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FTA-TV Bushfire Coverage!

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Pathetic episode IMO. Barely scraped the surface.
 
This morning coverage has been fairly ordinary. They are seriously running out of people to interview or replay clips again.
 

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Hopefully today will be the closure from a media intrusion standpoint (unless more fires emerge). Aside from reporters wearing fire jackets and helmets with network logos plastered all over them, the main thing that disappointed me about the coverage was the fact a lot of media from outside Victoria had to fly down and stick their noses in it aswell.

You'd see a main anchor from an outside state's bulletin trying to mix in, not to mention reporters from all over the country reporting about it - when the network execs could have just as easily taken the reports filed from the Melbourne reporters.
 
Some people just like to whinge.
 
I agree with you Tess......too cringeworthy for my liking....and just to be more controversial, why do we have to have aboriginals and didgeridoos in everything?..

Before any of you condemn me, I have cried buckets over the heartache of this tragedy..I just feel the memorial service is way over the top for a lot of people to get into..

We average aussies are not into "over the top stuff" IMO
 
I was expecting that they would show a montage of the the people who were lost or at least read out the names of the known victims. I thought a memorial was actually remembering those who lost thier lives, not jsut what happened.
 
Thank god for pay and pay TV, I am sick of the media exploitation of this terrible situation. The only good thing to come out of today's day of mourning is that the media will now get out of the affected areas and let these poor people start rebuilding their lives without somebody shoving a camera and microphone in their face and saying "How do you feel?"
 
Bombers_Forever said:
I was expecting that they would show a montage of the the people who were lost or at least read out the names of the known victims. I thought a memorial was actually remembering those who lost thier lives, not jsut what happened.
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I thought it was tasteful and not long winded.

FYI 4 Corners on Monday ran a list of all the known victims in alpha order at the end of the show...the tears flowed at my place then, more than during the previous week.
 

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Gabbie said:
FYI 4 Corners on Monday ran a list of all the known victims in alpha order at the end of the show...
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60 Minutes just did something similar showing photos of some of the people who died backed by some haunting music.
It was beautifully done and heartbreaking.
 
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,25091344-7582,00.html
Rush to report on fires leads to flashes of anger




NEWS MAKERS: Gary Hughes | February 23, 2009

Article from: The Australian
THE first anger among bushfire survivors began appearing last Tuesday, three days after Black Saturday's firestorms devastated Victoria. It grew steadily worse.
Because of finding myself in the unique position of being both a journalist and victim, I was slower to rile. I kept trying to see and justify the events from the media's side of the fence.
It took two days longer before I was both angry and, at times, ashamed of my profession. But I was also proud of some of the media coverage I saw.
Thanks to living in the wrong place at the wrong time, I've been given a rare chance to watch the media in full flight, from the perspective of one of those it was chasing.
There are lessons, I think, that can and should be learnt.
The overwhelming cause of anger among fellow survivors was the media's disregard for their right to be treated and respected as individuals.
Time after time survivors told me of being confronted by cameras or tape recorders already rolling, or photographers firing off shots as they first approached, often when the victims were at their most vulnerable.
Many told me they understood the media was doing a job. They also understood the essential role the media was playing in conveying the enormity of the disaster and human suffering, and the importance of that in the relief effort.
What angered them was simply not being asked first if they wanted to take part. Arguably no one who had gone through the trauma they had was in a position to provide informed consent, but most told me they would have agreed to co-operate, if only they had been asked.
Losing your house, your friends and your neighbours doesn't mean you also lose your right to be treated with respect. Please, ask before rolling cameras or tapes. And if someone says no, don't press the issue.
As a journalist and after consciously putting myself at the forefront by writing a first-person account of my family's experiences, I was more able than others to make informed decisions about providing interviews and setting limits on the emotions they explored.
Even so, each interview took an unexpectedly heavy emotional toll. And the demands for interviews, from local and interstate radio stations, television and media from as far afield as Canada and Britain, were ceaseless in those first days after Black Saturday. Perhaps I did more than was wise, because I could empathise with the reporter or producer desperate to get the story. And I, too, thought each interview might help the broader community, both here and overseas, to understand the magnitude of what had happened. Perhaps telling their story is cathartic for many victims.
Retelling it over and over isn't. It drains you unbelievably quickly of the little remaining energy and emotion you need to face each day.
Tears might make great vision. But remember, they are also evidence of unbearable pain and grief.
I shudder to think of the toll such repeated interviews took on those whose first involvement with the media came in those dark and turbulent hours and days after the disaster, or as they stood vulnerable in the ashes of what was once their lives.
There was also anger at media helicopters flying over police roadblocks to film burnt-out homes or, worse, landing in burnt-out paddocks.
We knew our home was gone, but it was still a shock when an aerial shot of it popped up unexpectedly on one of the nightly news services.

The more than 200 deaths the firestorms brought on February 7 left their mark on all survivors. If you lived in those small communities devastated by the fires, you knew people who died. That's a given. They were neighbours. They were friends. In the worst cases, they were family.

We lost friends and near neighbours.

We came very, very close to dying ourselves. We spent four days listed as missing. I can assure you there is nothing nice about dying like that.

A number of media outlets arguably overstepped the mark in reporting the way people died. Even this newspaper acknowledged one such incident in a letter it published on February 14 written on behalf of grieving relatives.

The public doesn't need to know the last desperate words, the last moments of sheer terror of those who died. Don't strip the dead of their dignity.

That is not to say some stories of death have not helped relatives. My colleague Milanda Rout reported sensitively in The Australian on the death at Flowerdale of badly injured 83-year-old Bob Harrop, surrounded by neighbours and friends to comfort him during his final hours. In a follow-up story, Bob's family were grateful to know he did not die alone.

But the media should also be aware that its tight "cycle" of reporting a disaster is totally out of synchronisation with the reality facing victims.

During that first week, the predictable cycle began with horror and disbelief, followed by the harrowing tales of survivors, followed by the heroes, followed by the death knocks, followed by the volunteers, followed by the returns to gutted homes, followed by the uplifting, optimistic stories of plans to rebuild lives, houses and communities.

Even I, despite my inside knowledge of the way the media cycle runs ("we've had enough rubble shots"), found myself unconsciously being swept along by those demands, trying to provide uplifting quotes by the following weekend.

I could see other numbed victims also playing the expected role of stoic survivors by week's end, obediently delivering the same optimism for the cameras about getting on with their lives and rebuilding.

The sad reality is that the media didn't seem to be interested in hearing the truth: that after a week the pain is getting worse, not better; that most victims haven't been able to even begin to grasp what has happened, let alone start moving on with their lives; and that even deeper despair lies ahead. Victims do resent it when the media cycle moves on in search of new stories, leaving them and their pain to slip off the public agenda. They feel abandoned and forgotten.

And my greatest shame as a journalist came after those disgraceful media scrums at some of the relief centres, as camera crews and photographers jostled to get the best shots of distraught survivors being united with loved ones they thought had died.

The media will be put to further test in the coming days with endless rounds of funerals. Please, let people grieve in privacy and peace unless they make a genuinely informed decision to do otherwise.

Exactly a week after the firestorm destroyed our house, we returned to the ruins to find and bury the remains of all but one of our beloved pets, which we were forced to leave behind as we fled our exploding home.

In what looked suspiciously like an attempt to get clear, close-up footage, a helicopter swept in low, flying tight, steeply angled circles over what we still consider to be our home.

I keep trying to convince myself it can't have been the media.
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Getting tired of how the media once again are talking up today as a bad Fire Day. Sure we could have a few fires flare up, but the media are almost in raptures with anticipation.
 

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