(Image: Private Media)

I(D)GA(F) Crikey has long followed the issue of partisan government advertising — see 2019’s “better tax” campaign, where the supposedly apolitical Treasury glowingly crowed: “The Australian Government is building a better tax system, so hard‑working Australians can keep more of their money …  better for you, better for business, better for Australians.” A tipster got in touch to point out a series of government ads appearing on the store monitor screen as they waited at the checkout of their local IGA:

As our tipster points out, the health messages is valid enough, although “the claims about tests being ‘available’ is dodgy, and the ‘free’ part downright deceptive”.

But the monitor wasn’t done, going on to encourage shoppers to check out Australia’s net zero plan:

It goes on to spruik the government’s support for solar panels and investment in “a clean hydrogen industry”.

It’s not as explicit as the better tax campaign, but it still seems a touch odd to couple this with health messaging — unless the average citizen needs to know about the government’s commitment to Snowy Hydro as urgently as they need access to free rapid antigen tests?

Unregulatable tech giant check-in Microsoft has announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard (which is behind video games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft) for a less cool than freezing $69 billion. The monumental deal touches on two big issues: first, the willingness of US regulators to, you know, regulate. Second, and related, is the sprawling terror dome of the metaverse. Microsoft specifically referenced the metaverse in announcing the detail.

And as Peter Kafka argues in Vox‘s ReCode, games are the best places to get the all-enveloping parallel universe started:

Microsoft says there are 3 billion gamers around the world today, and says that number will get to 4.5 billion by 2030. And if you want to get really fanciful: if any version of the metaverse or virtual reality future we’ve been hearing about for the past couple years comes to pass, it will almost certainly be grounded in games. Maybe Future You won’t want to strap on face goggles throughout your day. But putting on a device to shoot at virtual strangers is less of a stretch.

Hard-hitting reporting A new report from Medianet paints a fairly glum picture of being a journalist in 2021. Its annual media landscape report, which polls just under 1000 journalists on their experiences, reports 94% of those surveyed responded that the pandemic had affected their ability to work effectively in 2021. Along with the expected restricted movement and mental health issues came a disturbing jump in journalists reporting harassment (11%, up from 4% in 2020) and a dispiriting and predictable persistence in the gender pay gap: 30% of male journalists reported earning more than $100,000 a year compared with 16% of females and 12% of non-binary journalists. 

Harum scarum One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts — a leading contender for the “loosest unit in Australian politics” title who spent 2021 sharing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and growing his online following by hosting wellness influencers and anti-vaxxers — took the next logical step and got COVID. He’s put out a post celebrating his freedom and describing his experience — most strikingly, his experience of “24 hours of piercing pain in the scarum”, which might mean sacrum, the triangular bone at the base of the spine.

Certainly his experience hasn’t changed his tone too much — in the 18 hours since announcing his scarum issues, he has posted anti-mandate material and shared a story questioning the efficacy of booster shots. He is scheduled to speak at Prayer and Pushback this Friday with Robert F Kennedy Jr

Note: we initially made the same spelling goof as Roberts.