The Angry Exile: Channel Ten should apologize...

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Channel Ten should apologize...

... for being fucking hypocritical twats with their coverage of The Chaser's sick kid skit. Here's the original skit (and admittedly it is near the knuckle so if you think you might be offended just don't fucking play it - I won't say sorry):

Here's Channel Ten's piece (and again, if you're easily offended it's probably best that you just don't play it):

Now is it me or did Ten News show virtually the whole fucking skit anyway (if you didn't play the clips just take my word for it)? And if so does that mean they're as bad as The Chaser and should also apologise? I mean, I missed the show and the only reason I saw the content that had offended so many people was because I saw it on Ten News. And if journalistic licence justifies showing the whole thing despite the offence it causes* then do The Chaser team really need to apologize? Could they not have just shown a few stills or a heavily edited down version to illustrate the story? Fuck no, not remotely salacious enough to run it that way. Show more or less the whole thing cut into two or three chunks and let people who missed it think there was more to it, and mix in angry and offended viewers. The way I see it anything The Chaser have to apologize for applies to Ten News as well.

UPDATE: It also occurs to me to wonder how many of the people currently going crazy about this actually saw it when it was broadcast and how many, like me, only caught up with it after the event because of the shit hitting the media driven fan. If, as I suspect, most people didn't see it in the first place then how much responsibility do the rest of the media have for making it more widespread? Even if they didn't do a Ten News and show the thing virtually in it's entirety the media as a whole (plus Rudd et al) has made a huge beat up of the issue and consequently it's a lot bigger than it would have been if The Chaser team had just been quietly bollocked for it.

* The other thing is Channel Ten's spin that the skit makes fun of dying children. Did it? I'm not sure. Whether it was or wasn't I'd say it's neither their best stuff nor even particularly funny, but even when I saw it on the news it didn't come across to me that the sick kids themselves were supposed to be the butt of the joke. Then there's the point made by Mediawatch that it's not exactly new, and that being the case where was all the uproar last time? Finally, I get offended by lots of TV - usually whenever Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull is on - but I've never once been moved to complain about any of it because when stuff that offends me appears on my screen I reach for the remote and it goes away. Is it that hard to switch over to avoid TV you don't like?

2 comments:

Shibby said...: That's the news for you.

You know they don't really care.; 10 June 2009 at 20:50
Angry Exile said...: Mmm, yep. The commercial networks here are very competitive with each other, though usually Nine get on my tits most. I'd blog about Today Tonight except that I'd have to watch it, and that would probably result in the TV getting shot. By contrast ABC is a bit like the Beeb, which shouldn't be seen as a compliment.; 11 June 2009 at 01:51