The Punch, Kyle Sandilands, and an irresistibly resistible tabloid moment

You can take the blog out of the tabloid, but you can't take the tabloid out of the blog.

The Punch, Australia's most benumbing conversation, has found a godsend in the shape of Kyle Sandilands, and his interview with a 14 year old girl on radio.

Not only did Paul Colgan score 338 comments at time of writing for his piece Radio rape scandal: Is it time for Kyle to be sacked?, but then The Punch followed it up with the old one two by getting Kyle himself to scribble an unapologetic piece under the header Kyle Sandilands: Girl's rape revelation stunned me, which had offered up a further 150 comments by time of writing.

There's something profoundly distasteful about a shock jock who thinks setting up a 14 year old girl to be asked about her sexual life live on air is somehow a reasonable thing to do. That it was done under the guise of a lie detector test compounds the problem, and the way that she then claimed she'd been raped at the age of 12 ups the ante to reprehensible felony.

Sandilands is such a dim wit that he could only manage this craven act of defiance in his scrawl for The Punch:

As far an apology goes, the only person I feel sorry for is the girl. That what should have been dealt with as her private situation ended up being one of the biggest news stories of the day.

As for what I said, it wasn’t intended to hurt. If people have found it appalling or offensive I’m sorry for them that feel that way, but I would ask people to put themselves into the situation where someone says to you during a live radio show that they have been raped.

Actually derr brain, you put yourself in that situation, and there's nothing more to be said.

But if this is the best Sandilands can do for The Punch, is this the best The Punch can do for its readers? Is it really just confirming that it's now an outpost of the Daily Telegraph, and its heart and soul, and its regular beat, will now be the wastelands of commercial television and radio culture?

Will they be able to - will they want to - avoid the tawdry and the sensational and the two inch shocking headlines? Underneath the attempt at a respectable looking format will there beat the heart of a rag willing to trawl through the gutter so long as the hits keep coming?

Well I guess I read the two pieces, but why is it that these days I come away from The Punch feeling bemused or soiled, and thinking I should lift  my reading habits by taking in a good solid dose of sensitive Daily Terror reporting? 

Perhaps it's the company they keep, and the willingness to hand guests an open page so they can ramp up any passing scandal, hopeful and optimistic that the flies will come a buzzing ...

Guess there's scoops and then there's poop scoopers ...

Like asking the question should Kyle Sandilands be sacked ... or should he be a guest columnist in The Punch? Well we know the answer to that question ...

(More First Dog on the Moon here).