey, I agree, that is such poor journalism. What a spoiler for something that should have been exciting!
I do have the article somewhere, but I’m not sure where — it’s packed in one of the boxes at my house. If I come across it I’ll show you!
Do you feel ripped? I would have.
Anyhow, nice blog you have here. First time visiting here, seen you around on Life of a Guy.
wait, it took you that long to lose repect for the herald sun?
It took me until uni to see how silly the Herald Sun is. Our uni newspaper did a parody edition of the HS and it was a bit disconcerting how much alike the parody and the real thing was.
Apparently, clever people don’t think The Age is much better.
Interestingly, even when we were doing issues analysis in English and working with all that sensationalist manipulative fodder that the HS offered us, it never occurred to me that employing such writing techniques was unethical or poor journalism. I was just happy that the HS had given me good material to work with!
“Apparently, clever people don’t think The Age is much better.”
Yes, I think my brother’s one of those people who thinks The Age isn’t good enough. He gets *The Australian*. Woooo…
Hahahaha…
yeah I used to think the HS and the Age was crap and only read the Australian… but my opinion of the Australian has gone down in recent years too so I only read the Bulletin (magazine) and watch SBS/Sky News/CNN…
argh I’m one of ‘those’ people too
You newspaper snob! :O
hey everyone, my mum always tries to get me to read certain articles, and i was happily surprised to see joan’s photo in the article today!
Ah, the Australian. The quality editorial independance of the Herald Sun, combined with the convenient broadsheet format of the Age.