In The NEWS

'EVIL MEDIA'

12.00 AEST Thu Jul 30 2009
By Matt Bachl, ninemsn (Australia)

Radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands has blamed the "evil" media for twisting his response to a 14-year-old girl who admitted she was a rape victim during an on-air lie detector quiz yesterday. The 2DayFM presenter asked the teenage girl — who was strapped to a lie detector machine while her mother asked questions about her sex life — if the rape was "her only sexual experience".

Sandilands and co-host Jackie O this morning hit back at media reports calling for them to be sacked over their handling of the interview.

"I've been going through the newspaper, TV reports and to be involved in one of these stories ... is one thing ... but to watch some of the newspapers skew this in an evil way — some people are saying we are no better than a child predator — it has gone a little bit crazy," Sandilands said.

"I watched other news services pick up on this and twist the story, the mum is being blamed, we are being blamed, and it is just one of these things, unfortunately rape happens in society."

READING AND COMPREHENSION / VOCABULARY SEARCH

Use your dictionary to look up words in the above article. Here are a few explanations to get you started.

1. lie detector - a machine used to find out if people are telling the truth or not
(to detect means to find)
2. hit back - to respond very strongly to an accusation
3. skew - misconstrue - or change the story, change the truth, twist the truth
(related terms: something is askew / something is amiss - when someone is suspicious that something is not quite right)
4. incident - something that happened
5. pick up on - to take some (information) and use it (for themselves). In this case, the media picked up on the incident about the girl at the radio station and reported on it
6. twist the truth - to change an incident that really happened and turn it into a lie
7. strapped in/ to - to tie or attach something to an object eg. to strap the baby into the baby car seat. eg. strap yourself into the seat for the roller coaster ride.
(both noun and verb) eg. use a strap to strap the horse to the post.
8. shock jock - a disc jockey who does shocking or controversial things to get attention in order to increase ratings on his/her show.

DISCUSSION / YOUR OPINION : What do you think about the incident?

These are some of my opinions.

- the topic is inappropriate for the public domain such as TV or Radio
- the media and the parents are irresponsible
- the media has certain responsibilities and obligations to be sensitive to social issues
- and so do people in the public eye, such as famous people
- otherwise all the sacred things in life become like a reality TV show, as the above article shows

**Share your views!..leave a comment...