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It's not often you're willing to spend a million dollars on a dead man. But duty called early one Sunday morning in September 2006 when I flew to Brisbane in pursuit of something more compelling than life and death itself - television ratings.
Days earlier a stingray had stabbed the world-famous Steve Irwin in the chest near Port Douglas, its barbed tail piercing his heart and quickly breaking millions of others around the world.
Irwin's adventures wrestling crocodiles and promoting animal conservation were syndicated in 130 countries, drawing television audiences in the hundreds of millions. If some cringed at the caricature of Australians he presented to the world - wide-eyed, khaki-clad and with a vocabulary littered with long-outdated exclamations like "Crikey!" - any cynicism was soon engulfed by a wave of national sorrow.
Flags flew at half-mast across the country. Prime Minister John Howard announced that "Australia has lost a wonderful and colourful son." A day after Irwin's death, Parliament opened with condolence speeches from both sides of politics.
I was head of the Nine network's news and current affairs division and the race was on to secure an interview with Irwin's widow, Terri, along with the rights to televise the memorial service. Competition was stiff. Seven and Ten were bidding and the big American networks were also flying in with fat cheque books.
Irwin's manager John Stainton had helped turn The Crocodile Hunter into a global brand. But his shock over his friend's death did not prevent him from driving a hard bargain that morning in his Brisbane office. Eventually a deal was struck and Nine secured a two-hour commemorative special that pulled an extraordinary national audience of 2.5 million viewers.
We didn't know it at the time but the death throes of commercial television were only a few years away. With Nine in the midst of a ratings slump, not even the stingiest of its accountants - or the choir of navel-gazing critics who regularly decry chequebook journalism - dared complain about the price paid to tell the Steve Irwin story. This was a classic case of supply meeting demand.
Months earlier Nine had shelled out more than $2.5 million for the rights to the Beaconsfield Mine disaster. Ratings come at a cost. But the formula was and remains simple. Lucrative advertising dollars always follow the direction of viewer eyeballs.
So excuse me for not leaping on that already overcrowded and furious bandwagon now circling the embattled Seven network over its involvement in the ongoing Brittany Higgins-Bruce Lehrmann imbroglio.
What was already a grubby, appalling and ultimately sad affair has been dragged into the swamp following allegations linking credit card abuse, drug use and sex workers to the network's pursuit of Lehrmann for an exclusive interview.
That Seven badly mishandled its seduction of Lehrmann and subsequently suffered a calamitous hit to its brand is self-evident. The more sordid this tale becomes, the more likely it is that, in the finest tradition of corporate cannibalism, executive heads at Seven - but certainly not the biggest and highest-paid - will roll.
But the faux outrage over chequebook journalism muddying the waters of this controversy is another matter. Commentators paid to have an opinion have been denouncing Seven's awful sin of paying someone for their opinion and their side of the story.
The public has enthusiastically joined this criticism by flooding social media and news sites to condemn the $200,000 Seven reportedly spent for an interview with Lehrmann that not many people watched, anyway.
But, as usual, no one identified those culprits who also play a role in chequebook journalism but are rarely held responsible for its tawdry excesses.
You.
And you. And you.
It's your eyeballs the networks lust after. It's your decision to surrender to those tantalising promos that play on your desire for gossip. It's your choice to tune in and watch.
Take the high moral ground as often as you like but ratings don't lie. Chequebook journalism - which rarely exists these days outside the world of the paparazzi - only survives because an audience exists for it.
Such was the public umbrage when Princess Diana was killed almost 30 years ago after being pursued by photographers through a Parisian tunnel that the era of chequebook journalism seemed certainly over.
Guess what changed. Absolutely nothing. That tentative tango danced by the media, the famous and the public continued where it had left off.
Television's dirty deeds are rarely done dirt cheap. They come at a cost. But it's a price the industry will pay as long as you continue watching.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Should media organisations pay for interviews? Have you given up watching commercial free-to-air television? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- It would be a "mistake" to put the Australian Electoral Commission in charge of policing campaign lies, because it would "ruin neutrality", the agency's boss has said. Special Minister of State Don Farrell is expected to introduce "truth in advertising" laws this year, to regulate the dissemination of falsehoods during election campaigns.
- Rents rose their fastest in 17 years in the first quarter as the typically busy start-of-year changeover collided with an already tight market. The median cost of renting a house in the combined capitals reached a record $630 a week.
- Voters are turning up in sluggish numbers as they prepare to elect a successor to former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, fomenting concern from Australia's electoral commission. On Saturday, seat of Cook will take to the polling booths after Mr Morrison announced his resignation in late January. But early voting numbers are down 11.2 per cent compared to the 2022 federal election and 13 per cent compared to the Indigenous voice referendum.
THEY SAID IT: "Media: the plural of mediocrity." - Jimmy Breslin
YOU SAID IT: When a bloke known as Garbo holds the balance of power in Tasmania, you know Aussie nicknames are second to none.
"You really haven't heard of nicknames until you spend time with a university hockey team," writes Lee. "Nobody goes by their real name and you don't want to know how they get them. They are great names but when you hear them called during play you are never sure if you should laugh or stay silent. These young people take these names with them even after uni, with a lot of pride."
Robert writes: "When I was a toddler, a storybook character named Robert the Rabbit ensured that I was universally known as Rabbit through primary and high school and yes, teachers' college. I thought I'd left it behind when I joined the Army Reserve. The squadron commander appeared. Smart salute: 'Good evening sir.' 'G'day Rab.' Oh, and the old boys' newsletter was entitled Rabbit Tracks."
"I haven't heard 'cobber' for a while, but when I do it's a refreshing change from the appalling feral 'buddy', which escaped from TV screens and spread like the rabbit. Incidentally, when as a child I moved from north-west Tasmania to Hobart in the 1950s I was surprised to hear people calling each other 'cock'. This usage was unknown where I came from, and now seems extinct: I haven't heard it for at least 60 years."
Cass writes: "Cobber might be gone from the vernacular of your demographic, mate. But plenty of people among my friends still use this evocative word. Also, the good 'bloke' is one I am crusading to keep alive, suffering as it is from the relentless intrusion of 'guy'. The most notable utterer of 'bloke', in recent times, is former ABC sports reporter, Paul Kennedy, who always employed 'bloke' where appropriate. Make the effort everyone - look after the good bloke!"
"The good folk living on Norfolk Island trump them all," writes Phillip. "When we visited there years ago their telephone directory included nicknames. White Pages could do the same in Tassie."
Bernard shares a couple of favourites: "My favourite nickname was the one given to former rugby captain John Eales. He was known as Nobody, because Nobody is perfect. And then there was the youngest of the cricketing Waugh brothers the youngest of whom was known as Afghan - the forgotten Waugh."
"My husband is a consultant to the beef cattle industry, primarily working with feedlots," writes Penny. "One of his larger clients labels each row of the animal pens with a letter of the alphabet . A-row, B-row, etc. Staff are required to deliver the feed to bunks along each row by driving a truck along the row. One bloke had an apparent mental blank when it came to O-row . He consistently forgot to feed the cattle in O-row. Can you guess what nickname he acquired? Yep, 'O-row'."
Brian, the old bloke, writes: "One of my sons was Lazarus at school because when he finished training or a running race or similar, he looked like something brought back from the dead."
"I suspect the reason Morrison promoted himself as ScoMo was that it was preferable to the contemptuous Scotty from Marketing," writes Sue. "I have no problems with nicknames and if they are a tad disrespectful that has probably been earned, just as respect is earned, not assumed just because you have become a politician. If Garbo is how the new Tasmanian pollie wants to be referred to, that is fine by me."
Garry Linnell is one of Australia’s most experienced journalists. He has won several awards for his writing, including a Walkley for best feature writing. He writes a weekly column for ACM and the Echidna.
Garry Linnell is one of Australia’s most experienced journalists. He has won several awards for his writing, including a Walkley for best feature writing. He writes a weekly column for ACM and the Echidna.
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