I don't know. Who the fuck gathers Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty around to witness the birth of mice? Is this video even real? Am I still high from the pseudoephedrine I took on Thursday before clutching at Julian from the Presets?
This is Marieke Hardy in a post on her now defunct blog, Reasons You Will Hate Me.
Those of you over fifty will know Hardy in relation to her granddfather who penned Power without Glory in 1950. This was a fictionalised version of the life of Melbourne businessman, John Wren, and was set in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood).
However, more youthful and sprightly readers will know Marieke Hardy better for her various talents as a blogger, freelance writer, broadcast and television producer. She presented the JJJ Breakfast Program with Robbie Buck and Lindsay McDougall in 2009 and has written a variety of television scripts.
It was these achievements I sought to exploit in hunting down Hardy for a uni assignment in March. The task was to find someone related to your future career, then interrogate them with questions about the impact of the global knowledge economy upon their line of work. Enthralling.
After reading Hardy's blog and listening to the breakfast show, I concluded Hardy woud be much less intimidating to interview than Johnathan Holmes or Peter Fray.
Despite this, I was still scared shitless. Sitting in the ABC cafeteria in Ultimo, waiting for Hardy, I realised that I didn't really have a straight definition of the global knowledge economy. I also realised that I was surrounded by hard core journalists, writers and people generally far smarter than myself.
I quietly began to piss myself, fiddling with my embarrassingly 1980s Sony recorder while George Negus ordered his cappucino a few metres away.
Hardy spoted me immediately and greeted me warmly. The sweat ceased to pour off my brow as I found Hardy friendly and relatable. She swears like a sailor and has a number of tatoos. We spoke briefly about her experiences in moving from Melbourne to Sydney's inner city. The interview then got underway... before she kindly informed me, "I think the red light needs to be on before it starts recording."
Hardy grew up around film and television sets, as both her parents were stage actors. "I was a child actor then realised at the age of eighteen that I was much better as a writer." She worked in Melbourne community radio before becoming a freelance writer for The Age and Frankie.
I was desperate to know how she went from community radio to writing a column for The Age.
It began with her blog, Reasons You Will Hate Me, on June 3rd, 2004. It got noticed by the editor of The Age who then contacted Hardy and asked her to pen a column for him. This shows the value of social capital in the media industry. Success hinges on collaboration, networks and social relationships. These are the key demands of the information age.
The idea of knowledge capital also relates to Hardy when she describes her reliance upon Google for scriptwriting when searching for a specific pop culture reference or facts and words. "I'd be lost without it."
Knowledge capital is information that flows rapidly across multiple media platforms, therefore driving the generation and dissemination of new services and products.
The the way in which the internet has transformed writing and the media became obvious for Hardy when she read The Everyday Guide to Drinking by Kingsley Amis. "He would have gone to the library and searched through tomes... and I just go sraight to Google."
However, it has been argued that the drive for new products and services has impacted upon media autonomy, constraining the industry by forcing them to pursue profit rather than the ideals of the Fourth Estate, a model free of vested interests. The mainstream media is controlled by global communication corporations, such as News Ltd, which hold immense economic and political strength, which is increasing everyday with the help of knowledge capital.
But Hardy insists that these global communication corporations do not dominate the majority of the Australian media. She points out that knowledge capital and the advances of the information age have been used by the ABC to assist in information flows and access to rural audiences.
"Triple J's big strength is that it takes music to regional areas where the only music young people can get is local mainstream FM. These people not only have Triple J radio, now they have the website where they can access gig guides... they can read CD and gfilm reviews and have a look at the presenter's blogs. We try and make information more accessible to people like "Joe Nobody" living in the Northern Territory. Musically, Triple J's online multimedia and blogs are a great window for what is going in the rest of the country, this material acts as a cultural lifeline for those in rural areas."
However, being a government funded organisation, the ABC is freer to pursue the ideals of the Fourth Estate and fulfil public interests, as opposed to the commercial networks, who are dependent upon the global economy as their profit is derived mainly from advertising revenue.
Hardy does concede that the media industry is getting it rough at the moment because of the global economic crisis. Financial markets have affected newspapers especially, as the news moves online. "Where I work, at The Age, there was a huge strike last year and a large number of staff were made redundant. It is dangerous to be working as a journalist in the current economic climate."
This last comment doesn't give me much hope for the future. But I do get to go back to uni and boast that I met and interviewed a real, live radio presenter.
And maybe I am missing something, because out of the 45 minutes or so I spend talking with Hardy, I do not get a hint of the "show pony granddaughter of Frank Hardy who uses her family connections and thuggery to gain noteriety."
She just seems like a normal person trying to succeed.
I get to meet another real, live radio presenter as we are leaving the ABC cafeteria. Unfortunately Lindsay McDougall appears to have lost the power of speech after a long morning on the radio. He can't seem to respond when I say hello.
Ah, the pains that being a high flying broadcaster must inflict upon the vocal cords.
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