I watched with interest as Leigh Sales delivered the Andrew Olle Media Lecture. When Adam wore short pants to school, I used to be a journalist writing for AAP and AdNews.

Note the first 15 or so paragraphs are given over to her accidently parking in Ita Buttrose’s car park at the ABC. It’s a classic anecdotal lead in which tends to make light of the most serious theme of the address: bias and the trivialisation of the news media. It’s an example of dramatic irony.

Sales says people have turned off the news because of untrustworthy reporting.

This is hardly news as it has been going on for 30 years. There’s a lack of integrity and independence. I’ve turned off the news (well, most of it).

You don’t need to have studied sociology and linguistics to know the real problem is people have also turned off the written word. I know people still read books but people are turning off text.

The world of polemic, of argument and counter-argument is in free fall.

It’s not the end of history or any of that bullshit. People are not only turning off serious political issues – note that voting numbers are in decline – but we are seeing (but not reading) the fall of textual narrative.

What does that mean, Uncle Malcolm? It means it’s game over for serious dialogue unless you want to talk about car parking.

The next political campaign will be a fun graphic hawked on a mobile.