GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 6

17 APRIL 2009

 

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Media Watch Dog was in the kennels over Easter but now returns, afresh, to the prowl.

NON-NEWS UPDATE

In a highly competitive week, Lateline executive producer Tim Palmer and his team won the award for the media non-news story of the week.  On Easter Monday there was much news around.  Fiji had just been subjected to what was, in effect, a military coup.  Parts of Thailand were in near anarchy as supporters of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra went on the rampage.  Moreover, that very morning, the media had carried a warning by Australian strategic expert David Kilcullen that Pakistan was at risk of falling under control of the terrorist jihadist organisation al-Qaeda.

So what story did Mr Palmer set aside for the main coverage on Lateline, Australia’s leading current affairs program?  Well he called on, wait for it, novelist David Malouf to discuss – at considerable length – his latest novel titled Ransom (Boomerang Books).  Ransom takes up from where Homer (circa 8th or 9th Century BC) left off in his epic poem Iliad, all those two dozen  centuries or so ago, about the siege of Troy and all that.

Now David Malouf is one of Australia’s finest writers and deserves to be interviewed on such programs as ABC 1’s Sunday Arts program and Radio National’s The Book Show.  But it was a surprise to see him bob-up on Australia’s leading nightly current affairs program.  Lateline presenter Tony Jones was given the gig of interviewing the novelist.  Eager to demonstrate that he, too, had studied English 101, Jones began by setting the context of Homer’s ancient poem and Malouf’s contemporary novel.  Spoke Jones:

The central character of Ransom is Priam, the frail, old king of the besieged city of Troy. Priam has watched from the walls as the Greek hero Achilles has cut down his son Hector in single combat. Achilles breaks all the rules of war by mutilating Hector’s body and then binding the corpse to the axle of his chariot and dragging it through the dust. Such is Achilles’ rage and grief over the death of his childhood friend Patroclus, killed in combat by Hector, that he repeats this ghastly ritual, day after day until King Priam realises he must act to put an end to this and get his son’s body back. But to achieve that he must do something unprecedented, something shocking and new.

Are you still with MWD? Good. Now let’s admire Tony Jones’ inaugural question and the response it engendered:

TONY JONES: What is the epiphany that comes to King Priam when he’s in his bed chamber early one morning after all these dreadful things have happened? 

DAVID MALOUF: Well, he has a vision of himself not in his usual regalia but in a very, very plain white gown, sitting in a cart and riding somewhere and he realises that what is in the cart with him behind is a treasure, and he has conceived the idea in his sleep somehow, or one of the gods has come and whispered in his ear, that he should go with the treasure to Achilles and simply, as one man to another, beg him to give him back his son and to appeal to Achilles as a father.

Now we’re really getting somewhere – give or take an epiphany here or there.  Sure a journalist has been expelled from Fiji and the police have just fired bullets over the heads of protestors in Bangkok and al Qaeda is plotting to acquire what some have described as the Islamist nuclear bomb.  But that’s only contemporary current affairs.  What about King Priam’s you-beaut idea in olden times to give some treasure to Achilles so that the latter might hand over to the former the mutilated corpse of his dead son?  What about that?  Clearly Tim Palmer and Tony Jones are on to something here – for those Lateline viewers who managed to stay awake for the next 15 minutes or so.

And so it went on.  And on. Malouf came up with an earth shattering truth – namely “that death, like birth, is something we all go through”. Thank God for Lateline, MWD says.  Meanwhile Jones drew attention to Priam’s focus on the story.  Here the Lateline presenter saw certain similarities with other powerful men who “can somehow choose the way in which they are remembered”. When Malouf responded with a reference to Napoleon, Jones diverted the discussion to some contemporary conservative leaders.

TONY JONES:  I was thinking, you know, in contemporary terms. George W. Bush, who wants to be probably remembered as a liberator of Iraq.  Or, even closer to home, John Howard has put a great deal of effort into defining his own legacy and how he will be remembered.

Well so he has.  And so has Bush.  But so have such social democrats as Bill Clinton in the United States, Tony Blair in Britain and Paul Keating Down Under.  It’s just that Mr Jones thought it better not to disturb Lateline viewers with such a truth at such a late hour.  But even the deaf canine Nancy awoke at the end of the interview when David Malouf spoke about the need for all of us to tell stories to, wait for it, computers.  Let’s go to the DVD:

DAVID MALOUF: I was interested just recently to see Umberto Eco in an interview saying quite plainly: “We are narrative creatures; if we are to understand something, we need a story, that’s how we humans understand things.” And he said: “If you want to tell a child what a tree is, the simplest thing to do is to begin with a story and say, ‘once upon a time there was a seed.’ The child will understand absolutely what the tree is.” And he [Eco] goes on to say that computers are pretty much the same. If you want them to acquire certain kinds of information, they, too, need to be told a story.

Yeah, right.

 

RED KERRY SANS TIE

So how come that, on Monday 13 April Lateline focused its big story not on Fiji nor Thailand nor Pakistan but, rather, on a novelist proclaiming the need for humans to tell stories to computers?  Here’s MWD’s theory.  It seems that the powers-that-be at Lateline want Tony Jones to channel 7.30 Report presenter Kerry O’Brien and do occasional interviews with occasional visiting novelists, actors, directors and so on.  In March this year, for example, O’Brien interviewed British spy-novelist Stella Rimington (2 March), author Kristin Williamson and her playwright husband David Williamson (24 March) and British actor Bill Nighy (30 March).

Here’s how O’Brien goes about interviewing those who are not players in Australian national politics on the 7.30 Report.

  1. Go to Google and find out what an actor or author or playwright or director might have said somewhere, anywhere, about something or other.  Perhaps in the Scotsman on Sunday. Or perhaps The Philadelphia Enquirer. Maybe even the Holy Name Monthly.  [Does this still exist? – Ed]
  2. Book an interstate flight.  Destination Melbourne for Rimington, Brisbane for the Williamsons, Melbourne for Nighy.
  3. Take off the tie.  (Mr O’Brien only wears a tie when interviewing politicians, it seems). Look casual. Show plenty of neck.
  4. Lights, Camera, Action. Then FAWN.  This takes several forms. As in:

▪ Ignore errors. When Stella Rimington declares that former MI5 operative Peter Wright was “famously tried in Australia” – just ignore this.  Don’t tell Rimington that Wright was never put on trial in Australia for anything at all and that the British Government at the time merely attempted to stop the publication in Australia of his book Spycatcher.  Ignoring such errors will help an author (like Rimington) forgive an interviewer (like O’Brien) who appears not to have read even a page of her latest novel (Dead Line). 

▪  Be agreeable.  When Kristin Williamson declares that, to revenge her husband’s affairs in the 1970s, she made a short-list of the men she could bear to sleep with – and then, er, made some appointments – declare: “I’m sure the men who were on the list are rather pleased you left their names out of” the book.  Exhibit a contented smile when Mr and Mrs Williamson agree with such inherent wisdom and appreciate such sensitive understanding.

▪  Tell whoppers.  As in introducing the overwhelmingly vain Bill Nighy as “self-effacing”.  Ignore the obvious truth that self-effacement and acting do not go together.  By the way, soon after Red Kerry proclaimed Nighy’s “self-effacing” modesty, the actor’s minders demanded that he be photographed with lighting from below and the side.  How self-effacing can you get?

  1. If there is a lull in the conversation, ask the interviewee to comment on what they were once quoted as having said in the Scotsman on Sunday, The Philadelphia Enquirer, perhaps even the Holy Name Monthly [Are you sure this still exists? – Ed]  In other words, make the Google search relevant.  Almost certainly the talent in question will have forgotten they ever made the cited remark – but, if it sounds clever, they will almost certainly elaborate on the cited proposition.  This sure beats the hell out of working out one’s own questions on topics outside one’s field of expertise.
  2. Fly back to Sydney. Put tie back on.  Cover neck. Go back to asking very long questions to politicians about Australian national politics. Ask the next question from a prepared script – irrespective of what the previous answer is.  Attempt to demonstrate to 7.30 Report viewers that you are more insightful than both the interviewee and the viewing audience.  Assume that viewers are more interested in the views of the presenter than what the interviewee has to say.

 

RED KERRY’S WELL DESERVED BREAK

Most members of the workforce take holidays. But not journalists. They invariably describe themselves as taking “breaks” – which are frequently described as “well-earned breaks”.  Kerry O’Brien is currently partaking of one of the many well-earned breaks which are written into his ABC contract – they usually coincide with school holidays.  What’s noticeable is that O’Brien’s replacements are better interviewers and more interested in what interviewees have to say than in proclaiming their own opinion.  This time it is Ali Moore, who is doing fine.  The added advantage with Ms Moore in the 7.30 Report presenter’s chair is that she does not engage in the tie-on, tie-off, dichotomy for interviews.

 

A (HEWSON) DOCTORAL UPDATE

Alas, Q&A presenter Tony Jones did not take MWD’s advice when one-time Liberal Party leader – and contemporary Liberal Party critic – John Hewson appeared on the ABC1 program on Easter Thursday.  In Issue 5 (3 April), MWD proposed that Dr Dr Dr Hewson should be asked about the collapse of Elderslie Finance Company late last year – he was chairman of the company until shortly before it went belly up – before he is allowed to bang on yet again about the financial mistakes of others.

But neither the presenter nor any member of the panel or audience asked the Doctor about his own corporate performance as he crticised the commercial banks, the Reserve Bank and so on.  However, Jones took a web question from a chap in Canberra who suggested that the Liberal Party was in a shambles at the moment and asked whether Hewson “would consider re-entering politics and taking the Liberal leadership”.  Good one. Q&A increasingly resembles the one-time ABC comedy show Good News Week – more immature comedy than considered critique.

 

GUY RUNDLE’S ADVICE FROM LONDON TO THE LIBERALS

It invariably happens that when the Liberals are in opposition they receive advice from leftists about how they might improve their performance.  The most recent entrant into this field is former Arena editor Guy Rundle.  In one of his recent daily ravings from London in Crikey (9 April), Rundle proclaimed that “Petro Georgiou is the only Liberal figure who could give Rudd a run for his money”.

And now for some facts.  Petro Georgiou is 61 years old and has already announced that he will not be re-contesting his safe Liberal seat of Kooyong at the next election.  Georgiou has obtained his current guru status among leftists like Rundle because he has criticised Liberal Party policy without ever laying a glove on the Labor Party or the Greens.  The idea that the eccentric-looking Georgiou could defeat the very popular Kevin Rudd is mad. Or as Nancy would put it, barking mad.

In a recent opinion piece in the Sun-Herald  (18 January)  Kerry-Anne Walsh also sang the “Georgiou Halleluiah” and bemoaned the fact that Petro was “never given a front bench spot” when John Howard was prime minister. Interesting reflection.  Pity about the facts. In fact, Petro Georgiou was offered a parliamentary secretary position during the early years of the Howard Government – such positions invariably lead to ministerial appointments. In his wisdom, Georgiou rejected the offer.  This happened to suit Howard, who had been pressured into offering the promotion in the first place. Georgiou never received a better offer. In football parlance, it’s termed an own-goal.

 

NANCY’S PICK-OF-THE-WEEK – DEVENY’S BACK

Nancy is, as the saying goes, so excited that The Age’s inter-city snob Catherine Deveny – who loves to sneer at Age readers who live in the suburbs (see Issue 1) – is back in “The Guardian-On-The-Yarra with her regular Wednesday column.  WMD has been campaigning for this – since there is nothing like a leftist inner-city snob to provide content for WMD.

Already, Ms Deveny has provided value for (Age) money.  CD’s first two columns, following her return to the Age after a contract dispute, were real stunners and provide evidence as to how she adds (intellectual) value to her home-town broadsheet.

▪  8 April.  CD re-engages in her familiar rant about over-achieving parents who claim to have over-achieving children.  The punch line is as follows:  “If someone tells me that their kids ‘never had nits’, I think to myself ‘so that’s how they look when they lie’.  Then I say, ‘That’d be because nits only go to clean hair’.”  Powerful social commentary, don’t you think?

15 April.  CD re-engages in her familiar rant that “indoctrination of children into religion is child abuse” and that society has a “vested interest in controlling us through guilt and fear”.  She maintains that, during her Catholic childhood in the 1970s, on Good Friday “being happy and watching television were classified sins”.  CD does not say by whom or by what.  Still, why bother about facts when your column resembles a late-at-night spiel in an inner-city pub?

 

Q&A AS VERBAL PUB BRAWL

By the way, wasn’t Catherine Deveny a star on Q&A last night? Sure, she didn’t know much – beyond her own opinions, that is.  But CD did compete with former Liberal Party president John Elliott for the most garrulous panelist on Q&A – and that’s no mean achievement.  Come to think of it, the Deveny-Elliott exchange could have taken place in, say, a Brunswick or Moreland pub with Tony Jones as bemused hotel manager.

 

STREWTH

MWD has been constantly bagged by James Jeffrey in The Australian’s “Strewth!” column in recent weeks.  But at least J.J. is reading MWD. On Saturday 4 April Strewth! finally got around to mentioning that pompous barrister Geoffrey Robertson had blamed his plum-in-the-mouth accent on listening to the ABC as a youth.  Robertson’s interview, where he first made this claim, was cited in MWD on Friday 3 April.  If Strewth! had been on to this story first, J.J. could have given it a run on 31 March, April Fool’s Day, 2 April or 3 April. He didn’t – which suggests that Strewth! lifted the material from MWD. Still, as they say about flattery.

 

STOP PRESS

What a performance by Gideon Haigh on ABC News Breakfast  this morning.  In attempting to ridicule proponents of the view that Afghan asylum seekers are attempting to reach Australia by boat due to the Rudd government’s relaxed attitude to border control, your man Haigh attempted to mimic a conversation in which a man from Afghanistan – having read Kevin Rudd’s recent article in, yes, The Monthly – encourages his friend to seek asylum in Australia.  How about that?  By the way, Haigh is a regular contributor to The Monthly.

 

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Until next time then.