The alleged journalist.
Posted on 06/22/2005 12:39:57 PM PDT by TomB
You could almost hear the incredulous victory shouts from Pyrmont HQ blowing all the way south of the border through Melbourne's wintry streets. Somehow, Channel Ten had outmanoeuvred and, more crucially, outbid its heavyweight commercial rivals and nailed the story of the year: an exclusive interview with the man now commonly known as the Freed Iraq Hostage Douglas Wood.
The promos started rolling through Big Brother's live nominations on Monday night, which was unnervingly apt given we had all become bit players in this bloke's life, tuning in day after day to find out whether it was time for Douglas to go or not. And what form his eviction would actually take.
But the Big Brother network had won the day. They had waved the biggest chequebook and Sandra Sully would go head to head in a network exclusive with the Freed Iraq Hostage. On Sunday night. On Sunday night? Yes, that big ratings-pulling 6.30 timeslot on Sunday night on Ten, wedged between The Simpsons and, yes, Big Brother.
Surely big Sunday night stories are the exclusive domain of Channel Nine's 60 Minutes? Surely the TV news and current affairs featherweight network couldn't have coughed up more than Sixty? And what about the pulling power of Naomi and all those former Nine heavies running Seven these days? Why weren't they still at the table battering the featherweight into rightful oblivion?
Quite apart from the fact that everyone knows Ten doesn't have any money and it surely doesn't spend what it does have on news and current affairs exclusives. This was surely a first. And one to be welcomed gleefully by the chaps at Pyrmont who stitched up the deal. Surely?
Was it at the behest of our newest beer-drinking celebrity that Sandra won the day? Did she fit somewhere in the Freed Iraq Hostage's expatriate views of Australia, alongside the Geelong Football Club and Waltzing Matilda? Or was it more likely the hostage would receive kid-glove treatment from a charming woman, whom I count among my favourites when it comes to reading news but whose mettle is yet to be tested when it comes to asking the tough questions?
Was it just another crass commercial call of chequebook journalism with the spoils to the highest bidder? But surely this was the well-worn turf of Seven and Nine. Not Ten.
Or was it simply that the story was dead in the water the minute the hostage revealed himself to have none of the grace or dignity dished out to his brothers and looked like a blustering buffoon at his airport news conference when responding with a "definite maybe" to the question of going back to Iraq. And the savvy heads at Seven and Nine knew it as soon as they heard the news grab.
It was enough that his words "God bless America" had been played over and over on his release, but the 20 years Douglas Wood has spent as an expat Australian in America were played out in all their cringe-worthy ingloriousness when he decided to meet our media singing a song about a sheep thief who would rather die than be caught for his crimes . . . oh dear!
I guess we all have these loveable larrikins in our families, but I wonder how many of us feel that good about the way he is being feted as a national hero in a war, it must be said, that so many of us still feel extremely uncomfortable about and even the Americans are trying to find a gracious way to get out of.
Sure, the story kept its pace thanks to the media, but it was absolutely, and categorically, power-driven from the front seat by John Howard and Alexander Downer. That made it different from the get-go. It became a national priority to "get our man home".
I can't say for sure, of course, but I fancy I was not alone when I slunk away from the telly muttering unkind things under my breath about the hostage and his "business opportunities" in Iraq. And I bear him no ill will. Nor his loved ones, for they have surely suffered and I am delighted they have their man. But have we got ours?
And so I'm back to the chequebooks and Channel Ten. Winners or losers? Like 'em or loathe 'em, chequebooks have become an integral part of commercial media, but perhaps what we are seeing is the first example of a discerning call by the veterans of the game. Have they let the story of the year slip from their grasp, or have they sniffed the breeze and decided that by Sunday we won't care?
Looking on, it seems some very graceful forward pikes have been executed by those seasoned gents at Seven and Nine, while it's hard to make much of all the splashing about the floaties over at Ten.
Tracee Hutchison has worked as a journalist at channels Seven and Nine, the ABC and SBS. She now presents a Tuesday morning program on 3RRR.
The alleged journalist.
This is a little hard to follow. Is she saying that Wood is an undesirable person to interview because he's too pro-American, and maybe too much of a believer in progress in Iraq?
She sounds to me like the typical leftist b#$%$ pretending to be a journalist. You know, sorta like Maureen Dowdy.
I agree that they are entitled to their opinions. I just don't think they should be so nasty about it. And what I got from the article was she thought the hostage didn't deserve any of the publicity he was getting because he was obviously pro American and also believed the war in Iraq was the right thing.
I think I read the same thing in the article that you did. But because of cross-cultural confusion I realize I could be wrong, so I'm willing to withhold my ire.
I feel no anger toward her. At my age I try to not get upset over trivalities. I just think that opinion pieces should at least be civil. Mark Steyn can be very cutting but very seldom is he ever nasty.
She hates him because he is a "hick", a capitalist, pro-American, and anti-terrorist.
Words fail me...
What is it with these leftists? Where do they find so much venom inside themselves?
Well I didn't really get the part about her "hate." I didn't detect the hate. But I do find her opinion to be mean and humorless.
Australia and America may have many cultural differences, but the girls who spell their somewhat name in a cute "different" manner isnt one of them.
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