Brisbane residents, that dull roar you heard over your house this morning was the Australian news media working itself up into a frenzy over the fact that a pair of REAL LIFE FUCKING FIGHTER JETS had been deployed in a G20 SECURITY SCARE.
The Courier Mail, amongst other sources, reported with glee this morning that a pair of F18s were deployed from Brisbane just after 7:30am today to investigate a mysterious boat floating off Bribie Island.
The boat in question turned out to be just a regular, boring old boat that never wanted to hurt anybody – move along, nothing to see here, you keep doing you, boat, and maybe try and parlay your viral fame into a reality show.
Now, we’re not having a dig at G20 security here – those planes were clearly deployed to investigate what may or may not have been an actual, real security threat, the end result of which apparently turned out to be a false alarm.
Our issue is more with the headline, some variation of which you’ve probably seen splashed across your Facebook timeline a dozen times this morning: SECURITY SCARE AT THE G20, FIGHTER JETS DEPLOYED.
It seems like much of the Australian media have been waiting for something, anything, to go wrong at the G20, in order to put the fear of god into the public, but so far, nothing much has panned out.
Those Russian warships bearing down on Brisbane? That fizzled out pretty fast.
The hordes of anonymous protesters descending on Brisbane to cause Seattle-style anarchy? So far, protesters have fought their causes in a respectful, non-violent fashion.
The man cornered by police outside Obama’s hotel? He was carrying some pieces of paper.
This, which was splashed across the front page of The Courier Mail’s website earlier? Just the latest in a series of not-a-thing things to cause needless social media panic.
Once again, to pre-empt any comments about how we here at Pedestrian are all a bunch of inner-city leftie cunts (#bless), we’re not knocking police or security forces, all of whom seem to be doing an excellent job this weekend.
We’re simply asking the Aussie news media to please, please chill its tits for a while and stop stirring people up with sensationalist nonsense about F18 fighter jets bearing down on everybody. Go cuddle a koala or something.
Photo: Quinn Rooney via Getty Images
