Sam Downing

As I write this (timely!) Australia is going nutso over the possibility that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will get the boot in favour of his deputy PM Julia Gillard. How responsive are (some of) Australia’s leading online media outlets to a breaking story that may emerge as one of the biggest political stories of the year?

ABC news: It’s their lead story!

The Australian: The lead (ie, the image slot) is the Afghan war. Rudd doesn’t even get his picture! Predictably dry of the Oz.

News.com.au: Top story – Photoshopped World Cup malarkey. (Of course that is their top story.) Rudd has an image, at least.

Ninemsn news: “CEO’s sticky fingers” wins the lead spot, but Gillard has her picture up there.

SBS World News: It’s the lead story, natch.

SMH.com.au: Seinfeld vs. Gaga is deemed the most important story (to be fair, SMH has five rotating “lead” spots, though none of them is devoted to Rudd/Gillard). The Rudd leadership threat is right up there, though.

Virginity! It’s what Australia’s talking about right now – and whether teens (read: teen girls) should regard it as a “gift” to give away lightly. Writes Alexandra Adornetto (a 17-year-old virgin whose pro-virginity opinion piece is accompanied, ironically, by a somewhat come-hither photograph):

My recommendation would be to wait [to have sex]. Wait for the right moment, the right person and the right situation. Becoming sexually active is not to be entered into lightly. I have seen too many girls damaged by a decision that was not carefully considered.

Assuming you’re safe and responsible, is sex itself actually what’s damaging? I reckon it’s certain attitudes to sex that are damaging, not the act itself. (more…)