NEW IDEA DAVID BAIN EXCLUSIVE

TV ONE have just shot an interview with me for tonight's news, about the David Bain exclusive in this week's New Idea magazine, and whether or not it is a good scoop.

In one sense it is - it's what journos call a "good get" and all of our media outlets would have been keen to have it. After all, Bain is someone once convicted of killing five members of his family, who has been found not guilty after spending many years in prison. New Idea editor Hayley McLarin is a good and hard-working women's magazine editor. I don't doubt that she will have worked her contacts and done the necessary groundwork to secure the interview, but of course it is also more than likely that money changed hands. Today's Sunday newspapers are speculating that the price for this two-part story could have been as much as $50,000. That seems a lot for these tough financial times in journalism, but at $25,000 for each of the two parts of the story, it may well be possible. Paying this kind of money for big exclusives is certainly not unheard of for our weekly women's magazines.

So because many readers will be suspicious that they may be reading a piece of chequebook journalism, the scoop is compromised. More savvy readers may well ask themselves - if Bain was paid for the article did that give him control over what questions were asked and what was written? Did he get to vet the questions in advance and did he get copy approval of the final piece? It is certainly a very soft story - there are no questions about why Bain thinks his father killed his family and how he now feels about that, and there is nothing about why some of the forensic evidence seems so incriminating to Bain junior. Of course I haven't seen next week's part two of the interview yet, but I'd be surprised if it contains those harder questions. In the end it is a feature piece for a women's magazine.

I don't know what Bain's motives were for doing the story. They may have been purely financial - no doubt he needs the money after so many years in jail. He may also want to tell his side of the story. But if the latter was the case, picking a soft women's magazine to do so probably doesn't help his cause. The roughly 50 per cent of New Zealanders who believe he is not guilty will no doubt still think so after reading the New Idea piece. But conversely the other 50 per cent who have misgivings about the not guilty verdict aren't likely to change their minds either. In fact their opinion of David Bain may worsen if they feel that he has now profited from a terrible crime.

If Bain had allowed himself to be interviewed for a serious current affairs media outlet like TV ONE's Sunday programme or The Listener, and if he'd had some convincing answers to the tough questions, that might have done more for his reputation and P.R. But I guess it was always unlikely that he would take that path, especially bearing in mind that it is mainly the women's magazines who are known to pay for stories in this country.

So to answer the original question - yes it is a good scoop for New Idea, and it will no doubt sell some magazines for them. But it is a compromised scoop, and I doubt that it will be a P.R. triumph for David Bain and his supporters either.

HYSTERICAL MEDIA AND A LOST OASIS

In my commentating on media coverage of the Napier seige story, I remarked upon the sensational tone of a lot of the coverage. Since then we've had the Christine Rankin and Melissa Lee sagas also reported on at fever pitch. And maybe it all began with the Tony Veitch case, which attracted an extraordinary amount of frenzied coverage that still festers on.

A journalist friend of mine, Zara Potts, remarked on Twitter that she felt our media was getting more hysterical every day. I think I agree with her. I've never been a purist in my media commentating. I accept that in these commercial times, there will be lighter stories, and showbiz stories and a sometimes populist approach to journalism. But at the moment things feel a little out of control.

Is it the result of increasingly tough economic times for our media outlets, and the added pressure of mainstream media fighting something of a losing battle with the online world? Are we breeding a new wave of young journalists who think that breathless sensationalism is the normal way to go? It's getting scary. If someone with fairly populist taste like myself is getting turned off by it all, I hate to think how people with more classic taste in journalism are feeling.

Sadly, one little oasis of calm in our local media landscape made its final appearance last Sunday. Finlay McDonald and Andrew Patterson's excellent Sunday Live show on Radio Live has ended to make way for sports programming. The show was a fine mix of pop culture and current affairs. It was informative and entertaining - intelligent but never elitist. It was a soothing Sunday morning listen and I will miss it. I hope Radio Live has plans for it to come back in some form or other.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE NAPIER SIEGE

The Napier siege has been a huge news story and a lot of journalists have done a lot of hard work, in some cases in quite scary circumstances. As I have said before in my media commentating, we tend to be reasonably good at on-the-spot news reporting in New Zealand, and coverage of this awful incident was generally strong.

But one thing I would criticise is the rather sensational tone that crept into a lot of the coverage. In these very competitive commercial times for our media outlets that does seem to be the way of things - to be sensational - and the language a lot of reporters used was rather over-the-top at times.

A mate of mine who knows a thing or two about guns and the military - from a historian/collector point of view, I hasten to add - says not only was a lot of the reporters' language sensational, in some cases it was also inappropriate and inaccurate.

He says: "They talked about the gunman firing a 'volley of shots' at police. A volley is fired by a number of shooters firing at the same time. What the gunman fired was a 'burst' or 'series" of shots."

The New Zealand Herald made an interesting call for its Saturday morning edition when it came out that morning with the banner headline Gunman Dead - something that was not confirmed at that time. Maybe a question mark at the end of the headline might have been a better, more accurate option.

Talkback radio has been an interesting part of the media coverage of the siege. On the plus side, it was an opportunity for some really strong and immediate first-hand eyewitness reports as events unfolded, and also a good chance for people who knew him to paint a picture of the gunman. But on the downside, as usual there were all the same old armchair experts who knew what they would do if they were there and doing the job of the police. Yeah right.

It was a hell of a situation, and it seems to me the cops handling it were doing okay. Especially when they were knee-deep in journalists at the time!

TV NEWS RATINGS

It's not the done thing these days - in sales and marketing terms - for TV networks to refer to 5+ ratings (that is, all viewers five and over). Somewhere along the line the advertising world decided that big bulk audience didn't matter and demographics, particularly younger ones, were where it was at. But despite that, I've always been surprised that TVNZ doesn't make more of the fact that its news programmes always have more viewers in 5+ than TV 3's news shows do. They've tried all sorts of fancy tag-lines on their promotional billboards over the years, but never the basic "New Zealand's most watched news." So I was intrigued yesterday to see a small, simple advertisement placed in the Business section of the NZ Herald just quietly stating the 5+ viewing figures for all of the main news shows across the two big networks in March. The ad didn't have a note on it to say who had placed it, but I can only assume it was TVNZ, though the subtlety was unusual compared to the network's usual efforts. And of course the rarely quoted 5+ figures show a very rosy picture for the TVNZ shows - quite a different picture than that painted by the many news releases TV 3 puts out talking up its ratings success in News and Current Affairs. These many news releases play with ratings data shamelessly, and if TVNZ has finally been driven to a bit of subtle rebuttal - good on them.

For the record, here are the numbers that appeared in the ad:

TVNZ TV 3
NZI Business 38,100 ASB Business 12,440
Breakfast 113,830 Sunrise 21,980
ONE News Midday 93,890 3 News at 12 29,600
ONE News 548,580 3 News 303,670
Close Up 456,990 Campbell Live 177,960
Tonight 164,200 Nightline 138,210

KEVIN SMITH TRIBUTE

As well as my media commentating and executive producing, I have recently taken up the position of Content Director of NZ On Screen. NZ On Screen is the NZOA-funded website that is charged with acquiring and showcasing New Zealand television and film content going right back to the beginning of the industry. The website is great - there's already a lot of good content there and it is being added to all the time. And we've just launched a new feature where you can access a collection of titles from one home page button. We can use this to celebrate the work of a significant performer or producer, or to mark an occasion like ANZAC Day.

Our first featured collection is a tribute to the late actor Kevin Smith. It went up on the site to mark his birthday on March 16 and will be there for around six weeks. The tribute features television and film work from Smith, as well as written pieces by friends and colleagues such as James Griffin, Michael Hurst and Geoff Dolan.

The collection has come together very well and shows what a versatile and appealing performer Smith was, and what a terribly sad loss his early death was. It feels like there would have been so much more to come.

If you would like to have a look at the Kevin Smith collection, or anything else on NZ On Screen, go to www.nzonscreen.com

A CORO ST FAVE BOWS OUT

The episode of Coronation St where long-time favourite character Vera Duckworth died was watched by 760,400 people when it screened here last Friday night - up from the usual average of 530,000. When the tear-jerker episode screened in Britain a year ago, almost 12.5 million people watched it. As is always the case with Coro St, when there's a big event to stage, they do it well. Bill Tarmey, who plays Vera's husband Jack, was just right in his reaction to her death. It was a very moving piece of tele. Vera was played by Liz Dawn, who is retiring due to ill-health. Her portrayal of her larger-than-life Coro alter ego will be missed.

ROBERT BRUCE R.I.P.

Long-time agent Robert Bruce's sudden passing is a very sad loss for the television and film industry. Robert was one of the true gentlemen of the business. I had a lot of dealings with him when I was running TVNZ's internal production unit, as he represented many of our top presenters as well as actors. Even though we were haggling over his clients' pay, our discussions were always friendly and enjoyable. Robert got great deals for his clients, but producers like myself didn't come way hating him or never wanting to deal with his talent again (and believe me some agents can have that affect on you!).

Robert's business style was always to be amiable and respectful. He was very good at his job. I came to be extremely fond of him, as I think did everyone in our very strange and imperfect screen industry. His death was sudden and unexpected. He was such a fit, strong, larger-than-life man. I couldn't believe it when I first heard of his passing, and I still feel a bit in shock.

Robert's funeral on Thursday was incredibly sad, but also really lovely. I've never seen so many actors and showbiz personalities in the same place at the same time. It showed the mark of the man and the big loss that is felt. Jackie Clarke and Frankie Stevens made our spines tingle with their acapella version of Amazing Grace, Tem Morrison made us laugh with his eulogy then made us cry when he led a rousing haka around Robert's coffin, bagpipes played, and SPCA dogs howled. It was a heart-felt and heart-breaking send-off.

R.I.P. Robert. You showed us all how the business side of show business should be done.