Humble servant of the Nation

TV news ain’t news.

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Many years ago, an acquaintance of mine opined that the reality program, Survivor, was the best television show ever made. I didn’t share her excitement and replied, “I saw a man walk on the moon on television. I thought that was pretty good.”

Needless to say we are no longer on speaking terms but it’s reasonable to conclude that what occurred on Sentosa Island Singapore yesterday lies somewhere between the two.

While my memory of Neil Armstrong placing his right foot on the Sea of Tranquillity may be a little hazy, I distinctly recall the coverage of what remains the most outstanding event in human history, was not appended by almost endless commentary and addle-headed speculation from journos and other so-called experts.

The reporting of momentous events has changed considerably, and I think for the worse.

Yesterday I spent the day watching the coverage of the summit on Sky News and a range of US cable news channels on my iPad while ABC 24 was on the television in the background. The ABC’s dedicated news channel was hard pressed. During the many long moments of waiting for anything of any significance to occur, news presenters various sought comment from reporters on the ground in Sydney, Singapore or Seoul.

The fact is the reporters knew almost as little about what was happening than I did. They were forced to stretch as they say in the biz, waffling on about what may or may not be happening and how an outcome they could not possibly know might affect the world in the short and long terms.

It was filler, plain and simple. Most of it worthless commentary or pointless speculation.

The US and North Korean delegations were behind closed doors. The photo-op of President Trump and Chairman Kim shaking hands for the first time had come and gone. Cameras rolled revealing a closed door where Trump and Kim would emerge eventually. They were late as the subjects of press conferences or photo ops often are, leading to even more panicked cutaways to more reporters adding their eight cents’ worth.

For once I would like to see a reporter under questioning from a news presenter offer the succinct three-word reply, “I don’t know.” It might not make for great television but at least it would be honest. The reporters did not know. Not one reporter, commentator or talking head present in Singapore or indeed anywhere else in the world, did. They did not know what had been agreed to by the two delegations or indeed if anything had been.

Even after the two leaders had signed a memorandum of understanding, no one was quite sure what they had signed up to. On ABC 24, the questions put to reporters were of the tedious “Is it good that Trump and Kim have met?” variety. The answers from the reporters on the ground invariably were yes with a but or no with an if, often played over the top of a lot of file footage of missiles being launched, possibly from North Korea but they could have been from anywhere.

Is it good that Trump and Kim have met? Unequivocally yes. The fact that the two nations were on the verge of a nuclear exchange just three months ago and now the two leaders were shaking hands and generally glad handing each other is very good news. It takes the temperature out of arguably the world’s most dangerous hot spot at least in the short term. Beyond that, who knows?

See, I could have answered that question and many others like it promptly and I was four and a half thousand kilometres away at the time.

When something unusual did happen, it was overlooked. After Trump and Kim did finally emerge for the signing ceremony photo-op, a North Korean guard wearing rubber gloves stepped forward to examine Chairman Kim’s pen, presumably to determine if it was some lethal CIA gimmickry, some ghastly tool of assassination. Satisfied it was merely a harmless writing implement, he placed it back on the table and Kim commenced scribbling his ornate autograph.

This was barely discernible on ABC 24 where the camera operator had opted for tight shots on the two leaders but elsewhere it was more obvious. It raised the question, were the North Koreans so paranoid they thought their supreme leader could be knocked off by a poison pen while the rest of the world looked on?

Call me old fashioned but I pine for the days when a network would cut from regular programming to a major news event and then once reported, the scheduled program would resume. I noticed SBS did this yesterday. They ran some old repeats of Nigella Lawson whipping up some scrumptious offerings in the kitchen and interrupted only when something important was happening in Singapore.

But ABC 24 can’t do this. During quiet moments the channel can and does revert to other news which essentially is news that is four hours old or older and therefore not news. The same could be said for scheduled bulletins elsewhere on the ABC like the corporation’s flagship 7.00pm bulletin.

If you spent the afternoon watching ABC 24 as I did yesterday (albeit with a bit of bored flipping to a bit of Nigella on SBS) by the time the seven o’clock bulletin came on, you’d have already seen everything, even some of the lightweight magazine guff that runs between the sport and weather that we in the news caper like to refer to as “cat that does the ironing” segments.

Do yourself a favour and examine the lag between television reporting of an event and what appears through trusted news sites on the web like this one. You’ll find what comes up on the web is at least an hour faster. Worse, once that news is reported on television, it will be reheated and rehashed, almost always without revision sometimes for a day or more.

While the debate rages over the diplomatic and geopolitical consequences of the summit, one question was answered: television news is often not news at all.

555 Comments

  • voltaire says:

    Horrible way for socceroos to lose – albeit we did not quite deserve a draw…

    Even in replay it looked like a Fallon d’Or (!!) or dive as JB would recognise for that first penalty….not to mention Risdon apparently making contact with the ball first…

    Marwik dramatically altered the defensive structure – and did so outstandingly as the players understood their roles and maintained the structure.
    By contrast, I thought the French tactics were incompetent against us: going wide and trying to cross while their advantage in skill lay in taking players on down the centre or at an angle and trying to go one-on-one where we would have been exposed in all likelihood.
    Unfortunately the operation was successful from an Oz perspective but the patient died!

    Australia needs a classy forward (or 2): we could have used a couple of frogs who did not make their squad: Benzema & Ribbery spring to mind. Mooy was good in midfield and is the brains of the team; but Rogic went missing.

    If we see a better game than Spain v Portugal this WC I shall be elated….not for the quantity of goals but for the quality of play.
    Hope Messi can come back from the Iceland draw….the other TOP games for group stages potentially France v Denmark and Belgium v England.

    As usual, World Cups produce more heart attacks than other times…particularly among men (or maybe it is just that men are distracted and fail to notice the dose of poison… 🙂 ?

    cheers (yes the 91 Jac Ridge was good, 2005 PV riesling nice, 98 389 VERY powerful, 2006 Cathcart cab slightly TCA-affected…)

    • Jean Baptiste says:

      Nah, the contact with the ball was accidental, that was a blatant trip. Enough whinging, it wasn’t even close, the French doubled the Australian score. Cricket, rugger and soccer, all lost in the same evening. Tragic trifecta.
      Australian men are becoming ever more effeminate and I think the rise of soccer has something to do with that.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLn-X8YJRg

      Girly men, not that there is anything wrong with that. I see my suggestion to make the game more interesting by dressing the players in little ballerina tutus and tiaras has been ignored by the Federation.

      • Carl on the Coast says:

        “effeminate,” “Girly men” ?? …… Could be the methane from the pingos JB.

        • Jean Baptiste says:

          It could be Carl. I haven’t noticed anything, but then I don’t watch soccer either. How about you, have you been feeling effeminate lately?

          Would our Aussie boys look more stunning in yellow lycra tops and tights with a green tutu or the reverse?

      • JackSprat says:

        Emotionally fragile JB
        They can take a ball in the box that brings tares to their eyes and then get on with it
        Crying on TV because they lost seems to be the norm.

        3- degree temperatures just below the Arctic circle must be doing heaps for the Tundra methane production.

        • JackSprat says:

          Should be 30 degrees

          • Jean Baptiste says:

            Don’t worry. God has a plan! He will save us. Well, the Christians anyway.
            And that’s me!

            https://www.livescience.com/61864-arctic-temperatures-record-high.html

            • Carl on the Coast says:

              I skimmed Mindy’s ‘Livescience’ report link you put up JB and noted it opened with the breathtaking comments about a couple of recent short incidences of warmer air intrusions in the “bone-chilling” Arctic. The two events, though hardly noteworthy in themselves, were reported to be “highly uncommon”. The report then followed with the mandatory pretty pics plus narrative, obviously attempting to frighten the horses (or asses as the case may be) because it somehow concluded with the advice that the two aforementioned “uncommon” incidences had somehow suddenly morphed into events “more common and more intense”.
              As you know JB, I’m not usually a sceptical chap re such issues, but I must say on this occasion that I reckon Mindy seems to be having two bob each way me old mate.

      • Bella says:

        Good suggestion Jean, at least that’d make it watchable.. Meh…

        • Jean Baptiste says:

          Yairs Bells, and they would look even better with the application of some cosmetics.
          Oh, hang on, they do!

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Federal Liberal Party members vote to privatise ABC and move Australia’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, Mr Insider, in what is being touted as the “rise of the Conservatives”. None of the motions at the federal council is binding, meaning they are unlikely to have any impact on the Government’s policies, but they provide an insight into the internal machinations of the party. Poor ex-ousted PM Tony Abbott must feel like a bride left at the Altar, possibly a man before his time!
    https://tinyurl.com/y7qv68od

    • Dwight says:

      Two extremely worthy ideas; which of course means the federal caucus will ignore them.

    • John O'Hagan says:

      I believe, Henry, that these motions are an example of what is referred to by these same Conservatives as “virtue signalling” – when done by anyone other than themselves!

      If the so-called base of the Liberal party continues to drift Rightward off the rails, while simultaneously seizing greater control of the party, it won’t play well with mainstream voters.

  • Tracy says:

    Aussies not disgraced, the frogs got lucky with the second goal

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Latest TAB Betting Market on the World Cup Soccer, Mr Insider. Let’s keep an eye on Vlad’s Russia to see if there is a “move” in the Market. Australia at AJAX odds.
    https://tinyurl.com/ycj48qxe

  • Jean Baptiste says:

    In medical jargon, the human race is circling the plughole. Play hard, party hard, or regret not doing it.

    https://thinkprogress.org/methane-bubbles-arctic-769bf3f1b099/

  • Carl on the Coast says:

    Yes, getting Labor and the Greens to squawk is easy as ABC.
    https://twitter.com/search/ABC+to+be+sold

  • Milton says:

    Jeez i’m a loser giving Carlton another chance.

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