No me, not my husband, not my kids and in fact I don’t think anyone I know does. So why are we so concerned about what he says on radio? Perhaps because some people can be influenced and think what he is saying is correct.
The man is a shock jock. Do a search on Google and Alan Jones comes up second in the list after the Wikipedia definition.
“A shock jock is a type of radio broadcaster or disc jockey who entertains listeners or attracts attention using humor and/or melodramatic exaggeration that a notable portion of the listening audience may find offensive. The term is usually used pejoratively to describe provocative or irreverent broadcasters whose mannerisms, statements and actions are typically offensive to many members of the community. It is a popular term, generally not used within the radio industry. A shock jock is considered to be the radio equivalent of the tabloid newspaper, for which entertaining readers is as important as, or more important than, providing factual information.” Source Wikipedia.
Alan Jones is even listed as a shock jocks on that same Wikipedia definition page. Is his opinion so important to you, me and everybody? His listeners are the type of people who are simply like him and will not be changing. Is he getting any new listeners because of what he says? If we keep give him this media attention, possibly yes.
Lets think about what he does in his 2GB job. His purpose is to be the entertainment around the news bursts and commercials on a commercial radio station. The commercials bringing in the revenue to pay for the station to keep going. So if you think of him as entertainment does he need to be factual?
So is there any point to force Alan Jones to do the ‘factual accuracy’ training? I understand Alan will be doing it because he made the comment that humans only make ”1 per cent of .001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air”. Is that the main issue Alan Jones has?
I don’t care about him being factual. All journalists and politicians get it wrong sometimes. I think what is more wrong is what he said about our Prime Minister Jullia Gillard’s father. It does not show any respect. Whilst I did not vote for Jullia Gillard I wish the media would give her the respect a Prime Minister should receive. It is comments like this and Alan’s classic one about putting her into a chaff bag and throwing her into the sea was inappropriate. Perhaps rather than forcing Alan to do the factual accuracy training, he should be doing ‘respect training’. As he is an influencer to his listeners maybe if he showed respect to humankind, the listeners could one day follow.
I don’t care if you have different politics to me, I don’t care if you don’t like me but just show respect to each other.
What training do you think Alan Jones should be doing?
