‘Meth capital’ slander has got to stop

This column is the author’s personal opinion.

I don’t get on my high horse too often, but this week The Advertiser published a story about Golden North’s move to Murray Bridge under the headline “meth city to boom town”, and then refused to publish a comment I attempted to post in reply.

So giddy up, high horse.

This “meth capital” business has to stop.

It’s ridiculous, self-perpetuating slander.

As you know, reader, Murray Bridge is a community well and truly on the up, with population and property values growing significantly over the past decade despite the triple whammy of the TFI fire, the floods and the drought.

The “meth capital” label was slapped on us in the wake of a 2018 murder, and national and metro media have stuck with it ever since because it fits their outdated perception of Murray Bridge as nothing more than a Housing Trust town, a prison town, a really run-down community like it might have been decades ago.

As my mate Dave Atze put it, imagine if everything you accomplished in life was related back to something negative:

• “Childhood bed wetter gets work promotion 20 years later”
• “Girl who pooped her pants at a party wins Olympic gold”
• “Man who farted in front of his school cures cancer”

The journo who wrote the Tiser’s story, their chief of staff and numerous other members of that newsroom have worked in the Murraylands in the past, and they should know better.

When I spoke to Dimi Kyriazis for our Golden North story last Thursday, he was excited to chat.

He’d had a busy morning of doom-and-gloom interviews about his company leaving Laura, and looked forward to talking about the positives for Murray Bridge.

That’s why local media is important: it gives us perspectives we don’t get from elsewhere.

Instead of kicking us, like the Tiser or The Australian or A Current Affair, it talks about solutions, accentuates positives, and generally tries to make our community a better place.

Doing that stuff is why I’m in this game – it’s sure not the pay or the hours!

Every town, regrettably, has its drug addicts and criminals.

I wish those outside this community could get their heads around the fact that ours is no worse than any other.

Personally, I think it’s better … but maybe that’s my own bias creeping in.

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