Editorial: Is this really healthy?

Something I've been wondering for a while, but was heightened earlier this week as the media jumped all over the Jana Pittman thing -- is Australia's obsession with sport (or perhaps more correctly, watching sport) really healthy? Thinking back a few days, Jana Pittman was all we heard about. She was front page news, I'm told one Sydney newspaper even ran a column supposedly written by "Jana's Knee" (please!). In all seriousness, did this justify front-page billing?

The word "tragedy" is one of the most over-used in the Australian media, and although I try to avoid non-satirical news sources these days, it's a fairly safe bet to say the word got a good outing. Now I'm sure Jana Pittman is a very dedicated and talented athlete, and was indeed unfortunate to suffer an injury just before the Olympics. However, let's be honest here, is someone missing out on the Olympics really a tragedy? I mean, did anyone die as a result? I certainly can't think of anyone. However, there were plenty of other events in the world with far greater consequences that didn't get anywhere near the same billing.

However, simply blaming the media for not having their priorities right on this one doesn't really do justice to the situation, because we all know who the media are targeting for newspaper sales. One would get the impression here that the Australian population are more concerned with an athlete's knee, than with life and death matters that affect people who are perhaps not in the public spotlight. Has anyone in this country even published the names of the latest batch of Iraqi civilians killed in the conflict over there?

However, let's look beyond last weekends news stories for further symptoms. We've heard time and again about university funding cuts in the last few years, but has anyone even tried to tamper with the funding of the AIS? I suspect not. It would seem in this country that an aspiring swimmer would get more government support than an aspiring doctor. Now let's answer this one honestly -- which of that pair would make the greater contribution to society? Sure, the swimmer might provide some entertainment, but is breaking a 100-metre freestyle record going to save anyone's life? Where is the real "tragedy" here?

Now while it's easy to say "blame the government" in the above situation, let us pause for a minute and ask -- who's voting for them? Would cutting funding to the AIS win any votes? One suspects it would be more damaging to a party's election chances than cutting university funding. Once again, stopping some nameless kid with a few brain cells from making a contribution seems to be a far greater disservice to the public than stopping some High-School swimming champion from spending some time being pampered in Canberra at tax payers' expense.

Everytime I see the word "tragedy" used to describe something like this, I wonder just how people managed to lose their perspective.