The Canberra Times is a newspaper I've never really had a high opinion of. Universally left wing, supporting The Greens, refusing to print opinion pieces by climate change sceptics, stacking their letters page with Labor party staffers and blacklisting anybody who dares write in with a contrary opinion (including myself), the paper has been in decline for a number of years. But the paper is the only one in the ACT and those of us who live there have nowhere else to turn if we want to become published writers. The paper is owned by Fairfax and there is a chance that if an item is published it might also be syndicated to their other papers and payment might be forthcoming.
I had four articles published in The Canberra Times's suburban tabloid The Chronicle in early 1994, but a month or so ago I decided to try and get an item published in the main daily. I'd noticed over the past few months that the paper was becoming more balanced. The pathetic Tony Abbott bashers with their infantile comments about budgy smugglers were no longer getting their letters published, there were no longer letters from Labor stooges defending Gillard's government and The Greens, the paper was no longer printing government press releases as the main front page story and they were no longer relentlessly promoting climate change and attacking sceptics and "shock jocks". So I decided that - with the paper making attempts to reform itself - I would submit an article about obesity and my experiences in the so-called gainer scene.
To clarify, a gainer is someone who purposely tries to gain weight and be as fat as possible. It is a movement which has generally flown under the media radar. Although there are frequent articles about obesity, the subject is usually presented as something the sufferer regrets and wants to overcome. But gainers ignore society's disapproval, thumb their noses at common decency and eat as much as possible. Sometimes they react violently at doctors and others who try and tell them the errors of their ways and suggest weight loss. I was part of the gainer scene from 1996 to 2009 with a break of a year in 2001. I was a member of the Bellybuilders website, my ID was The Keg With Legs.
I wrote an article about my experiences and emailed it to The Canberra Times. The article was passed onto the features editor and a few days later I received an email from one of their journalists from the Sunday edition saying they would like to feature an article about the gainer scene and the various websites including the Ana (anorexic) sites. I was asked to submit before and after photographs of myself and to arrange to be interviewed for their proposed feature.
I mulled this over for a few days. I began getting the photos together, I scanned them onto a USB stick and was about to reply to the journalist to arrange an interview. Then came Mad Thursday, May 3rd.
I was reading the paper like I always do and arrived at the letters page. It was just two days after the latest Newspoll which showed an almost record low for the Gillard government, and that if an election was held Tony Abbott would win with a Queensland-style majority. The letters page had not one, not two but EIGHT separate letters either attacking Tony Abbott, supporting the carbon tax and defending the Gillard government. One letter by well-known Labor hack and regular writer Mark Slater said that there was no crisis regarding the Gillard government and things were all just peachy. The rage I felt was palpable, especially in view of the fact that I was put on a permanent blacklist by the letters editor after I dropped my support for the Rudd government in early 2009 and criticised their support for climate change theory. I haven't been able to get a letter published since. It was clear that by publishing these letters, The Canberra Times had dropped their newfound desire to be balanced and had regressed back to their old leftist ways.
At this stage I was still considering co-operating with them regarding the obesity/gainer feature. That was until two days later when - not only did another letter appear, this time by Jack Kershaw claiming that the Gillard government was "working well" - the very same letter by Mark Slater which was published two days earlier was reprinted under Kershaw's letter. It was absolutely shocking, a blatant admission that the paper agreed with the sentiments expressed in the letters. I decided then and there that I would have nothing whatsoever to do with them, that I would not lower myself to be associated with such disgraceful bias and partisanship.
Whether The Canberra Times now goes ahead with the feature is up to them, but I won't be contributing to it. They still have my original article I sent via email, but to mention me now within any article they publish would be a violation of journalistic ethics.
I believe the story still needs to be told. That someone in the media should lift the lid on the gainer and Ana websites and that the whole gainer movement should be shut down. At this stage I'm still considering my options. Maybe I'll sound out 60 Minutes or Sunday Night with the idea, but The Canberra Times has effectively dealt itself out of the picture and missed out due to their blinkered approach and left wing bias. They have only themselves to blame for missing the opportunity to publish an article on one of today's hot-button issues from a survivor's unique viewpoint.
