Irwin's death attracts the serial headline hunters

There is a certain group of people who build, or hypercharge, their careers by meeting the media's unending requirement for essentially harmless and containable controversy.
The idea is to sell newspapers and advertising without getting embroiled in anything that might be a bit too complex or challenging (for media and audience).
Its like the role sports play in our society. We get outraged (unfair refereeing decision etc) but no-one gets hurt and the game goes on.
When it comes to the search for cheap headlines, Germaine Greer is a long-time major league, serial offender while Clive Hamiliton is a comparative newcomer to this production of controversy as harmless diversion but he is rapidly becoming one of the reliable providers of an easy target for feigned outrage on today's circuit.
Their views (Hamilton, Greer) on Steve Irwin's sad death have given them renewed prominence and newspaper editors and broadcastors have benefited with great opportunities for righteous indignation. Plenty of "quelle horreur" headlines.
Why do they do it?
Well, the marketing benefits of publicity, of course. They do have books to sell.
But I also think people get addicted to the thrill of it all, to the attention and notoriety it brings.
There are people out there who just can't say no to a media request.

Comments

[Steven Lewis]

There are also people in the audience who agree with Hamilton and Greer for the most part and whose opinions haven't otherwise been reflected in media coverage of Irwin's death.

I said on a podcast the day after Irwin's death that it was family tragedy, not a national tragedy. I was shouted down.

I'll put my cards on the table and say that I've a lot of time for what Hamilton and Greer said and I know I'm not alone. I know also that most of my friends who agree with me won't say so publically because of the ad hominem response. I heard Greer described last night in quite graphic terms and was told she wasn't welcome in this - her - country.

[Steven Lewis]

Sorry - "publicly"

[Bob M]

Although I was very surprised at the scale of public grief over Mr. Irwin's death, I also thought Ms. Greer's commentary mean,unnecessary and of course insensitive. I presumed her reason for making such inflammatory comments was a similar one to that which took her into and out of the British Big Brother household. A severe case of limelight deficiency.

[Phil]

As someone who would usually be supportive of the social research work Hamilton does through his think tank, my first reaction was to tell him to shut the heck up.

Talk about prissy and stuck up.

But then again I view Irwin through the eyes of a migrant to Australia so maybe I don't have the same cultural baggage to carry as some native Australians do.

[Matt Moore]

Greer is as much a serial contrarian as a publicist. Which is necessary. I think she lapped up the calls for her banning from Australian soil. Interesting to see one self-publicist criticise another.

Hamilton's piece actually seemed pretty reasonable from my perspective.

I am not a native Australian either. But then I found my fellow Britons' public anguish over Diana incomprehensible.

I notice that the tributes to Steve Irwin focused on his conservation work rather than "Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course".

[Trevor Cook]

With the news this afternoon of Peter Brock's tragic death, I hope we won't get the self-publicists and contrarians coming out with diatribes about motor sport etc. But its bound to happen. Who will be the first to come out and puncture the 'national grief' this time?

[Steven Lewis]

Re Diana, Princess of Wales, I do get a kick out of pointing out that this "most hardworking of royals" was on her sixth international holiday of the year when she died, and it was only August.

I'm British, too, and I was never gladder to live abroad than when it happened; another family tragedy, not a national one.

It was funny that as Greer was talking about how Irwin treated animals disrespectfully, ACA should choose to play a clip of him swinging a snake about. Maybe the editor agreed with her, even as Stefanovic was making a fool of himself beating her with the popular stick. Thank God for YouTube.

As for Peter Brock, you're certainly safe from me as I'd not heard of him till just now. Far worse than any puncturing of national grief, I think, is this line that Irwin's family have had to endure of him dying "doing what he loved". Does it really comfort anyone that he died filming a documentary not crossing the road? Or that Brock died at the wheel, not falling down stairs?

[Trevor Cook]

I found the Diana nonsense revolting, still do. As an unreconstructed republican (of the direct election variety) I believe they are all a waste of space, and I fail to see what she actually did except fulfill a minimalist program of 'visits'.
I think the 'died doing what he loved' thing is just another awful cliché.
Even better when some goose says "it was ironic that he died do what he loved" or similar.
These are episodes are times to just not watch, listen or read in my opinion.
And I resent people like Greer and Hamiliton who simply prolong the misery of having to endure a 'national outpouring of grief' or any other supposed media-induced frenzy.