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On April 18, 1930, something horrific happened in England: there wasn't any news.
The 8:45pm BBC radio bulletin announced, somewhat simply, "There is no news". Then they just played piano music for 15 minutes. Bereft of the chance to become confused and scared by the reporting of world events, Brits were left with nothing to do but appreciate musical beauty and talk to each other.
Clearly, this was a tragedy. It was probably the worst thing that happened to Britain in the '30s.
News never ends
Thank heavens nothing like that could ever happen today. In 2017, there is always enough news. Plenty of news. Oodles of news. Avalanches and downpours and torrential rivers of news.
We have become willing and desperate receptacles for the onslaught of the latest information.
From the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we collapse into our anxiety-ridden news comas at night, we yearn for the latest updates, memes and hottest of takes to be funnelled into our gaping news-hungry multiplatform orifices.
No modern news service — no newspaper, TV network, radio station or website that bravely shouts the truth at us on a 24/7 basis — could ever possibly declare the world has "no news". That would be dumb and stupid.
Instead they'd immediately run stories like "SHOCK NEWS SHORTAGE!" or "NEWS DROUGHT STRIKES!" with pictures of crying paperboys and vandalised newsagents, and probably a woman wearing a burka for no reason.
Sky News will never do anything as daft as play some nice piano music to entertain their viewers. They'd much rather cross to a panel made up of political operators who have all been fired from previous jobs and broadcast them yelling about how nice piano music promotes cultural Marxism.
Trust the clever people
I love the media. It is good and smart and necessary and full of clever people. Those in our media class have their noses on the pulse, their fingers on the ground and their ears in the grindstone. They are somehow both insiders and outsiders and they are dedicated to holding our political leaders to account (and also having lunch with them).
Whether it's the Iraq War, Brexit, Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, same-sex marriage, the influence of One Nation or the comedic value of puns, our editors, opinion writers and broadcasters are always on the money and worth reading and listening to.
This opinion piece I have written and that you are reading right now, for example, is brilliant and good and worth your time. If it wasn't, why else would it exist? To merely satisfy the contrived and incessant hunger for content in this churning toxic nightmare of a media climate we've created for ourselves? Ha! Good one, weirdo. Tell that to the Walkleys.
R.I.P. 'real' news
The only thing I don't like about the media today is this troubling new trend of "fake news", which was first invented 18 months ago and not before. Before January 2016 everything we saw on the news was real and trustworthy and was in no way manipulated to sell advertising, reinforce the ideology of the ruling classes or reaffirm the status quo.
One example of fake news is the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer Report showing that just 32 per cent of Australians say they trust the media. Ridiculous. Nonsense.
Everybody trusts and loves the media. Sunrise has a cow on it that gives away money. How could you not love that? Exactly.
It's OK — I have a plan
This is why I'm so excited about the chance to host Tonightly — a daily comedy show about the news of the day.
With the journalistic chops of the Daily Mail Online and the comedic timing of Landline, we'll be piping hundreds more minutes of pure noise about the news directly to your impenetrable worldview bubble.
I believe our show, like the rest of the media, has the power to fix everything.
That fake news Edelman report fake-found that while 59 per cent of Australians cited ABC TV as their most trusted news source, that figure was in decline. Last year it was at 66 per cent.
It is my sincere hope and belief that as soon as Tonightly launches, that figure is going to change again. Dramatically. Whether it's down or up doesn't really bother me; the main thing is we're cutting through.
So ignore the polling, your own judgment and the facts: I say the media's future is bright. The only thing we need is more of it, now and always.
Together, let us fall screaming into the void of tomorrow's headlines, let us never stop posting or making #content and let us all work to ensure that what took place on that dark day in April 1930 can never be allowed to happen again.
Tom Ballard is the host of Tonightly, which airs on ABC Comedy from Monday, December 4, at 9pm.
Topics: television, arts-and-entertainment, comedy-humour, journalism, social-media, internet-culture, australia
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