Dog whistling, dead ducks, rude burglars and sex the city – they're all here but don’t get too excited, you lot – they are all separate matters.

The subtle art of dog-whistle reporting: in the hands of the Townsville Bulletin, it’s about as subtle as a grenade in a bowl of porridge. But the paper scores a rare double award, despite throwing its own style book out the window.

Also, all the ballyhoo about a sex shop – what? oh sorry ‘Adult Shop’ - in the Townsville CBD has stiffened the resolve of some people to ask questions about both performance and possibly secret business desires. Is the eventual object to create a down-market type of male brothel in the centre of the refurbished, ‘family friendly’ CBD?  That’s the unconfirmed rumour, but some people are having trouble getting their heads around the projected business figures. Now, council has taken a closer interest.

And here’s a couple of unrelated questions for said council.

Why are the ducks and the fish dying by the score in the lakes at Fairfield Waters, and why haven’t local residents been warned about a possible hazard from some sort of virus?  And if there is no hazard, why haven’t residents been told that, too? And more to the point, who should’ve been making residents aware of the situation – the Queensland Government or Townsville City Council? The ‘Pie investigates before The Daily Astonisher catches up and scares the bejesus out of us.

All this and other odd bits of drivel in this week’s nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

This blog occasionally gets onto a serious general news story, and one came The ‘Pie’s way late yesterday afternoon.

Paul Jones, a Fairfield Waters family man, rang to ask if The ‘Pie knew why council workers all this week had been scooping up dead fish and ducks from the lake just behind the Woolies supermarket (not suggesting it was anything to do with Woolies, just to describe where he was talking about).

Fairfield Waters - home to the Unlucky Ducky.

Mr Jones said the first day the council workers turned up, they collected between 30 and 50 maggoty dead ducks, a couple of dozen more the next day and a further dozen the following day. Scores of dead fish were also scooped up each day, which Mr Jones believes died after eating maggots from the birds.

All this without explanation from the workers, (well, it’s not their job anyway, although council WPH&S may well be interested on their behalf). 

Quite reasonably,  Mr Jones wanted to know that given that pet dogs swim in the waters and are then handled by their owners and children, is the killer virus an inter-species one which can affect humans.

His inquiries didn’t get anywhere, although a neighbor went into council and was given some information some sort of botulism.

(An idle thought: the divisional councilor for Fairfield Waters is none other Les Messagebank Walker, so maybe someone did try to call him about it – and good luck with that. Mr Walker, whom fellow councillor’s have dubbed The Ghost Who Talks, has form for not answering his mobile or returning messages, so is it still a hit and miss affair for constituents wanting to contact him? At $90K+ a year, one trusts Messagebank has changed his ways. Perhaps if he spent less time grandstanding in the paper and in council about things that don’t concern him and spending a bit more time on his own patch, he might know about these things.)

But back to the Unlucky Ducks.

The Magpie contacted Clr Gary Eddiehausen  - who answered after three rings – and was surprised to hear about the situation, since community health is his committee’s area of responsibility.

Deputy Doo Dah Vern Veitch -
he wasn't smiling this morning.

The ‘Pie then rang the greenish Deputy DooDah Vern ‘Uncle Fester’ Veitch, who handles the environmental area.  His considered and carefully worded reaction was that he was ‘surprised and disappointed’. The ‘Pie suspects he was holding back a mega-tanty about being overlooked by staff on this issue, but the Deputy Mayor has the good grace – not shared by all his colleagues – not to speak ill of staff or run criticism of them via the media. But that said, there’s little doubt there’s some serious buttock clenching by certain staff who have had their weekend ruined while they now await Monday.

 Uncle Fester had the decency to call back a short time later, confirming that the problem was caused by Avian Botulism which CANNOT  be passed on to humans. He didn’t say it, but looking at recent history in this area, the possible food chain reaction may well be blue-green algae, eaten by shellfish, which in turn are eaten by ducks, who pass it on to fish when the resulting maggots from their carcasses seem like fish food.. (Whoops, just lose your WeetBix, dear? … so sorry).

The ‘Pie is assured that questions will be asked, but it should be remembered that such outbreaks are state’s responsibility and council just does the clean-up. But leaving residents in the dark about possible dangers is not what council’s are there for. Given all those dead fish, maybe Mayor Mullet will take a more sympathetic interest in the issue.

Other matters.

The ‘Well Duh Headlines of the Week goes to The Astonisher for two sterling efforts. On Thursday, the paper ‘revealed’ the following:

Really, I ask you, where are people’s manners nowadays? Would it hurt to make a gentle tap on the shoulder and reassure folks that they’ll be as quite as possible while rifling the house, and not too worry, ‘we’ll let ourselves out’. This stealing while householders sleep is really bad form,  doncha know.

And the previous day, this little gem:

Crikey, what next? Ambo’s Forced To Transport Sick and Injured: Taxpayers Slugged!’. Or maybe, ‘Household Rubbish Collection: Ratepayers Forced to Cough Up’

Just what Mr Simpleton’s understanding of what rates are used for is a bit of mystery. But readers can be such helpful creatures; tucked away in amongst the usual professional council bashers’ comments, there were two that nailed it (published to demonstrate that the paper is a fair and balanced reflection of ‘community values’ – oh, cutitout yakillinme ) .

The first was a gentle little chat to explain to Mr Simpleton the facts of life:

Well done to Cr Roberts for fixing this problem. However, why does the Bulletin feel the need to sensationalise things all time with a headline like this and a caption saying "ratepayers will be forced pay $65000 to repave a footpth"? In fact why is this even news? It's a footpath, it's councils to maintain, so it's getting fixed, simple really. When council repair potholes in suburban streets, are there stories saying " ratepayers forced to pay for road repairs? No s@#t sherlock, that's part of why we pay rates.

Posted by: JC 6:38am today

The second was much more succinct:

I can't believe this is news.

Posted by: CD 7:13am today

But this story  - including the phrase ‘ratepayers will be forced to ….etc’ is small beer when one looks at the overall dog-whistling reporting style which seems to demonstrate that an inbred attitude has pervaded the Ogden Street newsroom.

Morning Editorial Conference at The Daily Astonisher.

Given the general ‘headless chook’ style of editorial management, it is (remotely) possible that the underlying attitude on local issues – particularly council – is subconscious. But it certainly is there.

First, a reminder about what is dog whistling? Here’s how Wikipedia defines it:

Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is only ever used as a pejorative, because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog-whistle messages are frequently themselves distasteful, for example by empathising with racist attitudes. It is an analogy to dog whistles, which are built in such a way that their high-frequency whistle is heard by dogs, but is inaudible to humans.

The signposts are everywhere in The Astonisher, so here’s a helpful primer on how to read the paper … if you’re one of those left who bother.  

All journos know – or should know - the deliberately deceptive choice of words, especially emphasisers, is a back-door way of editorializing in news stories. Thus the merest criticism of anything will inevitably become ‘slammed’, or someone has ‘hit out’, ‘clashed heatedly’ or even ‘accused’, especially when the news point of the story is chosen to follow the Bulletin self-appointed agenda. This is clunky, journalistic dog whistling, nothing less.

And as all journalists know – or should know - the word ‘claim’ is a particularly loaded one. It suggests that which is ‘claimed’ is not true, and one that an unbiased reporter would be very wary of, especially in political and legal stories. And there’s no reason why Bulletin reporters don’t know this – it is a fact well recognized in the News Ltd Style-Book which, on page 65, has this to say:

‘Claim: avoid; it implies that the speaker is asserting something others may doubt. ‘Said’ does the job.

Same goes for ‘allege(d)’.

But ‘said’ doesn’t sensationalise, so don’t expect any simple declarative sentences any time soon, to allow you make up your own mind about the facts.

Then there is there’s ‘hybrid’ story that conflates two issues in a confusing mélange so the reader isn’t sure of what is actually being said. Joining two stories from separate reporters is always a tricky business, which often ends up a mess. Especially when both yarns are space-filling lazy tripe. An example is this story, which may turn out to be more important in what it doesn’t say rather than what it does say.

If you haven’t nodded of yet, you can read the story here – and then you’d be sure to nod off.

This all seemed mildly bizarre to link ‘respected’ – how do they know? - urban planner Andrew Hammonds to the proposed opening of a sex shop. It may well have been a bit of a surprise to Mr Hammondss, too, although one doubts anything would surprise a man who can keep a straight face while using phrases like ‘tactical urbanism’.

But all that nit-picking aside, there are a few serious questions about the proposed sex shop opening, with more than one heavy breather hitting the MagpieFone. It has been suggested that the eventual purpose off the premises was that of a ‘sex on premises’ operation. Not a brothel per se, but an all-male, admission-charging den of dubious delights which The Magpie is unwilling to describe here. Suffice to say, when told of one particular aspect, he was reminded of youthful Dad and Dave schoolyard jokes involving Mabel’s absence from the farm leading to Dave having a confrontation involving a tree with a knot-hole in it. There was a beehive involved in the joke, but other than that, memory is mercifully misted over - like Dave’s eyes.

These rumours of a sex on premises element have been rife in the gay community for a while now, but no detailed application has come before council yet.

Not having ventured into such niche-interest territory himself, The ‘Pie called old pal the gay activist Colin Edwards, who owns the industry-leading – so he said - Sweethearts on Charters Towers Road.

He questioned the cost of $2 million just for the premises for a sex shop operation.

‘On my best day at Sweethearts, Valentine’s or New Year, that's when you get the regular suburban couples coming in for something different, I’d get maybe 70 people through the shop, and it’s about 130 square metres’ Colin said, suggesting 400 square metres could never be a business proposition for that sort of operation. He said claims of 500 customers a day was highly improbable (not his exact words, The 'Pie caught his drift between adjectives) but something like that would be needed ‘just to break even’.

Mr Edwards is of the impression that someone is playing funny buggers (The Magpie’s terminology), and said the ‘sex on premises’ theory is not out of the question, there was a precedent in Cairns.

‘As I remember, an adult store started up in Cairns, adding to the business over time until they introduced a ‘sex on premises’ aspect. The Cairns Council had apparently overlooked the loophole in the relevant by-laws, and had all sorts of problems with the issue,’ Colin told The ‘Pie.

The business, he said, was called The Head Office. Oh, the drollery.

Reporter Daniel Bateman, who was good enough to take time off from informing us at length about his riveting personal views about same sex marriage, was apprised of the above matters. He told Mr Edwards he had put the scenario to the spokesman/owner who flatly denied it. So that was that.

Nothing of this possibility was printed and only time will tell if a little more digging would have been judicious.

All of which is a bit queer since the paper is ever ready to rain on anyone’s parade at the slightest hint of shock/horror. Mr Edwards said two Townsville councillors, one being the mayor herself, were alarmed enough to ring him seeking information.

Ultimately, these sorts of operations are controlled by the state government, but it is hard to imagine the council, let alone the likes of the Minister for Mayors Kid Crisafulli, Thuringowa’s Scarlet Pimpernel Sam Cox or Townsville’s shy John Hathaway allowing any such proposal go unchallenged. So at least the council is now on to it, any hanky-panky will draw a bureaucratic spanky-spanky, and Mr Bateman again loses his chance for an 'investigative journalism' Walkley.

The Magpie thinks all this is worthy of ‘revealing’  not for prurient reasons, or even the question of the suitability of location for a simple sex shop, let alone anything further going down. It is more that the last thing the Flinders Street re-development needs is an unsustainable business which goes belly-up soon after opening. As Mr Edwards points out (and he’s not against the concept, just the location) two similar operations on Flinders Street West have been tried and have both gone bust.

Others matters.

On the national scene, our PM is back in The Lodge, sipping Tim’s hot cocoa while watching a video of ‘How The West Was Won’ and wondering where she went wrong. Getting bested by the Tattooed Lady of Liverpool was no doubt a low light. And her big announcement about taking on the bikie gangs was premature political populism, entirely dependent on the unlikely cooperation of the states, but Bentley reckons she’s just the gal with the know-how how to do it.

And as the PM herself says, the Australian public has a role to play in getting rid of this blight on society, these thuggish, lying, violent, sleazy, drug-raddled undesirables.

And so we do.

Our best chance comes up on September 14.