joannejacobs.net

Lets say I agree to an interview with you, and during it I zoom in on your boobs, but continue to broadcast the voice.

Your management now decide this is not in the spirit in which we agreed to the interview, and they race in and hand you a towel, then get you out of there...

By zooming in on your boobs, are people still listening to anything anyone is saying? or has that changed the perception of things ...

The press club acted in good faith. They are far from disgraced in what they did. For the record, Rudd was always going to win the debate. He is much better at it than Howard.

Ok lets get to the worm.... in my opinion, it is shameless and polutes the environment in which a debate is conducted. I may elect to ordinarilay discard or challenge something that is said, but change my mind because I can see the popularity of the moment. The converse is also true.

A debate seen in real life has no worm running across the stage. What if they broadcast political slogans or subliminal messages... would that be unbiased journalism...

What they should have done was broadcast it clean, as agreed, and avoided the controversy. Then in a later review, they could have put "the worm" on, thus qualifying the broadcast for those who wanted to seen it clean only. What a total bunch of twits channel 9 are.

PS... for a guy who hates politics, you have me making more political statements in one week than I have made in 40 years.

CHeers

No, wilecoyote, the example you give is not comparable. The audience selected for using the worm are 100 uncommitted voters, and the objective of the worm is to provide an indication of public opinion, not to distract people from what is said. It's also not a means of objectifying or belittling the speakers; it is a means of allowing the audience a "voice" in response to what is being said. (Actually, there is some evidence that the worm makes an audience more attentive to the contents of a lecture/debate; this has been shown in studies looking in to the use of electronic audience measurement devices in educational contexts.)

So the example you give of objectification, and distraction from the contents of a presentation is not remotely comparable. And importantly, what you have outlined would be regarded as a biased approach, designed to denigrate the integrity of the speaker. Regardless of whether or not *I* was pleased with this approach, it would be challenged as being partial and poor journalism. The worm is pain-stakingly designed to be impartial, and this debate is about presenting the contents of the debate in an impartial manner - NOT filtered in the manner the speaker wishes.

So no, your 'logic' doesn't hold.

And as for becoming a more political animal, that's a good thing isn't it?

Hell no... its not a good thing.

Gave you a lot of lead to hang me with eh? My point was taken out with the lead???

So there is no possibility that the worm is objectifying a participant...?? (and before you say neither Howard or Rudd has a decent rack, lets agree that objectification has more than a sexual context). What you are saying is that the worm is NOT distracting? Im wondering how much of your focus is on the participant, and how much is on the bottom of the screen? And where did they find this 100 impartial undecided voters? Geelong?

I didnt say dont use it... what I said was use it later... I should have the choice of listening to the debate with or without it... If you said you would rebroadcast later with the worm.. that would be fine in my view.

That truly is impartial coverage...

As for the logic... we can have a chat some time and you can take me on... mind you I have nothing to lose, being on the receiving end of female logic for a good many years, all the lucrative body parts are lost.

What Channel 9 did was breach an agreement, and you can not bag the press club for excercising a fundamental right, no matter how rudely they excercised it. I may have bagged them had they taken a bazooka out and blown up the channel nine van... all they did was pull the plug... wish I could do that to some of my clients who dont pay their bills... (actually I wish I could take a bazooka to them)

RE: 100 impartial voters... this was a representative sample collected by Morgan Research who also controlled the methodology and opinion generation. See details at http://www.roymorgan.com/news/press-releases/2007/691/

RE: the Worm being 'distracting'... There is evidence to suggest that people watching audience measurement tools whilst consuming information designed to educate are actually *more* attentive to the content of the information stream, rather than less attentive. This has been demonstrated in the use of electronic response systems in educational contexts. See here for details.

Channel 9 maintain they did NOT breach any agreement. Whilst 'guidelines' were recommended by the National Press Club, Channel 9 decided that it was in the interests of journalistic integrity that the Press Club (and the incumbent Government) should not have power of veto over the choice to use the audience measurement tool. There was no contract and no formal agreement between Channel 9 and the National Press Club for the broadcast.

I maintain that the exercise of control over a media broadcast signal which could influence voters on the basis of the use of a formally conducted market research study of audience engagement is an obscene and outrageous episode of censorship which reflects exceedingly poorly on the supposed independence of the National Press Club.

Ok.. I guess I could google about and find some stats to support the NO Worm case... but Im basically your typical lazy aussie bloke, so Im not going to do that. I will concede that there is a lot to support the PRO WORM argument.

'guidelines' is an agreement in principle... I wonder did any one else using the feed breach the 'guidelines'...

again, why did they not broadcast it clean, then replay it later with the worm...

I heard a snipe at Rudd on the TV did he feel the worm was rigged and why did it suddenly nose dive every time Howard spoke... Rudd bailed out of it...
Indeed it appears to be political poison, as so too did Costello... Rudd could have said something along the lines of ... People did not need a line on the screen to tell them whos arguments carried more weight and made more sense to the Australian Public... and he would have been right.

This now makes a total of 15 political comments from me... a new coyote record... lol. Oh and I linked you on my blog.

Cheers.

Um, Wiley, if viewers didn't want to see the worm they could have switched to the ABC. Or Sky News. It's a choice. As it turns out, 1.4 million out of a total audience of 2.4 million viewers chose to watch the debate with the worm on screen.

Pulling the plug on Nine was an attempt to curtail that choice. Plain and simple. An attempt which speaks volumes about the National Press Club's understanding of journalism: as an industry which controls viewers' choices, rather than inform their choices.

Nah pulling the plug on Nine was a shortsighted attempt to curtail them throwing their weight around... and yes there are consequences, but if you dont agree to guidelines, or you develop a reputation for breaking, does this then put you outside of a time honored code of practice?

Like you say, viewers knew they could switch, as did the person who pulled the plug. He knew he was not depriving the public of the debate, just of the nine coverage of it. I chose not to watch, as apparently did over 19 million other australians. The debate will be lost in the scheme of things.... by the time the people hit the poles it will be an obscure waste of air time. It was too early in the count to have any real impact, and despite that Rudd won it, I have not seen him make any gains from it... Howards team will see it off into the archives and they have plenty of time to kill its impact.

Rudd wont be able to accuse Howard of not facing him, he did that knowing he was going to lose...
It was an extremely clever strategy to do it early.

Indeed all anyone is talking about is the worm... isnt that the thing in the tequila bottle...?

Oh now I am up to 16 political comments, and the week is still young... cripes mate, wheres me beer.... by the by... my Phishing filter is going nuts every time I open your comments pages, you guys arent planting a worm are you???

Rofl... there must be a bug in your page causing this...

One last comment on this... 60 Minutes had a poo poo on the poo pooers of the worm, basically regurgitating what JJ has said above, and protesting THEIR innocence...

Its interesting that not one comment on the actual content of the debate made it onto the program. Again, Rudds inexperience is showing here, he has made very poor political gains from his win. This lack of Rudd won the debate comments on Nine, given they owe no allegances to Howard and that at the moment there is no love lost there... is evidence of this...

All anyone I have spoken to remembers of the debate, is a big fight over the worm... and many of them didnt follow up on the significance of the fight...