The newfound ubiquity of digital media leads to the somewhat mistaken idea that we are better informed. In reality, the whole truth is rarely evident. What concerns me – what scares me – is that people make harsh and definitive judgements based on information that is likely to be incomplete or distorted. The public are generally aware of the scandal-driven sales objective of the media and yet for some reason this knowledge does not seem to alter the way that they perceive and judge media stories. Because people rarely open their minds to an alternative possibility, the initial interpretation of something is likely to linger, even when flaws are revealed. This means that false allegations can forever remain true in the public’s eyes, which is horribly unfair to those who have been wrongly accused.

An example of a well-known case is the recent child-molestation case against the late Michael Jackson. In 2005 he was acquitted of all charges, yet people continued to refer to him as a paedophile. In the months following his death the media have taken a more sympathetic view, but the fact remains that the media and the public should have acquitted him at the same time as the courts. However, the image of Michael Jackson as a ‘monster’ was firmly planted in the public mind before it became clear that the jury did not see the same thing, and remained for months after his acquittal. Jackson was haunted by these allegations long after he should have been free of them.

Of course, due to Jackson’s celebrity status, his case gained a phenomenal amount of attention and was pulled apart more thoroughly than any other smaller-scale case would have been. Take also, for example, the case of my uncle Tom Easling, an Adelaide foster-carer charged with child molestation in 2004 and acquitted in 2007. The media coverage that this trial received would have appeared accurate and impartial to anyone unaware of the true details of the case. The public spectators took these scant reports and created a fallacious image of this man as a criminal. The issue was not that the media were withholding information in order to make their reports more shocking; a great deal of the details that could have changed the public’s perception could not be made available to the public. The issue was, and will always remain, with the narrow- minded manner in which people consider information. When you hear that a middle-aged foster father was accused of molesting the young boys in his care, you are unlikely to have an open-minded reaction. Upon reading or hearing about it, would the possibility of his innocence even cross your mind? It might if you learnt that these accusations came as a result of a malicious, improper investigation – but by the time this information is made public, the taint of sensationalised media reports might be almost impossible to ignore. It is frighteningly easy to simply accept the façade presented to you. People so often neglect to consider that there may be information of which they are unaware.

I am not asking for people to change their minds about Michael Jackson or anyone else; much as I would like them to, it can never be asked of people to completely change their opinions. What I am asking, and hoping, is that people regard all of the stories proffered to them as merely versions of stories and fragments of truths. As you sift through the slew of information thrown at you on a daily basis, consider the alternatives before you make judgments.

By Alexander Gordon-Smith

What scares me the most? Well apart from the obvious – waking up in a fluoro mankini, covered in conservative redback spiders that religiously vote for Australian Idol and are constantly calling for reform for cross media ownership – I’d have to say KILL-BOTS.
Kill-bots and ultra capitalism.

I am scared of a world that values profit over the well-being of humanity and the environment. I am scared of Monsanto, the company which produces Agent Orange, DDT, Nutra-Sweet and holds the patent to non-reproductive crop seeds, and is the largest supplier of genetically modified crop seeds and bovine growth hormone in the world. A company that seems to be on a mission to patent the world’s food supply through the genetic mapping and modification of seeds and ultimate contamination of non-genetically modified crops. A company that advertised genetically modified seeds to Indian farmers, promising greater yields. When the yields did not come death did – the suicide of 4,500 farmers.

I am scared of a country that allows a man like Tony Abbott to lead a political party. A man who does not separate his religious beliefs from his role as a spokesperson for his electorate. A man who has described abortion as “the easy option” and anthropogenic climate change as “absolute crap”. I can only hope that the liberal party has set Mr Abbott up as a lame duck for the next election while they get their shit together. But the cynic in me is scared, scared of Australians at election time.

I am scared of the infection of psuedo-patriotic nationalism that has reared its ugly head as a legacy of the Howard years. Southern Cross tattoos, Australian flag shorts, Australian flags waved at music festivals, race riots in Cronulla, race bashings in Melbourne. Unhealthy pride is not a virtue. Australia may like to think that it has an easy-going history of mateship, but the truth of the matter is that Australian history is riddled with dark times that continue to this day. The attempted and ongoing genocide of the Aboriginal people, the Stolen Generation, the White Australia policy, Pauline Hanson, the race-motivated rapes in Sydney and the Howard policies on refugees. When this nation’s government openly passes racist legislations it encourages the latent racism in its citizens to come alive à la Cronulla.

I am scared for humanity’s future. Will there ever be an enlightenment that will see us maintain a balance between our environment, our community and our selves? Will our inherent drive for self-destruction ever subside?

They say the fear of something comes out of not understanding it – unscrupulous corporate greed, unashamed blatant racism, mass sheep mentality and Tony Abbott. I do understand these things,and wish to, so…