Tag Archive for: Reporting

Media storm of the month August 2011 – Channel 9 Choppergate

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When a media outlet is caught up in a scandal, rather than busy exposing one, the results are often nasty and always very public.

The News of the World scandal shone the light on the worst of the U.K tabloids and their non-existent relationship with ethics – and the scalps followed.

Now here we are with the cringe worthy media storm of the month for August: Channel NINE Brisbane’s faked chopper crosses.

Sure, the deceit might be less extreme than the phone tapping saga, but the recriminations have been just as severe.

Since the fakery was exposed two NINE journalists (Melissa Mallet, Cameron Price) and a producer have been given their marching orders and seasoned news director Lee Anderson has resigned in protest over the sackings.

So what exactly went down? It goes a little something like this:

It was a wet and windy night in Brisbane on Sunday August 2 and the NINE news chopper was grounded on the network’s helipad by air traffic control.

The search for the body of Daniel Morcombe was big news in Queensland and the obvious lead story of the day. In TV newsland this kind of news necessitates a live cross, as throwing to a reporter who is “on the scene” lends an added layer of credibility to the report.

With this in mind it’s easy to see, with the 6pm deadline looming, how the fudged cross could have happened.

Viewers were none the wiser that Cameron Price was in fact sitting in the grounded chopper at Mt Coot-tha, despite apparently hovering somewhere “near Beerwah”.

The next day the secret was revealed. Seven News footage showed the NINE chopper on the helipad at the time of the cross and the network was forced into the usual motions: apologies were issued, investigations were launched.

But the real kicker came the following day, Tuesday August 23, when it was revealed that NINE had also faked another live cross just a day earlier.

On Saturday August 20 the NINE news anchor threw to Journalist Melissa Mallet apparently again “Near Beerwah” for an update on the Daniel Morcombe Story.

Unfortunately for NINE Airservices Australia flight tracker data showed the helicopter again nowhere near Beerwah at the time of the cross.

The chopper orbited NINE HQ at Mt Coot-tha for about ten minutes, then hovered above nearby Chapel Hill before landing again.

Commentators mourned the death of honest journalism, NINE was blasted from all sides and the embarrassed network was forced to fire some of those involved as damage control.

So what have we learned?

It’s obvious the journalists involved may have had no choice in the faked crosses and it’s sad to see promising careers ruined by some very poor judgment somewhere in the chain of command at NINE.

In the increasingly cutthroat, budget driven media landscape it’s not surprising that fakeries of this kind occur. Expect to see more as newsroom budgets in Australia continue to contract.

But despite all this, the biggest lesson for NINE must be that duping its audience for the sake of cheap showmanship is never, ever a good idea.

The level of public backlash to the faked crosses is proof positive that in 2011 people still value, and expect, truth and accuracy in news – a fact all media outlets would do well to heed.

Image Source:  www.couriermail.com.au

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Media Storm of the Month – March 2011

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This is a new regular blog-slot where we look at a news story that has taken off in that month.

March has been awash with controversy and genuine news, from the aftermath of the Christchurch quake to the even more tragic Japanese earthquake and its resulting tsunami, rising death toll and imminent nuclear meltdown. Not to mention the  scandal in the AFL with player manager Ricky Nixon and allegations of misconduct with a 17 year old girl, to Charlie Sheen’s outrageous public outbursts and increasingly weird behaviour to the prospect of war with Libya and more floods in Queensland and New South Wales.

The story we’re going to touch on as a Media storm of the Month though is the story about the YouTube video of the Year 10 Sydney student being bullied by a Year 7 boy. The story broke around the time of the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence. A video was posted online of a much smaller boy punching another boy in the face and body; after several rounds the larger child suddenly retaliates, lifting the smaller boy off the ground and smashing him into the ground and leaving him to stagger off.

Daily Mail grab: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368886/Bully-bodyslammed-Casey-Punisher-says-s-sorry-blames-victim.html

Something that should have been sorted out by the school, the boy’s parents and the boys themselves has, thanks to the huge popularity and growth in social media and online networking sites, grown out of all proportion.

There was media outrage at the video and the attack and we now know that the larger Year 10 boy is 15 year old Casey Heynes, who has been bullied most of his school life and considered committing suicide last year, and the bully is 12 year old Ritchard Gale.

Both boys are now part of a media circus with interviews on major TV networks and coverage in all the main newspapers.

It has aired some interesting points and, it can’t be denied, was ‘good timing’ for a national bulling campaign. It has sparked a debate about bullying and violence in schools making other children affected not feel alone. Anti-bullying and children’s help charities such as Headspace, BeyondBlue and Kids helpline have all been able to jump on the bandwagon getting out their messages and contact details for all the other children who might be in need.

But the talk is also about what is it right to do to stand up for yourself? Casey had obviously been provoked and bullied for a long time, but was it right for him to retaliate with such force?

And how about the boy who filmed the whole incident on his mobile phone, shouldn’t he have been reprimanded as well? Should mobile phones be banned from schools all together? What can we do about this apparent rise in ‘cyber’ bullying?

But also, do children need to be protected from the media and journalists? In their desperate quest for ‘exclusives’ and ‘scoops’ the television news shows particularly escalated the issue and have effectively given credence to a schoolboy disagreement by asking ridiculous questions and adding weight to immature thoughts and feelings. Channel 9 even apparently showed Channel 7 interview coverage and claimed it as its own. A story about a schoolboy fight provoking a media battle, what is the media world coming to?

Navigating the murky waters of professional PR measurement

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In 2010, we’re utterly obsessed with measurement. This obsession hasn’t been a quantum shift, a grand epiphany, or a light bulb moment, it’s been a slow build, a snowball culminating with the global financial crisis.

Today business owners must be able to produce proof at a moment’s notice to substantiate any spend.

Gone are the ‘good’ old days when a crisp suit, lunch on the agency and the whisper of expensive cologne were enough to reassure clients of campaign success (think Madmen).

Today, we’re pay-per-click, we’re analytics, we’re tangible results, we’re figures, reports and metrics, except of course when it comes to professional public relations. The reason for this is a fundamental lack of any uniform measurement platform for PR and marketing agencies in Australia to use, by which all can be judged.

The fact that such a system remains nonexistent in 2010 almost beggars belief.

The elephant in the room is highlighted all the more by PR agencies who flout this lack of regulation by presenting clients with reports boasting hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars worth of positive PR. These often ludicrous figures are reached by a not-so-clever multiplication of AVE figures.

AVE, meaning Advertising Value Equivalent is the closest thing PR and marketing agencies have to adequate measurement tools. AVE is calculated by PR professionals literally sitting down with media clippings, a ruler and a calculator and determining the size of any given media clipping. Based on the size we are able to establish what the equivalent advertising price for the space would be.

But here’s where it gets messy. Some agencies will then add a multiplier to the total value, on the assumption that editorial is more credible than advertising. Many agencies consider 3 times AVE to be acceptable, however some use 5 times AVE or, heaven forbid, even more.

It may be partly due to these measurement disparities that the Public Relations Institute of Australia actually discourages the use of AVE figures and also states in its code of ethics:

‘Members shall refrain from proposing or agreeing that their consultancy fees or other remuneration be contingent entirely on the achievement of specified results’.

However, like it or not, clients are increasingly asking for these figures and agencies which refuse to produce them may be seen as disreputable.

Recently the director of a large Sydney agency told us she was now being asked for AVE figures by clients for the first time, even though the practice has been commonplace in Queensland (at least for our agency) for many years.

So here’s the punch: When two different agencies can deliver the same level of media coverage, but value this coverage wildly differently, how can clients adequately compare ‘apples with apples’ when it comes to PR?

The establishment of a viable evaluation platform for professional public relations and marketing, which is accepted by a majority of service providers and backed by the PRIA, is one of the most vital steps in the maturation of the industry in Australia.

Agencies who consistently deliver strong results for their clients will welcome this new age of measurement and transparency.