Tuesday 17 April 2007

Royal soap

When I wake up in the morning, I don't expect the first thing I hear on the radio news to be the fact that a 24 year old and his girlfriend have split up. Not even on a quiet Saturday when most of the rest of the news is about a horse race. Not even when the 24 year old is Prince William of Wales. Now, a couple of days later, the "news" is still all over the newspapers.

Of course, the Sydney Morning Herald has not quite followed suit, dressing up its stories as reporting on the media reaction itself. This is normal practice for the SMH, where gossip does not seem to be directly reported, but there are plenty of articles about what the British tabloids or Aussie mags are saying.

Not only does most of the coverage seem to be pure speculation, but I don't understand why we are supposed to be so interested in the story. I would have thought that the daily dose of Neighbours would be enough soap opera for the Brits, but they seem to want more. I've had enough, even without watching Neighbour, although watching the social life of ducks last week was quite intriguing.

1 comment:

Jonathan said...

The fascination with royalty can take many forms. Passing off gossip as news was one thing, but it wasn't too bad to wake up a week later to the royal anthem on the radio before the 7am news, celebrating the Queen's birthday.