Have any LP’ers bothered to check out 7.30 yet?
Perhaps a sample size of one show is a bit unfair, but if last night’s episode is indicative I’m not sure why anybody with a serious interest in current affairs would bother – except, perhaps, for a bit of Clarke and Dawe.
The lineup of stories included:
- Political story of the day – welfare to work. Included an interview with an articulate, well-presented young woman from western Sydney who has been unemployed for a year, somebody who works with an agency who places the long-term unemployed in work.the obligatory business peak body representative blathering on about labour shortages, and somebody from Anglicare. But the report whizzed through these interviews at such a speed that we didn’t learn anything but the vaguest generalities.
- Teen drinking. Some local council has commissioned a scary movie to convince teens not to binge drink. Trying to scare teens away from drugs with well-meaning propaganda – yeah, such an out there and radical tactic! That’s never been tried before….
- An awful story on biofuels, that starts with a section about a project to turn sawdust into synthetic crude oil, continues with random pictures of F-16 fighters powered by biofuel, ends with an unchallenged appeal for the Australian government to throw more money at the sector. FFS, while expecting journalists covering biofuel stories to read Robert Rapier is just a crazy dream, would it ask so much to expect them to have watched The West Wing episode King Corn?
- Buried at the end, something actually interesting and informative (or, at least, was actually news to me), a profile of “Radio Free Sarawak”, a tiny project dedicated to revealing the alleged corruption of the Chief Minister of Sarawak, an island province of Malaysia.
- and…Clarke and Dawe, in mediocre form this week.
If this is the best that the current affairs department can do, close the frigging show down and let Four Corners produce an additional half-dozen shows a year. We’d learn a hell of a lot more.
Am I being too harsh? Did I just get a bad night? Is the show really that bad?
Sorry Robert, but the show really is that bad. That was one of the better ones.
No, Robert, not too harsh at all. It is like the Leyland Brothers have branched out into current affairs.
It wasn’t good but it was the best one I’d seen for a bit. Less Chris Uhlmann than usual – he is such a thundering mediocrity.
Bloody hell, Anita. If that’s a better than average show, I’d hate to see a bad one.
I don’t usually get home from work in time to watch it, but from what I’ve seen on-line etc, it’s actually worse than you’ve described.
The festering sore that is Chris Ulhmann’s presence is one of the biggest problems – he has simply no idea how to interview someone, particularly if they are from the ALP.
But the biggest problem is it’s the same old format, tarted up and dumbed down. Why anyone would want to watch it is beyond me.
The producers should check out Hungry Beast, which actually manages to deal with important issues, otherwise generally ignored, in an entertaining and informative way.
It’s interesting that in nearly all walks of life things improve over time. There’s ups and downs, of course, but the trend is improvement, due to technological progress, people learning how to do these betters, whatever.
Not so with ABC current affairs. Their programs are much worse than they were a generation ago.
Yes, I’m old enough to remember This Day Tonight.
They used to employ this strange concept known as satire. Conscious satire would seem to be well beyond the current mob with the obvious exception of C&D, who are well beyond their use by date anyway.
I have seen some promos asking what is a good interview. The simple answer is allowing the person to answer the question for starters. Not trying to put words in their mouths and not manipulating the interview to get the answers you want.
At no time should the interviewer pass comment on whether they agree with the answer or not.
Viewer are capable of making up their own minds about what has been said.
Yes, 7.30 is pathetic and a joke. I feel that this is the way the ABC intends it to be. The result is that many are turning off and looking elsewhere for news.
You don’t have to go back a far back as This Day Tonight. It’s successor, Nationwide, was much much better than 7.30.
Of course the whole media has gotten much worse. I suspect it’s because journalists are now doing utterly worthless journalism degrees and then, knowing less than nothing, getting let loose on an unsuspecting public, rather than learning their craft the old fashioned way.
[Nostalgic sigh]
I can’t watch it all the way through now. The last few years of the Kerry O’Brien version were getting very stale indeed, but this *is* worse.
I have avoided 7.30 (and the Report ever since Brissenden went to the US, really) until now, but if Hungry Beast is being favourably compared to it, the situation must be dire indeed.
They did air quite a good interview with Sir Terry Pratchett a few days ago that is worth watching, but largely they haven’t really been that good.
Puff piece journalism; Leigh lost me very early in the “7:30″ format with that insipid Gail Kelly interview. ACA for the privileged voices…
Meh.
Clarke and Dawe aren’t even funny…
The to-camera standing up actually antagonises me into not watching it, the stuff has become superficial which probably more to do with spending cuts at the ABC than the team responsible. Sales and Uhlmann does not work, leave Sales where she is- and seated- and find something else for the latter.
It is the latest example of Scott’s dumbing down agenda. Instead of being a broadsheet grade current affairs show, it wants to be a second rate “60 Adverts” or ACA, full of presentationary smoke and mirrors and short on substance that would offend conservatives. I feel like I am watching an episode of “Broken News” or “Insiders” on an bad Sunday morning.
Ps, did anyone watch the forestry investment in Cambodia and Peter Costello thingie on Latteline, earlier this week?
Free to air TV is lost in an existential search for meaning in a world of social media. The producers are being pushed by the internal marketers to feature as mush social as possible which dumbs down the whole process. There’s a massive internal fight going on inside every mainstream media organisation that takes itself seriously. The trade-offs include ‘lightening’ the content with aggressive ‘humour’. Clark and Dawe are a parody of themselves.
The whole thing comes across as wet. Either completely give in to today’s Twitter-driven attention deficit disorder fluff or return to the simplicity and sheer viewer-friendliness of Monday Conference, TDT, Chequerboard etc. Do the interview, no irrelevant video grabs, end credits, goodnight.
To get some idea of the current ABC’s news values, these are the items deemed most newsworthy on ABC online apart from an item on industry compensation for carbon tax and Kelly Lane’s sentencing:
* Man jailed for bashing wife after wedding
* Clubs boss demands apology from Wilkie
* Two men shot at Bondi
* Mum snatches child from arms of kidnapper
* Union fears Easter air rage spike
* NAB customers hit by pay glitch… again
* Habib sues Egyptian VP over alleged torture (audio)
* Singing Aussie whales top of the pods (audio)
* Scientists teleport Schrodinger’s cat
* SPORT Na’s disaster hole sets PGA record
Like everyone else that has commented so far, I too have found 7.30 has become quite gimmicky with little in the way of hard-hitting interviews or analysis of anything. I’ve pretty much stopped watching it unless there appears to be something interesting advertised.
Actually adrian, although the headline about Scroedinger’s Cat was silly, the article itself was quite interesting.
@9
Oh I wouldn’t necessarily equate having a journalism degree being a bad journalist, quite the contrary. I’d put the blame for poor quality at the level of managers and producers/publishers who have bought into the idea of news as entertainment. Of course it has always been so and at different times the entertainment aspect is privileged over the information component. In fact in some genres its always the case, look at The Daily Telegraph.
Unfortunately we appear to be living through on of those moments where information is fighting to maintain it’s integrity under an assault from entertainment. Ranting about people who have degrees now implies that the past was always a golden age. I’d say you need to have a look at the work of a Hearst or a Northcliffe, or Murdoch for that matter.
IMO, I’m not sure there’s a coherent vision for what 7.30 right now and it’s obvious their trying to do things differently.
I’ve always thought it was a “must-watch” of an evening for Kerry’s interviews. Plus, there were consistently good “yarns”.
Between Leigh and Chris I don’t think there is a style or substance to the interviewing yet that matches Kerry’s homing. The odd yarn is good, like Peter McCutcheon’s piece on exotic bees or Mary Gearin’s piece on Melbourne social enterprise helping refugees.
I have never thought of 7.30 as a “breaking news” or “agenda setting” program and I don’t think it has tried to be anything like that over the last 15 years. I’ve always thought of it as just a slightly more intelligent mainstream current affairs program. I think judging it by “higher” standards is certainly going to lead to disappointment. And, in my mind, if you want something better you’re probably better off hopping online.
Just an aside, I was rereading a book on Nixon last night. When he made the trip to China the entire welcoming banquet, all 4 hours, was apparently broadcast on all three US networks. At least at that point in time current affairs was deemed to be intrinsically important, not requiring artifice to make it entertaining. Of course China was probably something of a curiosity back then and nowadays it might be covered intensely on the pay news channels.
One point that I didn’t make in the original post is that it is not only dumbed-down, it’s incredibly dull.
If you look at where television drama has been heading over the last decade, it demands a great deal more attention from its audience than it used to. The writers pack far more into a minute of storytelling than in the past, and trust their audience to keep up.
But TV current affairs has gone in precisely the opposite direction.
I’m not sure why anybody with a serious interest in current affairs would bother
The Abe knows damn well that such people can and do access a worldwide news and current affairs market in print and online formets, a great deal of which manages better and/or far more specialised content production and exchange. They aren’t after those viewers; they’re shoring up the rusted-on ABC set who can’t be stuffed flicking through their program guides after the equally staid ABC News bulletin concludes.
Especially if yours is an interest in international politics, finance, etc. there are simply so many other options they know you’ve already bookmarked and are likely unable to compete with – for various financial, political and ideological reasons. Mark Scott? Talk global, produce local.
I believe right wingers planted within the ABC are on a mission to make its news and current affairs ‘product’ so utterly awful and indefensible that, when it comes to the crunch, neither progressives or conservatives will lift a finger to save the ABC from privatisation or abolition.
The old format may have been dated but it crapped all over the new show.
Chris Uhlmann’s presence is akin to nails grating down a blackboard.
And what’s this caper of the journos interviewing each other to apparently ‘decode’ their interviews with guests cos us viewers are just too dumb to understand???
Total garbage!
We had to put up with Jim Wallace, ex SAS now Christian Right Lobby, during the Iraq ‘Shock and Awe’ in 2003. He got it wrong then and he’s still getting it wrong as guest expert. Can’t 7.30 find anyone with any credibility on either the military or religion?
[adrian says:
April 15, 2011 at 4:24 pm
To get some idea of the current ABC’s news values, these are the items deemed most newsworthy on ABC online apart from an item on industry compensation for carbon tax and Kelly Lane’s sentencing:
* Man jailed for bashing wife after wedding
* Clubs boss demands apology from Wilkie
* Two men shot at Bondi
* Mum snatches child from arms of kidnapper
* Union fears Easter air rage spike
* NAB customers hit by pay glitch… again
* Habib sues Egyptian VP over alleged torture (audio)
* Singing Aussie whales top of the pods (audio)
* Scientists teleport Schrodinger’s cat
* SPORT Na’s disaster hole sets PGA record]
And that shows you how Scott has agreed to leap into bed with Murdoch’s news Ltd.
Those headlines would fit perfectly into the Herald Sun, The Courier, The Telegraph.
It is time there was a complete enquiry into what is going on at the ABC, since Scott became SEO. His links to the Liberal Party are well known and the complete disregard for the ABC charter since his elevation is a disgrace. Moe so that the staff are completely silent about the disregard of standards and professionalism the ABC used to be proud of.
The young lady on State 7.30, Vic, just winked at me while saying goodbye.
You guys are just pissed because Chris Ulhman actually tries to get Interviewees, which includes ALP and Greens Politicians and their supporters, to actually answer the question instead of providing their rote learned spinning points.
And without Red Kerry there to let the Interviewees spin their lines while he nods gravely in furious agreement, your personalised PR machine is off the rails.
Don’t think so Razor.
Did you see Ulmhann’s ‘interview’ with Abbott?
Not so much an interview, more mutual masturbation.
Kerry was behaving before he left as someone who was too often being told what questions to push (Sorry – what words to try and put into peoples mouths) rather than an intelligent interviewer who could respond to what was being said – something that he used to do well.
Razor: the episode I watched didn’t feature a single moment of Uhlman.
Was still crap, though.
Kerry O’Brien’s interviews were something to look forward to. Really miss him. I liked his style. Unpretentious and unique. He baited and reeled in both Rudd and Abbott in the same month so that’s saying something about balance.
This new show seems to be an extension of Afternoon Live. It’s just another ABC 24 news program show which blends in with all the rest.
Leigh Sales softly spoken style lended itself more to late night TV as she was an aid to restful sleep. I now fall asleep at 7.35pm. She has totally stuffed up my bio-rhythms.
As for Ulhmann telling Julia Gillard that Rudd named and shamed her on QandA. Not true. Total lie. Rudd just stated what we already knew, without naming names.
Kerry Obrien wasn’t good at all…! This country used to be clever, didn’t it?!!? Why can’t we talk about real issues on these programs like why we are all so consumeristic and war-pig-like so that we can put a lassoo on the never ending mortgages faced by our childrens children because we all decided to play ‘follow-the-perpetual-merry-go-round!!!’ ????!
When Tony Abbott agreed to do an interview, I knew this show was not “hard hitting” journalism, just another puff of smoke in the endless cycle of rubbish, hack reporting we, the people, apparently deserve.
“war-pig-like”. WTF
If you want to hear some good interviewing, listen to the BBC’s HARDtalk, currently on the road in Australia… way more informative than anything the ABC has done in years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/default.stm
Current Affairs on “our” ABC? A bit of this, a bit of that, meaningless debate, journos talking to other journos, all amounting to exactly nought. And, of course, the obligatory bagging of the ALP. Pity they didn’t get stuck into JWH in the same manner!
Alison, that’s not entirely true. Kerry O’Brien regularly gave Howard ministers a hard time.
There was also the famous Virginia Trioli interview with Peter Reith.
Again, look at all the good it did, given that two thirds of the Australian population was seemingly perfectly happy to throw children back in the frigging water.
One thing that really irritates me is when Leigh Sales interviews Chris Uhlmann. That’s just what we need, journalists interviewing journalists. We don’t want to know what ‘The Toolmann’ thinks. He isn’t an expert or a player, he’s a reporter.
If these two want a conversation on air, they should get themselves invited onto ‘Insiders’ or ‘The Drum.’
Who cares what Duhlmann thinks? ABC presenters should keep their views to themselves.
Tiny Dancer, do you know when we are going to be relieved of our war-for-oil duties????
7:30 report now appears to be in line with other ABC news & current affairs reporting. IE if the govt adopts or promotes a position on anything. Step1: phone from list of opponents ie lobby group, RW think tank, opposition and seek comments from re govt policy. Step 2: report the most inflammatory of the gathered responses uncontested. Step 3: Comment on this as bad news for govt and extrapolate to ridiculous but frightening conclusion if possible. End piece with serious look to camera to highlight how frightening this is.
The go and have lunch.