Like any disaster covered by television news networks, the Queensland floods bring together stories of drama and heartbreak and courage and strange twists of fate. For journalists, there’s not much to do, other than show what is happening and get out of the way.
But that’s not enough for our networks. After all, the story isn’t really about the floods. The story is about Kochie at the floods or Mel at the floods. The awful events are merely a backdrop for the stars, as they roll up their Country Road chinos and stand in the sludge for 10-minutes for their piece to camera before jumping in the helicopter back to Palm Beach.
The showbiz element of commercial television might be acceptable if these professional poseurs had some worthwhile observations to make. But as always, nearly everything that comes out of their mouths is a either a pious platitude, a statement of the bleeding obvious or a banal and condescending paen to all things Aussie Aussie Aussie.
Journalism used to be about the story, not about the journalist. Instead, as has become depressingly obvious, these momentous news stories are merely another branding exercise. Are you are watching the floods on Seven or Nine or ABC24? And just to prove that our coverage is the best, we’ll put together a heart-rending little tele-movie promo, with slow-mo footage, an echoing narration, a pleading piano soundtrack and stick our logo all over the top of it.
Surely, it can’t be long till they hire Kennedy Miller, or the modern equivalent, to begin pre-production on ‘Deluge’, a three-part mini-series with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. Oh, Australia.
See Also: ‘Addicted to Disaster P*rn’ – Michael Mullins (Eureka Street)
6 Comments
Anonymous · January 15, 2011 at 3:03 AM
i've been watching on abc and they seem to have done a pretty good job but i was silly enough to watch ch9 the other night and it was appalling.it was all about the next bit of expected disaster that may or may not happen.”the flood waters are receding but they are a toxic sludge”etc.you could imagine them rubbing their hands in excitement off camera.i soon switched back to good old aunty.
blaxone · January 15, 2011 at 9:43 PM
Channels 7, 9 and 10 provide cringe TV. They and the newsreaders think it's about them. Hello, hello, Plant Earth – it's about the story!
NormanK · January 16, 2011 at 12:21 PM
Happy New Year Mr D. Just a quick note to say how much I enjoyed The Failed Estate in 2010 and am looking forward to following you through 2011.
On the subject of the floods, I saw somewhere that the rubber-neckers taking photos of the devastation were accused by a passerby of collecting “flood porn”. That's pretty much what the networks are doing only they fly a star in to give it a bit of class.
Pip · January 16, 2011 at 2:38 PM
I'd like to second what NormanK said. A very happy New Year to Mr. D. and I am also looking forward to following you through 2011. I'm guessing that it won't be dull!
Mr D · January 16, 2011 at 7:56 PM
A happy new year to all too. I meant to add, by the way, that the best spot news “coverage” of the floods has been had by merely tracking the Queensland Police Service media unit on twitter.
Chalk another one up to disintermediation.
Anonymous · January 24, 2011 at 11:37 AM
This blog is great! The ABC24 tearjerky flood promos were utterly cringeworthy.