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The Douglas Wood Interview; How To Blow $400K

So Last night Ten took a big-time shot at news and current affairs with its exclusive Douglas Wood interview.

I didn't watch it.  And most people I spoke to today didn't see it either.   And according to several reports today, lots of other viewers were as equally nonplussed, preferring both Nine's Backyard Blitz and Seven's Guinness Book of Records to the much hyped Wood special.

Third in a three-horse race between the commercial networks is an ordinary result at the best of times, but especially when you've paid something like $400,000 for the privilege.   So what went wrong?

It's pretty simple really, in attempting to position itself as a big time player in news and current affairs, Ten strayed too far away from what it stands for its key brand message if you like; the youth demographic, 16-24 year olds. Tens core competency is doing things like Big Brother, Australian Idol, The Simpsons, The OC, and similar programs.  Not news. 

And as I said last week, scheduling the program on a Sunday night in between The Simpsons and Big Brother was just dumb.

So what did we learn from the Wood interview?

Well apparently;

"There were lots of tears, but not much about why Wood was in Iraq, why he'd been apart from his wife for two years, and why he felt it necessary to go to such a dangerous place to make money in his early 60s. Nor were there questions about whether he'd placed himself in danger by going to Iraq, and whether any of his work in Iraq had increased the risk. Wood also displayed a lack of understanding as to why some Australians would object to his taking Ten's money after the $3 million the Australian government had spent on his recovery. His brothers and wife seemed far more empathetic people. They provided plenty of tears, as did Doug when his grandchildren appeared. So Ten and Sandra Sully can at least rest easy on that score: they achieved the goal of all current affairs efforts – to get on-camera emotion from the main talent. But the interview aroused limited sympathy for Wood, at least for this viewer. It was disappointing that he didn't thank the Australian people and the special also felt strangely out of date – it really should have gone to air last Tuesday or Wednesday night."

From that and other reports, it seems as though the Ten questions showed little evidence of research and it's disappointing that there's no transcript available on the Ten website.

It would seem as though Ten blew their $400K, but if anyone did see it and has a different opinion... well you know where to find the comments section

Get Rid of Editorials

Of all the stale, rusty old traditions that are part of a daily newspaper, perhaps none look as "worn around the edges" as the editorial and op-ed pages.

There is hardly a paper on the face of the earth that doesn't follow the same old formula, you know the one, unsigned editorials that speak in the newspaper's "institutional voice";  a cartoon or two; letters to the editor; and, on the right-hand page, signed pieces by the paper's staff columnists and from a few syndicated services. Even the design of these pages is virtually the same from paper to paper....

Well, it's time to "eliminate the editorial page," according to Timothy Noah on Slate.com. He says that editorials aren't expressions of a papers voice because they are produced by a team of writers.  Nor does the editorial page represent the opinions of the papers owner- in the US for example, the Tribune Company might have one opinion in its flagship, the Chicago Tribune, and the opposite in its subsidiary, the LA Times.  What's more, the genre has "built in defects."  It lacks sufficient length to make a convincing arguement, instead settling for a boring "timidity" or irresponsible "posturing."  So the opinion page- usually found opposite- is a "thousand times more compelling."  These longer articles display the "quirky intelligence" that comes from a single persons opinion.

The opinion editor could always weigh in with a special editorial several times a yeay and "it's meare appearance would be something of an occasion."  But this probably won't happen soon, because editorial page editors would have to eliminate their own jobs.  And if a publisher tried, they'd be accused of doing it "to dumb down the nespaper".

It's a compelling arguement, but the real reason to dump the page is because nobody wants to read editorials anyway.  I would much rather read "democratised content" that is available via weblogs andcomments sections whereby people can weigh in with their opinions, corrections, reactions and long-winded, angry ramblings.

Douglas Wood: Can he escape the media?

On Monday I posted about freed Iraqi hostage Douglas Wood and his big-buck, $400 000 deal with the Ten Network.

It seems that quite a few people have rasied their eyebrows at the whole deal.  Wood's decision to sell his story to the Ten Network is "grubby and poor journalism," David Marr told ABC Radio National this morning. As Glenn Dyer explains via Crikey, Wood's deal with Ten has completely re-written the rules of chequebook journalism:

"The deal is a "co-production," which means greater control lies in the hands of the talent and not the media outlet. If it becomes the norm, it will mean audiences will have less chance of obtaining an independent and explainable version of these stories.
Unlike similar stories on 60 Minutes, Today Tonight or Four Corners, this not independent in any way - it's no more than an officially sanctioned version of the story.
The Australian and The SMH missed the point on Tuesday, but The Age had most of the important detail, including the involvement of Steve Vizard, a part-owner of Wood's management company Profile Talent Management. Vizard, who was known in the 1990s for "clipping the ticket" across a wide range of arts industry deals, is clearly back in the game. Industrial barrister Mark Klemens, the front man for the agency, is Molly Meldrum's manager and was the beak who got Darryl Somers off a drink driving charge three years ago.
Nine's 60 Minutes apparently had the deal all but in the bag until the Ten co-production idea and more money surfaced. The Age and TV sources say the Ten bid was around $400,000, but the co-production arrangement makes that difficult to work out. Because of revenue sharing deals from any on-sales, Ten could have bid low and offered PTM a bigger share of revenues at the back end from any on-sales, say to the US, which is interested in the story because Wood lives in California."

Without doubt Ten and Douglas Wood have blown a big hole in the comfortable world of chequebook journalism.

Can't see the Wood for the Fees

Here is the Editorial from today's Herald Sun:

One thing hasn't entirely changed with Douglas Wood's hard-won freedom.
The price on his head is still a small fortune -- only now he hopes to pocket it.
Before even returning here, Mr Wood is milking his accidental fame.  Unseemly as it seems, with a showbiz manager and hopes of riches, he is already being actively packaged and marketed.
People risked their lives as we spent an estimated $10 million trying to save his.  In his haste to cash in, he should spare a moment to reflect on that.
Mr Wood might remember who he is really brought to you by.

But of course he didn't spare a moment.

It what seemed to be a real "Dash for Cash", no sooner had he arrived in Melbourne today (at about 0530am) and uttered a few carefully selected words to the awaiting media throng, it was announced by Channel Ten that it would air Douglas Wood - His Story next Sunday at 6.30pm (AEST) with an interview conducted by Sandra Sully.

First of all ,Channel Ten isn't really known as a news network, and Sandra Sully is more of a talking head who reads the late night news than a hard hitting journo.  This type of thing belongs on the more edgy 60 Minutes with someone like Liz Hayes.  To prove my point, the Douglas Wood story will be shown in between a repeat episode of the Simpsons and Big Brother!

But it doesn't really matter when the cheque is signed.

Here is what Mr Wood's spokesman, Mark Klemens, said today."The Wood family has been pleased with the level of interest in Doug's story demonstrated by Ten,"

"They are confident that the resulting Ten News program will be instrumental in telling the real story behind Doug's ordeal."

Which means they offered the most money. My bet it is somewhere up around the $400 000 mark.

I know it is a commercial world that we live in, and it is the Aussie way to flog your yarn to the highest bidder, but this just seems all to quick.  This isn't some celebrity wedding, it is a story that has captured the emotions and thoughts of all Australians.  It is an event that required careful handling by our Government, and a great deal of money was (well) spent ensuring his release.

Of course the magazine, book and movie deals will be announced it the coming days and weeks.  To have it all reduced, so quickly, to this dash for cash, just seems wrong.

The Weekend That Was

What a wierd weekend of sport....

The only thing that seemed normal in this mornings papers was that Shane Warne is involved in another sex scandal.  But that's pretty boring compared to other events.

First of all the world champion Australian cricket team lost a one-day match to Asian minnows, Bangadesh (scorecard).   It was the greatest upset since, well... I can't think of a bigger upset.  And then to lose the very next day to bloody England.... arrgh.  Fleet Street will be in a real lather now.

Then I heard that a New Zealander had won the US Open.  Up until Until Michael Campbell's win, New Zealand's top earner at golf's major championships carried Tiger Woods's bag for a living.  Can we Australian's take that as one for "Oceania"?

But the biggest farce was the US Formula One Grand Prix. 

In what might well be the darkest day in the history of the sport, just six drivers competed in a race that saw Michael Schumacher greeted on the winner's podium by the jeers and boos from the few fans who hadn't already left in disgust.

It all went pear shaped after one of the two officially supplied brand of tyres – Michelin – proved to be unsafe. When officials ruled out a compromise solution involving a new chicane to slow entry speed at the high banked final turn, 14 drivers refused to take part in the race. Those on the rival Bridgestone tyres didn't have the same problem so a six-car grid finally agreed to race.

Urgent meetings throughout the weekend failed to reach compromise and there are several villains here, including a tyre manufacturer that's renowned for pushing the envelope and the “win at all costs” team, Ferrari. Nine teams are believed to have voted not to race without the chicane, but Ferrari insisted the regulations should not be bent to fix what it argued was essentially a technological defect.

Ultimately when FIA and F1 officials sided with Ferrari and all 14 Michelin “shod” cars withdrew, it left a race that was a complete farce. It's also one that is sure to see tens of thousands of racing fans demanding refunds and all kinds of legal challenges. The more than 200,000 fans who attended, many of whom flew long distances to see the race, booed and threw objects on to the track.

In absolute PR terms this is an unmitigated disaster. It seems no-one is more to blame than the Ferrari team which saw it could gain an advantage by sticking to the letter of the law, rather than looking at what its intransigence would mean for the sport in the longer term.

There was no shortage of condemnation from those in F1 including team bosses and the drivers. "I feel terrible. I have a sick feeling in my stomach," David Coulthard said. "I am embarrassed to be a part of this. The reality is that mature adults were not able to come to a resolution that would have allowed us to put on the show that everybody wants to see in Formula One. It is a very sad day for this sport. I am so, so sorry for what we've done."

But Michael Schumacher fooled no-one when he saw fit to observe: "Bit of a strange Grand Prix. Not the right way to win my first one this year."

One Minute Vacation

Busy weekend?  Need to get away? No time for a full-blown holiday just now? How about a one-minute vacation?

(via worthwhile)

It's Only One Win- Can Someone Tell The English Press

OK, so Australia's Ashes tour got off to a bad start with the 100 run loss to England in the inaugural Twenty20 match. But has the British press been so starved of memorable cricket wins in recent years that it needs go absolutely bananas over what is in reality little more than a bit of hit and giggle?

Obviously so.

"England rout old enemy to ignite Ashes summer" was the headline on Simon Barnes's report in the usually circumspect Times: "Let us make Test matches a thing of the past," he wrote. "Let us consign the one-day international to the landfill site of history and let us embrace Twenty20 as the best — no, the only form of the game. Never mind beauty and let subtlety go hang, for last night England wiped the floor with Australia in a cricket match."

"First Blood to England" crowed the Daily Mail. And "Thrashes" was the crowing headline in The Sun, where Mike Walters wrote that "seven wickets fell for eight runs in 19 minutes of madness in the Rose Bowl sunset yesterday – and they weren't English. Jon Lewis, the medium-pacer who sounds like a department store, sent Australia crashing to a sensational 100-run defeat in the Twenty20 Ashes appetiser."

It was left to spinner Shane Warne, a bloke not usually noted for his commonsense, to pour some cold water on the hysteria. In a piece in The Times under the headline "Enjoy the moment, England" Warne wrote:

Sorry, but I spent yesterday morning thinking that I'd missed something. Had England won the Ashes? That's the way it seemed with all the headlines in the papers and the gibes I was getting from cricket fans. I've hardly been able to stop at a traffic light without somebody winding down a window and shouting: “79 all out.”

Well, I have a message for all you England supporters. Enjoy it while you can. You've been waiting a long time to give Australia the kind of beating we copped in the Twenty20 international match on Monday night. England batted well, bowled well and fielded well, so fair play. A deserved victory. But Australia will be disappointed. And we'll be back.

The Queens Birthday Holiday- Time to Move On

It is a Public Holiday in Australia today, a holiday that extends to our myriad of diplomatic, consular and trade offices around world who will all close their doors.

Why?  Well the reason is simple: to celebrate the Queen's Birthday and to confirm to millions of people that we are still a colonial British outpost. It doesn't seem to worry us that it isn't really the Queens Birthday (her real birthday is April 21), we grab the three day break all the same.

Whilst I am not a staunch republican as such, although I do lean in that direction, the Queens Birthday holiday is one of the most bizarre Public Holidays that we have.  Almost as strange as the Melbourne Cup (horse race) holiday.

Even the British must scratch their heads, because even though Elizabeth is their queen and lives among them, they don't celebrate it like us. It's really just a hangover from the days of our severe cultural cringe, and doesn't belong anymore.

Irrespective of whether we are a constitutional Monarchy or not, there is no place for it.  A bit like there is no place for “God Save the Queen” at any Australian functions any longer. Even the RSL concedes this.

It's time to move on, especially on the Queen's Birthday.

(Andrew Leigh offers an alternative here, and Cameron Riley has an associated comment that talks about our attitude towards history and marking it with Public Holidays)

Gillette's Close Shave With The Truth

I was reading a great conversation over at The Social Customer Manifesto (thanks Johnnie) about whether it is reasonable for marketers to "lie" to customers.  The conversation is centered around the content of Seth Godin's new book All Marketer's Are Liars, and in particular this:

"Tell a story that is memorable and remarkable and worth listening to. Seduce your customers, because that’s exactly what they want you to do. That requires ruthless selectivity and creative storytelling—in other words, lying."

Health and beauty product manufacturers are amongst the most prolific "tellers of tales" that are, if nothing else, "remarkable."  In their continual race to be better than the rest, they advertise relentlessly and are forever updating their products and telling us new stories that con us into believing that we can be better, younger or fresher looking.  They will make our skin softer and our hair shinier.  They tell us they have "the stuff" that contains "ingredient X" that will make us more relaxed, more alert, more energetic as well as increasing our sexual potency.

Whatever.

But in playing this game of manipulation, global shaving giant Gillette has come unstuck.
 

The Boston based company launched its M3Power razor early last year.  They told us that it was "a revolutionary powered wet shaving system for men," that delivered the world's best shave.  The trick was in the breakthrough razor technology that delivered gentle pulses that stimulated hair upwards and away from the skin.  I remember when it was launched in Australia, excited Gillette marketers hooked up with Sir Richard Bran son to have the Mach3Power livery adoring one of his Virgin Blue Jets..

But this week, a US federal judge rule that Gillette's claims about its new razor were "unsubstantiated and inaccurate," its advertising "greatly exaggerated" and "literally false".

(I thought all advertising was "greatly exaggerated" and "literally false")

As a result of this ruling, Gillette was ordered to change packaging and advertising for the product and remove in-store displays featuring the false claims.

It will be interesting to see if Gillette in Australia- which is a separate entity- follows.

So whilst All Marketers might Be Liars, it is good to see some of them getting caught.  It will be interesting to see what kind of precedent this decision sets. 

My bet is that marketers, advertisers and companies will thumb their noses at the decision, and  that the practice of deceiving customers about the performance of products will continue unabated.

New Research on "The Jerk at Work"

It is a universal dilemma. What to do with the "jerk" at work, the person who is so disliked by their colleagues that no-one wants to work with them?"

Well, the answer according to an article in The Economist (sub req) is to "tolerate them if they are at least half-competent – on the grounds that competent jerks can be trained to be otherwise, while much-loved bunglers cannot."

The jerk at work has become an issue because the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review publishes new research by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo, academics at Harvard Business School and the Fuqua School of Business, that shows work partners "tend to be chosen not for ability but for likability." This is the HBR's summary:

Drawing from their study encompassing 10,000 work relationships in five organisations, the authors have classified work partners into four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is a delight; the lovable star, who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk, who...well, that's self-explanatory. Of course, everybody wants to work with the lovable star, and nobody wants to work with the incompetent jerk. More interesting is that people prefer the lovable fool over the competent jerk. That has big implications for every organisation, as both of these types often represent missed opportunities. Lovable fools can bridge gaps between diverse groups that might not otherwise interact. But their networking skills are often developed at the expense of job performance, which can make these employees underappreciated and vulnerable to downsizing. To get the most out of them, managers need to protect them and put them in positions that don't waste their bridge-building talents. As for the competent jerks, many can be socialised through coaching or by being made accountable for bad behaviour.