I’ve just discovered this UK comedy show on You Tube. Haven’t stopped laughing since. It’s called Mock The Week. Can we have this on NZ TV please! Here’s a brief sample:

Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. It wasn’t Goff. And it wasn’t Key. It was you and me – the voting public. We were conned by Television New Zealand into thinking that for an hour-and-a -half last night the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition would debate the serious issues that confront this country, the channel’s Political Editor, Guyon Espiner, would keep order and, by the end of the 90 minutes, we would all be better informed.

We should have learned from history not to trust that promise. Television New Zealand has never treated the Leaders’ Debates as anything more than an entertainment. Its remit to sell audiences to advertisers, its suspicion that viewers are fundamentally uninterested in politics, its conviction that the attention span of the average television consumer is seven minutes tops and its paranoia about doing anything that might bore that viewer into switching channels, all contribute  to the entertainment ethos that drives the Leaders’ Debates.

‘Debates’ is of course a misnomer. A real debate requires an extensive exchange of views between the parties. Three or four minutes on a topic, some part of that time spent in an undecipherable cacophony of moderator and leaders talking at once, cannot be called a debate. But that is precisely what TVNZ wants and the programme is structured to ensure that result.  Read the rest of this entry »

Pip Keane, Producer of Campbell Live, writes:

I produce Campbell Live and I would argue,  Brian, that we were being honest. Yesterday was a huge day for Christchurch and after the good work we have done there for the past two weeks (I would argue a combination of our caravan of complaint, compelling stories consistently night after night and John’s interviews over the past fortnight put some pressure on the Government to bring yesterday’s zoning decision forward.)

On a day that meant so much not just for Christchurch but for the rest of the country too, we’re hardly going to run a 27 minute interview with Alasdair Thompson. In fact, if we had you would probably have written a column about it! We had to choose the best part to put to air. That’s our job. When John does an interview with someone in the field, e.g. John Key on budget day, he might speak to him for 20 minutes. We don’t put the whole interview to air. We put the best bits to air. I had four spare minutes yesterday and now the whole interview is on the internet for people to watch, judge and draw their own conclusion. That’s what good journalism is all about (I think you taught me that during my journalism course?)

If it wasn’t on the internet, you wouldn’t have seen it. You wouldn’t have known what else Alasdair said or the context of the interview so to say we are dishonest I would argue is wrong. What didn’t go to air in the TVNZ interview? Would you have watched the first four minutes of Alasdair speaking with Mihi? The middle four minutes? The last four minutes? It was pure coincidence that he was interviewed by two TV3 female reporters. I asked Mihi to ring Alasdair and she did. She then went down to his office for an interview. At this point he had already done two other interviews. He had every opportunity to tell her to go away but he didn’t and instead spoke with her for 27 minutes. At no point did he ask for the camera to be turned off or the interview to be stopped.

Re the poll. The story had been around all day. John promoted the poll at the top of the show but people didn’t see Mihi’s interview until the last segment of the show. People were voting on what they had seen and heard all day and in the news. They must have been because 80 per cent of our votes were in by the time the story went to air. Others rolled in after the show and after the interview but were not included in the result that went to air. Interestingly, the percentages didn’t change.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Richard Robinson

Here’s a little quiz: Who said this?

“I believe that in life most women are more productive totally than most men. I absolutely believe that. When you take into account the things that women do in their lives compared to most men. They often do all the arranging of the finances for the whole family, they run the household, they care for the children, they do all manner of things and they go to work. Their total productivity in life, in my opinion, is higher than most men.”

The answer? Alasdair Thompson. Where? In an interview with Mihingarangi Forbes for Campbell Live.

How come you didn’t know that? Because that part of the interview wasn’t shown on the programme. In fact only 4’18” of this 27 minute interview was shown. Read the rest of this entry »

Campbell Live has introduced a new feature on the programme. They’re calling it ‘The Stone Wall’ and it will display the names and photographs of Cabinet Ministers, from the PM down, who decline invitations to appear on the programme.

The idea isn’t entirely new. For a long time Fair Go had a ‘Wall of Shame’ which served much the same purpose. Malefactors who refused to front in the studio had their  name and photograph displayed on the wall, until they learnt the error of their ways and made an appearance.

I objected to the Fair Go version because people and companies who had sorted things out to the complainant’s satisfaction still had their name and photograph posted on the ‘Wall of Shame’ where it remained till they relented and turned up. This had absolutely nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with television’s requirement for pictures and conflict.

Paul Holmes used to have what you might call the ‘Empty Chair of Shame’. The chair was reserved for evildoers who had been invited to appear on Holmes but had declined. The conceit behind the empty chair was that hope springs eternal and that the invited guest might just change their mind and turn up. The camera (and Paul) returned frequently to the empty chair to indicate that hope was fading fast (and to further humiliate the no-show).   Read the rest of this entry »

The interview mainly consisted of criticisms gleaned from NZ commentators, which were then put as propositions. This allowed the PM to counter them, which he did without difficulty. Stephen Sackur’s lack of knowledge of New Zealand and its politics meant he was unable to follow up Key’s answers and probe deeper. All we got was the next proposition. It sounds knowledgeable, but it’s surface stuff and easily batted back. More like practice in the nets than a real game. That aside John Key handled this HardTalk interview well and seemed relaxed and confident.

Major criticisms:

Someone had raced round and found a batch of model kiwi and waka and other Newzild stuff and scattered it round the set. Tacky, tacky.

And Key’s diction! The trick seems to be: Never use four syllables if you can get away with two. It may be OK for speeches at the United Nations – they have simultaneous translators – but the overseas audience would have needed subtitles to get the drift of his answers in this interview.

Last night we watched Alister Barry’s documentary The Hollow Men.  An excellent film, based on Nicky Hager’s book of the same name.

If the details of the 2005 election have faded into the mists of time this is an eye-opener. It’s also well worth reminding ourselves about some of the shenanigans that went on, with Don Brash now leading the Act Party.

This is your chance to get a copy of the documentary. Trevor Mallard has copies to give away. If you email your name and address to me at: judy@brianedwardsmedia.co.nz, I’ll send it on to him. Trevor’s only request – pass it on when you’ve watched it!

And my own suggestion – read the book as well, for the extra details. Apart from being a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, it’s a real page-turner. The Hollow Men, by Nicky Hager, published by Craig Potton.

UPDATE Still a few DVDs available – Trevor has a secret store!

NZ on Screen have unearthed my television play Casualties of Peace, much to my amazement. I thought it had been wiped years ago. There was a shortage of tapes and we just re-recorded over everything. 

It was made in 1982, starring Judie Douglass, Peter Vere-Jones and Michael Hurst, playing a teenager. It was Michael’s first major television role and he won an award for it – Best Newcomer, from memory.  A very young Fiona Samuel appears in it as well, with Kevin Wilson, Ken Blackburn and Joanne Simpson.

World War II lingered on for our returned soldiers and haunted their families for decades.  The vets would gather together to make sense of  their experiences, and to find again the camaraderie and mateship of service life.  My childhood was filled with war stories, with strange men who would turn up at our door and spend hours reminiscing with my father. He seemed younger and more alive when they were there. 

This play was based on my father, these lost men and their conflict with the next generation, whose view of the Vietnam war was so out of step with their own lives and beliefs.

John, Your mindless, bullying, tirade against ‘moon man’ Ken Ring on tonight’s Campbell Live was perhaps the worst piece of egotistical, self-important, out of control, closed-minded, biased, unprofessional  non-interviewing I have seen in more than 40 years of New Zealand television.

I have no brief for Mr Ring or his theories, but after watching your treatment of him tonight, I have considerably more respect for him as the reasonable exponent of an admittedly controversial point of view than I have for you as an interviewer.

What mattered to you in this exchange was not what he had to say, but what you had to say. And since he thought the process was meant to involve his being critically questioned on statements he had made and being given reasonable opportunity to reply, he had every right to complain when you preferred to deny him that opportunity by shouting him down. It was, quite simply, appalling.

My advice to Mr Ring would be to immediately complain to Mark Jennings, the Head of News and Current Affairs at TV3 about your mistreatment on the programme tonight, and the breach of Broadcasting Standards of fairness and balance which it contained. And, when your complaint is almost certainly rejected, to take the matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for their deliberation and judgement.

The microphone is a potent tool in the bullying interviewer’s hand, especially when the interview is not face-to-face and the interviewee is isolated in a remote studio location. Fortunately most interviewers do not abuse that situation. Tonight we saw what has overall been excellent television coverage of the Christchurch earthquake on both TVNZ and TV3 marred by a descent to broadcasting at the level of Jerry Springer. I have seldom been so angry.

stuff.co.nz

Close Up – Undoubtedly a major coup, though I suspect that Hotchin, or an agent on his behalf, approached the programme. However, the  production team blotted its copy book badly by totally abandoning editorial balance and showing clips damaging to Hotchin -  largely newspaper headlines – while Hotchin was speaking. An appalling lapse in editorial judgement.

Hotchin – Plausible and persuasive. I thought he was very good. His appearance has been and will be dismissed as a PR exercise and there may well be an element of truth in that. But the risks inherent in taking part in a live and predictably aggressive television interview were considerable. And, in the end, all the PR in the world will not assist the lying or dishonest television interviewee. The audience will see through him.     

Sainsbury – Handled the interview well. Asked the questions that viewers, and some at least of those who lost money in Hanover, would have wanted asked. Somewhat repetitive and it really would be good if Mark could put his questions in a less excitable way. But overall a good performance.

Campbell Live – Ended its show last night with an undignified piece of sour grapes in which John bewailed the fact that Hotchin was appearing on his competitor’s programme and re-ran old Campbell Live clips which served merely to explain why Hotchin had gone to Close Up.  John is the superior broadcaster of the two, but would he have done this particular interview better? I doubt it.

The Viewers – Will many have changed their view of Hotchin after watching the interview? Probably not.

On 15 March 1994 Melvyn Bragg interviewed the playwright and  television dramatist Dennis Potter. The interview was broadcast on the BBC’s Channel Four on April 5. Potter died of cancer two months later on June 7.

Potter smokes throughout the interview, holding the cigarette and lighter between the bunched fingers of his clawed right hand. Like his hero Philip E Marlowe, the mystery writer in perhaps his most celebrated work, The Singing Detective, the playwright had suffered for much of his life from debilitating and painful psoriatic arthropathy, a skin and joint disease which, in its chronic stages, formed lesions and sores over his entire body, partially crippling his hands and feet. He was eventually obliged to write with  the pen tied to his wrist.

Beside his chair in the television studio he has a flask of morphine, which he drinks from at intervals during the conversation to control the pain.

All of this would make the interview remarkable enough. But it is the quality of what is said, of Bragg’s questions and Potters responses, which allows me to call this ‘the finest television interview ever recorded’. Much of a media commentator’s time is given over to criticism in the negative rather than the neutral sense of the word. I thought it appropriate to redress the balance a little by inviting you to watch this small screen gem. The YouTube version is in seven parts, each just under 10 minutes long.

If you’re unfamiliar with Potter’s work, Wikipedia or YouTube are both  good places to start.

Enjoy!

Sometimes even the great Jeremy Paxman can’t get a straight answer!

After a major rail crash in the UK, the Chief Executive of Railtrack, agreed to appear on Newsnight – then backed out with a lame excuse.  The result was a far worse media crisis than he’d originally faced.  

I’m delighted that Judy has posted the famous/infamous interview between Simon Walker and Rob Mulddon on the presence of Russian warships in the Indian Ocean. Simon is an old friend. We worked together both as television colleagues and, later, as advisors to David Lange and the Labour Party after Muldoon drunkenly  announced the snap election in 1984. I wrote Lange’s opening television address. Simon was a left-winger then, or so we thought, but his actual allegiance was with the laissez- faire Douglas faction. He would go on to work for a large PR company in Britain, a right-wing think-tank and Her Majesty the Queen inter alia.

Simon, possibly the smoothest and most urbane person I have ever known, was an excellent interviewer. But it was the Muldoon confrontation that really made his name. A remarkable achievement, made all the more remarkable because pretty well every propositon he puts to Mr Muldoon is wrong in fact or implication. And it is a bit rich to supply an interviewee with a list of questions you want answered and then not allow him to answer them. But it’s still great television.

A couple of years later, I wrote this piece for the Dominion Sunday Times. Almost 25 years later, the names may be different, but everything else remains true.

**********

Catch 23

I have invented a new law that will save the nation – from everything. I call it Catch 23.

Clause One of Catch 23 states: Only those of sound mind may hold office as Members of Parliament.

Clause Two states: Any person seeking election to Parliament shall, ipso facto, be deemed to be of unsound mind.   Read the rest of this entry »

 This is still one of New Zealand’s most famous – or should that be infamous? – interviews.  Simon Walker v. Robert Muldoon, broadcast in 1976.

It’s pertinent that Walker and Muldoon were in separate studios at the time.  It’s much harder to be tough when you’re face-to-face with your subject, particularly when that subject is intimidating. Intimidating would be a mild description of Muldoon – journalists were terrified of him.

Still makes for good viewing.

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/tonight—robert-muldoon-interview-1976

My extremely intelligent two-year-old grandson, Johnny Rakai, recently invented his own naughty word – ‘poonana’. For several weeks he went around saying to everyone, ‘You’re a poonana!’ I was not excluded. ‘You’re a poonana, Grandad!’ He would burst out laughing and, for a while, so would we. After a time, of course, it ceased to be funny and we dealt with the situation in that infuriating adult way, by not being shocked and not laughing. Because he is extremely intelligent, Johnny Rakai quickly read the omens and moved on.

Watching last night’s comedy train-wreck Roast of Mike King on Comedy Central I was reminded of Johnny Rakai’s ‘poonana’ – infantile, intended to shock, clever in a two-year-old. I’d prefer to leave the comparison there; anything further would be an insult to my grandson.

If you were fortunate enough to have missed last night’s show, I should tell you that Mike King was ‘roasted’ by Brendan Lovegrove, Michelle A’Court, Jeremy Elwood, Andrew Clay, Dean Butler, Jan Maree and host Willy de Wit.

There were some clever lines, some demonstrations of wit in the programme, but they were few and far between, host, roasters and roastee preferring to rely on peppering everything they said with ‘fuck’, ‘fucking’, ‘cunt’ and jokes about one another’s vaginas, ‘tits’ and ‘cocks’. I didn’t count, but the number of times these words and references were made over the 45 minutes of air time, must have run into the hundreds. This is the template provided by the American version of the show.  Read the rest of this entry »

An intriguing little item appears in this morning’s Herald. It’s about a question Radio Live’s Martin Devlin put to Dennis Conner in a phone interview at the weekend: Was there a chance that, when he attends an America’s Cup Legends charity dinner in Auckland this month, he might ‘make complete peace with Paul Holmes’.

Holmes was due to front the event, but was dropped after Conner, though not demanding that he be replaced, had expressed discomfort with the arrangement.

Conner’s reply to Devlin’s question was: ‘I don’t really remember that. Never say never to anything but certainly not high on my agenda.’

 And then, without pause: ‘Thank you, have a nice day and thanks for the call.’ And he was gone. A walkout of a sort and a minor re-run of the end of the original Holmes interview.

Devlin commented: ‘Hmm. He doesn’t remember, eh? Remembers enough though to insist that the bloke isn’t going to be the MC.’

Not according to David Higgins, one of the organisers of  the event,  who told the Herald that  Conner had not specifically said he didn’t want Holmes as MC:

“I gathered that probably wasn’t the right way to go… I like Paul. I have a lot of time for him but I spoke to Dennis on the phone and he actually came across as sharp.’

Holmes was quoted in the Herald on Sunday as having said it was ‘pathetic’ a person could hold on to something for 21 years.

Devlin is probably right that it’s barely credible that Conner can’t remember his interview with Holmes, given his response to Higgins. I suspect the truth is that he would find a public appearance with Holmes uncomfortable and that he doesn’t want to revisit or discuss an unpleasant episode in New Zealand 21 years ago when he’s returning to speak at a function to raise funds for Asthma New Zealand. He was an asthma sufferer himself as a child and it’s a cause close to his heart.

It might have been better if he’d just said so. But Conner is clearly someone who, both in a physical and a metaphorical sense, ‘walks away from’ disagreeable situations. I have some sympathy for him, I’m a bit like that myself.    Read the rest of this entry »

While we’re in the mood for a little TV nostalgia…

We went for nearly 10 years without regular local drama in the 80s. Yes, I’m talking soap opera – that’s how actors learn TV acting, crews learn their craft, directors learn how they look with grey hair. 

The 80s gave us Gloss, with its big hair and matching shoulder pads – it was slick and it was funny and it was one of the best things NZ had ever made.

But no soap. And no soap meant that for a decade actors hadn’t worked on fast-turnaround drama. And it showed.

I’m not sure of the current penalties for encouraging people into acts of masochism, but here it is – the very first episode of Shortland Street. Hilarious!

Shortland Street -Episode One

Here’s a spot of nostalgia for those of you who remember the early days of television – and a bit of a shock for those who don’t, I imagine!

Herald on Sunday

Interpretation of television ratings to suit one’s own purposes has become something of a PR art form. There’s bound to be a demographic somewhere where your channel is ahead, if only among insomniac devotees of geriatric movies. 

But I suspect Richards is correct. Leaving aside the fact that there is no competing programme on TV3 for viewers to defect to, weekday early morning TV shows are rarely appointment viewing. 

I became particularly aware of this when staying with relatives in Britain. As mum bustled around making breakfast, getting the kids ready for school, finding dad’s cufflinks and generally transforming chaos into some semblance of order, television sets in the living room, kitchen, master and teenagers’ bedrooms sprayed news, weather, traffic information and chat to anyone who cared to listen and watch. 

Breakfast is a chaotic time for most families, making concentrated viewing of anything on TV difficult. So, other than for the unemployed or  retired, breakfast viewing is distracted viewing. Audiences do not so much ‘watch’ the programme, as ‘catch’ snatches of information relevant to their areas of interest or to the forthcoming day. The often complained of cyclical repetition of news headlines, weather forecasts and traffic reports makes absolute sense since it increases the chances that an individual member of the household will get the information they want while commuting from bedroom to bathroom or kitchen to living room. Weather forecasts are worldwide the highest rating programmes on television, a sobering thought perhaps for programme makers and the stars who appear on the programmes. 

All of this may mean that the hosts of breakfast TV programmes play a somewhat less significant role in attracting and retaining viewers than they would in prime time. There is, after all, very little difference between breakfast television formats world wide: attractive female presenter and (at least passable) male presenter chat, make jokes, occasionally flirt, do serious and not-so-serious short interviews on topical issues, read emails and texts, throw to news headlines, weather and traffic reports and cross live to hyperactive field reporters with the latest quirky, offbeat, sad/happy human interest story in town.  Read the rest of this entry »