Horse 3034 - Maybe The Old People Are Finally Listening To The Young People

The really interesting thing about the current narrative to do with train and bus strikes, teacher strikes, and nurses and medical workers complaints, is that the right-wing trashmedia such as the Daily Telegraph and Sky News Australia and increasingly the NineEnt Co. group which isn't even pretending that The Age or the Sydney Morning Herald deserve their spots as newspapers of record any more, is that the general public appear to be voting with their dollars and just aren't buying it any more.

Having been through one of the most vicious elections in recent memory and the persistent story that Dictator Dan in Victoria is a communist, that Anna Palaszczuk is a rampant socialist, the right-wing trashmedia is now trying to portray teachers, medical and transport workers as Marxists. It doesn't appear to be working.

Evidence that the media is losing not only its grip on the hearts and minds of the general public but also its grip on reality, while I was on the 611 bus on Thursday instead of a train (railway workers were taking protected industrial action), callers to 2GB in Sydney and Ben Fordham's program were ragging on the rags.

"Have you read this story in today's Daily Telegraph?"

"I wouldn't line my cat's litter tray with that garbage."

"Well that's yout opinion."

"And I'm not swallowing yours. Goodbye."

The general sentiment appears to be that the good and fair people of NSW, actually like the teachers, medical and transport workers; with some expressing the opinion that they support what they are trying to do.

I think it telling that the vast bulk of journalists in NSW, come from east of the Red Rooster line and have no idea what anyone on the other side of the line thinks about anything. The former newspaper network which used to employ a skeleton staff who would walk around with their cameras and take photos of grumpy people pointing at things, no longer exists. Any time that there is a news article posted to social media like Twitter or Facebook, articles are stuck behind a paywall; they are hidden away behind paywalls. As for buying a physical newspaper, people don't do that in anything like the numbers that they used to.

I think what the right-wing trashmedia hasn't learned is that people like the people that provide who with essential services and without the former inputs that used to tell them what to think, they are more likely to listen to the concerns of the people who provide them with essential services.

Probably this is also generational. The most likely consumers of old media are the Baby Boomers (and older) and the older members of Generation X. At the last census we were told that the percentage of the raw population was:

21.9% - Greatest Gen, Silent Gen and Baby Boomers

18.8% - Generation X

21.9% - Generation Y

Admittedly that does leave about 40% of the population in Generations Z and Alpha but seeing as less than half of Generation Z do not yet have the franchise by virtue of not yet being old enough, that cohort is not yet a significant driver of political policy.

Everyone before 1964 saw the welfare state put together and lived through the peak of real wages. The very first members of Generation X turned 18 in 1983 and wages were already on the slide and before the end of Generation X arriving at the franchise, the massive project to sell off our stuff which we used to hold in Commonwealth, was almost over. Generation Y, practically never had a say in anything; so by the time they got the franchise, they has already had all of their economic teeth punched out.

So in relation to train and bus strikes, teacher strikes, and nurses and medical workers complaints, most of Generation X, Y and Z are likely in sympathy with anyone trying to fight for better conditions and actually liveable wages. They've mostly accepted the fact that the world is increasingly becoming a deliberately nastier place and when you have a political party which was setup by the former proprietor of a right-wing trashmedia company, then even strikes are another dormant tool to try and take back what was never afforded or extended.

The young'uns can't listen because old media like talkback radio and newspapers (and whatever the heck Sky News Australia is) doesn't speak to them at all; now it seems that the old'uns might have finally woken up and are listening to the young'uns for maybe the first time in a long time.