Welcome to Media Watch, I'm Jonathan Holmes.

But the big political story of the week produced a rare unanimity on the nation's front pages last Wednesday morning.

Slipper resigns in tears — The Age, 11th October, 2012

King Rat Deserts The Ship — Daily Telegraph, 11th October, 2012

Day of Shame: Slipper resigns — Sydney Morning Herald, 10th October, 2012

Slipper Quits — West Australian, 10th October, 2012

But for hundreds of thousands of Australians, and millions around the world, Peter Slipper wasn't the story of the day at all. The story was that speech...

Julia Gillard: I will not be lectured on sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not. — ABC 1, 7.30, 9th October, 2012

Even as it was being delivered, Twitter lit up. Soon the blogosphere was aglow...

Prime Minister Gillard's speech ... was a game-changer. It had me dancing in my car, prancing down the corridors with glee, and fist-pumping in the office whenever the video was played on the news. — Mamamia.com.au, 12th October, 2012

The You Tube clip of the PM's speech has had well over one and a half million hits to date. It made global news overnight.

And then those people woke up on Wednesday morning to find the speech pushed down to the bottom of the news stories by the Speaker's resignation, and the gallery's top guns - male and female - pouring scorn on it in comment pieces...

Peter Hartcher If Gillard will not defend respect for women, what will she defend? Just another politician indeed. — Sydney Morning Herald, 10th October, 2012

Read Peter Hartcher's article

Michelle Grattan The Prime Minister threw everything into her argument ... but it sounded more desperate than convincing. — The Age, 10th October, 2012

Read Michelle Grattan's article

PM will rue yet another bad call Dennis Shanahan — The Australian, 10th October, 2012

Read Dennis Shanahan's article

The gallery, almost to a man and woman, focused on the hypocrisy, as they saw it, of Julia Gillard attacking Tony Abbott for sexism while defending Peter Slipper.

It was an analysis that many outside Canberra utterly rejected. For women especially, the speech wasn't about a couple of grubby texts, it was about their own life experience...

No one out there was focusing on Peter Slipper ... when we talk about sexism and misogyny, it's personal. It's part of who we are as a society. And we react. — The Global Mail, 11th October, 2012

Read The Global Mail story

The clash between Canberra politics and lived experience was typified when Sydney radio host Jason Morrison met media commentator Jane Caro on Nine's Mornings show...

Jason Morrison: Government supported a sleazy Speaker and then the sleazy Speaker showed greater moral fortitude and came out at the end of the day and said ... David Campbell: But that's not what's making headlines, mate, around the world ... Jason Morrison: I don't care what's making headlines around the world, I'm talking about what happened. Jane Caro: That speech of Julia Gillard's is a famous speech, it will go down in history, it will be played for decades. The first female Prime Minister standing up in that way is a very important historical moment. Peter Slipper will disappear and no-one will ever mention him again. — Channel Nine, Mornings, 10th October, 2012

The gallery was reflecting the political consensus in Canberra: that Labor's month-long attack on Abbott's alleged misogyny may well lose it as many votes as it gains. But by Friday, even gallery correspondents like the Sydney Sydney Morning Herald's Jacqueline Maley were admitting that...

The bubble of the Canberra press gallery has been decisively popped this week. — Sydney Morning Herald, 12th October, 2012

The problem was that the gallery was unanimous. Most didn't even acknowledge the reaction to the speech in cyberspace. As blogger Tim Dunlop pointed out on the ABC's opinion website...

When you have the likes of Michelle Grattan, Peter Hartcher, Peter van Onselen, Jennifer Hewett, Geoff Kitney, Phillip Coorey, and Dennis Shanahan all spouting essentially the same line in attacking the Prime Minister - a line at odds with the many people's own interpretation of events - people wonder what the point of such journalism is. — ABC, The Drum, 10th October, 2012

If that disconnect continues, they may wonder, too, why they should pay for it - for newspapers especially, an ominous thought.