Cracker: Fear Factor
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"we were vultures, picking over their dead moko's body."
But that was true. The fact that the truth comes from a bunch of ratbags does not stop it from being true.
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I find it hard to judge the audience for such stories. That the PA readers support my decision doesn't surprise me (but I'm still very, very appreciative of that support and the comments above), but what about the 'mums and dads' that most such shows are aimed at - do they want to watch grieving families?
I was just talking to mum on the phone, who I often use as a yardstick in these sorts of things, middle-income, middle-class, mid 50s and so forth. I told her about what I had to do on Monday and she said "I don't think people want to watch that sort of thing, it makes me feel uncomfortable watching people grieving like that". I honestly have no idea how widely shared her view is, and despite the new enlightened multi-media era we live in, I don't see great signs of progression. In fact things look more and more like that great Australian satire Frontline.
Speaking of which, Johnno, your case studies remind me of a great episode of Frontline, where a reporter secretly films a grieving husband saying "we just want to be left alone to grieve in private". The footage is played the first night, then the soundbite is used again the following night, over top of shots of the family at the funeral. The track ends and returns to [host] Mike Moore, who adds: "And let's just hope people grant them that wish."
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Well done.
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Props, Damian.
It is a horrible. And I think people would like better.
Jonno, there are cases and cases. But no matter the guilt of the subjects, what you were doing was intrusive and should not have been televised.
It's true, though, there are still plenty of "Mike Smith's" left, and "if it bleeds it leads."
I once had an extensive argument with a journo for refusing to shoot scenes of a car smash. I did get some wide shots and general footage, but following the business of taking an injured person from the car just felt wrong.
That journo is now fairly high-up in tvnz news and current affairs.... -
That journo is now fairly high-up in tvnz news and current affairs....
I'd be interested to know who that is Rob - if you feel inclined to share just quietly, my email address is on the right. Are you a shooter still?
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Would my actions at the case studies above have been less reprehensible if I worked for a newspaper, or radio? In other words, is it the physical presence of the me with the camera and tripod that is intrusive, or how it is shot? I would have thought it would be a sad day when the death of a young child is not worth covering.
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I think the intrusion lies in pressing the people closest to a tragedy for reaction.
If they come to you, cool. If you show someone sobbing in the distance, well fair enough. The famous "how do you feel?" Not so much.
What's the audience's interest in that footage, other than prurience?
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I would have thought it would be a sad day when the death of a young child is not worth covering.
Sure, but no one's saying it's not worth covering. The question is how it's covered.
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I'm with your Mum on that, Damian - she sounds like a woman of sense and sensibility.
I go further and refuse to buy magazines which have truck with paparazzi. The likes of No Idea etc have in recent years turned from carcase-picking scavengers into predatory attack beasts - going after celebs with cellulite, celebs on a bad hair day, celebs looking old or fat or in private moments that should stay private. This is nothing short of sick, and my dollar will not go towards supporting it.
Another trend is for news outlets to pick goodies and baddies among prominent people, and hound the ones they have predetermined to be villains.
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I've had a little experience of this firsthand. I don't know how many of you remember,but about 5 years ago, a little girl was killed, and her father seriously injured, by a young Chinese man driving off SH 1 at Rangiriri into the petrol station there. Her name was Georgia, and I was her teacher. All of us were grief stricken when she died, and one night, not long after she had died, a TVOne reporter stood outside the kindergarten fence with his camera man. There were families coming to pick up their children and so I went out to see what he wanted and he asked if he could film inside the kindergarten playground. I told him no, and he said to me "If you don't let us in, we'll just film through the fence anyway". I went inside to ring my big bosses, who gave him permission and in they came. I told them to wait until all the children were gone and then, I stayed inside. I was absolutely gutted at his attitude, and found the whole thing really, really distressing. So props to you, Damian. Really.
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I'm with you on the death knocks Damian. They are quite simply the worst thing I've ever had to do as a journalist and I simply dread them. Unfortunately there are times when they do have a certain necessity.
In my previous incarnation as a general news reporter I've covered a few murder cases and I've always been of the opinion that victims deserve to be remembered as more than just a statistic. To their families they were an important and vibrant part of their lives and it seems tawdry that their name be permanently associated with the manner of the death. If you can leave people with some sort of feel for who that person was and what they meant to friends and family then I think it is worthwhile to try.
Those who take the "so how do you feel?" approach should be taken out and quietly drowned.
On the plus side I'm in politics now so death knocks are not something I have to worry about anymore. I'm truly grateful for that.
Now for the point raised about use of footage. How much should people see? Well having seen some frankly awful things in my time I'd suggest there are a number of things that should never be aired. A good cameraman will always find a to convey the emotion of an incident without having to resort to gore.
A point to bear in mind, especially in breaking news involving industrial or car accidents, is the relatives of the victims will likely not know it is their loved one involved. There's always the chance the footage you broadcast could be the moment they learn what's happened. That dictates there should be some sensitivity in how you portray the event.
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There are a couple of points I would like to make very quietly.
Journalism is full of of moral, ethical and professional decisions on a day to day basis.
Most of the time there is a story to be told and you tell it. For those who do not care too much about consequences of effects upon others (or at times what is true) this is easy, for those who worry it is not.
I can understand your distaste of the death watch stuff, as I have always been uncomfortable with it myself (and also not very good at it). But I might have some more respect for your stand if you took it while in the job, instead of after you quit it.
It is your personal stand and good on you, but what goaded me for the first time to enter this blog world was the raising of the tsunamai disaster to draw a line in your argument about what should be told, shown or asked and what should not be reported.
I covered Banda. The death and destruction was horrible. I hope I never see anything like it again, but for me it wasn't the bodies being poured into mass graves and floating in the puddles that told the story. It wasn't the smell or the shattered buildings, though the children's ward at the hospital where every kid died was horrible.
It was talking to the live people about their survival and what they had lost that really made me choke. I still have one memory of a story that brings tears to my eyes every time I remember it.
Was I being intrusive? maybe. Should the stories have been told? yes, I am in no doubt.
I guess that you are talking about your bad experience in hounding someone in their personal tragedy and I can understand that. But to take the leap to the next step that grief, pain and suffering should not be reported is a step too far for me.
``I don't think people want to watch that sort of thing, it makes me feel uncomfortable watching people grieving like that''.
Sorry, but life is uncomfortable sometimes.
(Forgive me for the sermon, I hate death knock journalism as well but you hit a nerve with me. I shall now withdraw from the blog world)
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Ian and Felix you both make very good points and I appreciate having the benefit of your considerable experience here.
If you re-read my original blog, you'll note that I didn't say there should never be such stories, or even that I think they are wrong. I simply said I'm not the person to do them (because, as Ian points out, I care about the consequences), and I won't do them again.
Of course the stories of the Tsunami should be told. Yes, if a father of two boys killed in a rock slide wants to pay tribute to his sons, he should be welcome - whether the media want to broadcast it, and people choose to watch it, is a different matter.
But if a grieving father doesn't want to talk, and we either decide ourselves, or are told by our editors, our EPs, our bosses, to keep calling, to turn up on their doorstep even when they've repeatedly said no -and I know this routinely happens- then that is wrong. Would you have done that in Banda?
Life is uncomfortable sometimes, but to my mind those who have already been landed with the lion's share of that discomfort should be spared further hurt at the hands of the media.
(And for the record, I did make such protests, and at least one of my EPs will recall me objecting loudly and strenuously after being asked to do what I considered a completely gratuitous death-knock. But at the same time I accept that it's part of the job of a daily current affairs reporter, and I should either do it (after objecting strenuously and loudly), or leave.)
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I shall now withdraw from the blog world
Stick around Ian, have a good look. You might find you enjoy it.
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Stick around Ian, have a good look. You might find you enjoy it.
Heh - yeah, jump on in Ian (and then Andrew or I won't be mistaken for you anymore :).
I thought this thread would have caught your attention.
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I was going to say the same thing as Damian, but then I figured it wasn't my place to say so.
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Thanks for that Damian. Looking back at my post it looks more critical of you personally that I intended it to be. (one of the dangers of getting on one's high horse in the early hours of the morning)
It is just the blog world's assumption that all ``msm'' (love that term) are mindlessly gratutious that gets on my nerves. Though I suppose a profession that does tend to reinforce stereotypes tends to get what it deserves. Live by the sword and all that.
The debate about death knock journalism is one that we have all the time, but I suppose it is much more heated in TV. Done well and ethically it can be the most effective journalism -- at which I have been abjectly useless. Done badly it is cruel, cheap and intrusive.
Anyway good luck as for sticking around hmm... the tired cynical old hack in me would question the pay rate
cheers -
Ian, the blog world is full of cliche and bad writing, stereotypes and distortions. But studded here and there are good people writing with insight, passion and verve.
Much like the msm ;-) -
Richard and Andrew... I would be proud to be mistaken for you and Andrew since when did anyone in our family refrain from saying things because it wasn't our place to do so *smiles*
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It is just the blog world's assumption that all "msm'' (love that term) are mindlessly gratutious that gets on my nerves.
Yes, and I've jumped in to defend us (the MSM) here at PublicAddress System from time to time too. It annoys me when any conversation about the media inevitably turns to "everything on TV is shit and I burnt my TV and I hate TVNZ and everything it stands for and I could do a lot better than those morons and why don't they bring back Buffy?"
Bashing TVNZ is a national sport, and in the blogosphere bashing the MSM is just as popular. But as you also note, we can be our own worst enemy.
As an aside, I recently accompanied my girlfriend to a wedding in Wanganui. After too many hours and too many Tuis, I was bailed up by a well-meaning but quite full on chap.
"You know what you guys really need to look into?"
"No, what's that?"
"Graham Henry, find out why we really lost the World Cup."
Oh ok. Then a minute later, the same guy.
"You know what you guys really need to do more of?"
"No, what's that?"
"The Prime Minister, and that other guy, Keys [sic]... get some stories on those guys."
Oh ok. A minute later..
"You know what you guys really need to do?"
"No, what's that?"
"Tell people stuff that's happening."
And that's why I've really left TVNZ. Thanks to him I've got three ideas that are going to see me carry off an unprecedented clean sweep of the Qantas awards by a freelancer.
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Ian, the blog world is full of cliche and bad writing, stereotypes and distortions. But studded here and there are good people writing with insight, passion and verve.
Much like the msm ;-)Is it time for Stephen Johnson's five things about blogs that no one needs to say again?
1. Mainstream, top-down, professional journalism will continue to play a vital role in covering news events, and in shaping our interpretation of those events, as it should.
2. Bloggers will grow increasingly adept at covering certain kinds of news events, but not all. They will play an increasingly important role in the interpretation of all kinds of news.3. The majority of bloggers won't be concerned with traditional news at all.
4. Professional, edited journalism will have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than blogging; examples of sloppy, offensive, factually incorrect, or tedious writing will be abundant in the blogosphere. But diamonds in that rough will be abundant as well.
5. Blogs -- like all modes of contemporary media -- are not historically unique; they draw upon and resemble a number of past traditions and forms, depending on their focus.
'Bout nails it.
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Thanks to him I've got three ideas that are going to see me carry off an unprecedented clean sweep of the Qantas awards by a freelancer.
Except you just gave all those ideas to NZPA...
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And that's why I've really left TVNZ. Thanks to him I've got three ideas that are going to see me carry off an unprecedented clean sweep of the Qantas awards by a freelancer.
It'll never work. You're obviously the straight guy, he's the funny man. You'll never get him back for a repeat performance for the media, and a straight guy with no funny man...
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heh heh ... you're not alone Damian. Chez Pazienza has also decided he can't do it anymore, although that decision was surely helped by CNN firing him after they discovered he blogged on Huffington Post. A few teasers from his blog:
During my last couple of years as a television news producer, I watched ... the media in general do anything within reason to scare the hell out of the American public -- to convince people that they were about to be infected by the bird flu, poisoned by the food supply, or eaten by sharks. I marveled at our elevation of the death of Anna Nicole Smith to near-mythic status and our willingness to let the airwaves be taken hostage by every permutation of opportunistic degenerate from a crying judge to a Hollywood hanger-on with an emo haircut. I watched qualified, passionate people worked nearly to death while mindless talking heads were coddled. I listened to Lou Dobbs play the loud-mouthed fascist demagogue, Nancy Grace fake ratings-baiting indignation, and Glenn Beck essentially do nightly stand-up -- and that's not even taking into account the 24/7 Vaudeville act over at Fox News. I watched The Daily Show laugh not at our mistakes but at our intentional absurdity.
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And then she reminded me that in the past year-and-a-half, nearly 20 mid to high-level people have left American Morning; many of them quit with no other job to go to -- they just wanted out of the business. That speaks goddamned volumes, not simply about the show but about the state of the entire profession.
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I asked for the "official grounds" for my dismissal, figuring the information might be important later. At first they repeated the line about not writing anything outside of CNN without permission, but HR then made a surprising comment: "It's also, you know, the nature of what you've been writing."And right there I knew that CNN's concern wasn't so much that I had been writing as what I'd been writing.
Did this guy steal your future, or is he just living in a parallel universe? (He also did a stint in College Radio). Consider yourself lucky Damain, Chez ended up with a tumour.
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