No matter how dodgy a statement may be, if you say it loudly or publicly enough, gullible people might just believe it.
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Take these completely hypothetical scenarios, not at all connected to actual events.
Imagine being the dominant player in your chosen sport and given gender, winner of, let’s say 23 grand slams, I mean major titles, and you are used to winning and expected to beat another star-struck former fan in your home-country event.
Surprisingly, you find yourself up against it.
Your opponent is proving to be better than expected.
You’ve just served a couple of double faults, I mean made a couple of mistakes, and then unexpectedly you get penalised by the umpire, I mean match official, for being coached from the stands.
Either you could accept the punishment, knuckle down and try and beat this young pretender with your superior game, or you could spit the dummy, smash your racquet, I mean sporting equipment, and launch into some diatribe about fairness and sexism – even though your coach subsequently admits the unfairness and the only way your sport is sexist is by awarding equal prize money despite women having to do 40 per cent less work.
If the latter is your path of choice, remember to repeat the “it’s not fair” mantra no less than 20 times and tell your post-match press conference you are “here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality and for all kinds of stuff”.
You may be displaying unsporting conduct and being correctly penalised for repeated rule violations and disrespecting authority, but remember to make it all about over-zealous officialdom, gender bias, maybe even racism.
Say it often enough and loud enough and not only will your home crowd believe you, but you’ll get an ovation from the supposedly impartial female press corps at Flushing Meadows, I mean your particular arena.
Similarly, if you are the best-supported team in a domestic football code and bang on enough about the physical demands of having to fly the width of Australia to play a match, fickle fans might conveniently forget that your opponents do it nearly every other week throughout the season.
And just because a couple of Russian agents happen to have Googled the height of Salisbury Cathedral’s spire and can happily recite “123 metres” on state-sponsored television, doesn’t mean they weren’t really in the English city to assassinate an undesirable with a lethal chemical.
Rob Shaw is a Fairfax journalist
