Ch7 Sydney News

So last night I as home in time to watch the evening News. Ringing in my ears was a conversation I had recently had with good friend from the US.

He used to visit Australia regaularly in the 1990's but had not been here since 1997. He visited last year and over dinner he provided a well articulate review of our commerical FTA TV news . His point was that over the intervening yars the News offerings from Ch7, 9, 10 hd become more insular, less global, less news and mre entertainment...Not really News but rather a slightly high brow version of Australia's Funniest Videos mixed with ACA or Today Tonight...

Of course I jumped to the defence of our venerable News services and was quick to attack the insular News offerings that exits in the main US TV markets.....

So here we are last night watching the Ch7 News....The telecast opens with the story about the killer of Victor Chang being released....Now the fcts are that this guy committed a terrible crime, robbing Australia of one of its true heroes. Victor Chang's murder was a tragedy of national proportions...However this guy (Lim) served 18 years in prison and was being released on parole. It was decided (I gues gy him with the sanction of the appropriate authorities) to allow him to fly bck tohis country of bith in Malaysia...

In summary...criminal leaves jail after 18 years on parole and goes home to Malaysia..short story....Noooooooo..Channel 7 start with the expected photos of Victor Chang etc then the presenter cuts to some flack at Sydney Airport (where Lim is to fly out)..chat chat chat..The we cut to...seriously...I am not making this up...we cut to Kuala Lumpur where another ch7 flack is waiting...what the fuck is he waiting for...... Why do we need to see video or Sydney Airport, refer to a flack out there who tells us again that Lim will fly out on Malaysian airlines with some federal govt staff...Why then did we need to go to flack #2 to tell us that Lim will arrive in X hrs time in Kuala Lumpur...This is not a surprise....Lim is flying home on a commercial jet after being released form jail..He is not escaping on a plane that he has hijacked......

As I watched this parody of a news story pondering why all the unnecesary BS it all became clear...Ch7 needs to pad out the 22 minutes in the 6:00pm news and to keep costs down and outrage high....so pad this story out for the maximum time possible...pad just to the edge of it looking ridiculous and stop...Well executed ch 7.

Then we go to the story about the interest rate rise. Background.....We have had historically low interest rates set by the Reserve Bank to assist in making sure we did not gon into recession..During this last year or so every commentator, politician, Reserve Bank employee ha stalked about how rates will have to get back to normal levels in the short term...So the base rate goes up from 3.75% to 4.0%...All as expected..The 4.0% rate is still well below more recent normalised levels and yet.......

Ch7 rolls out probably the most naff story construction in their history. The story focuses on a mum who talks abotu having to make cut backs...Firstly what was she expecting when rates went down to 2%..That they would stay there forever...That all the pundits, experts etc were wrong when they told her time and again rates woudl go back up??? Anyway she has a child's blackboard where she is drawing the things that they will hve to now cut out of their expenditure..She draws a lolly, then something unintelligible, then a house....So so so naff and shame on ch7 for such a pathetic and basically unhelpful story...

The Chris Bath references a video about a near accident in the US on an icy road..Roll the video once...roll the video a second time...and I think they rolled it a THIRD time...Cut to an ad break and after the ad break....Guess what...roll the video again!!!...I get it...The US Policeman on soem random US highway nearly got killed...Yes it was a close call but I am guessing there were alot of close calls around the world yesterday...This was not the most important and even if it was I only needed to see it once!

Truly this was an exact cut and paste of the approach taken by Australian Funniest Videos...which is fine except this is meant to be a serious News broadcast!!!!

So what else happened in the world yesterday..What stories failed to make the cut?? What stories fell in behind the near crash on some random US highway?

Yesterday...
The International Court of Justice commenced the trial of Karadzic - the Bosnian leader charged with genocide.

There were more aftershocks in Chile and Chile struggled to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake.

Flooding in Europe.

Issues with Malik in the upcoming and potentially world changing Iraqi elections.

Pakastini forces capture a major al-Queda cave stronghold.

Ongoing developments with the massive debts that many European countries are struggling to deal with.

The seminal US Health Care debate continued with Obama trying new tactics to get this through.

Just to name a few...Let alone slightly more important local issues such as the release of the national cutrriculm blueprint.....

It is sad to say but my friend is right...Our commercial TV news services are all style and no substance..For any of them to suggest that they take seriously the issue of News production and disseminatiion is a massive insult to the intellgence of the Australian community...Far better to re-run some sitcom..At least we then know when to laugh....