Posts Tagged ‘Vanity Fair’

1. Has our media diet become unhealthy or are we being fed what we are asking for?

   Published on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

   Is there a disturbing trend towards tabloid style news items taking precedence over the real news?  Just a few weeks ago the possibility that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had broken up was in our six pm news bulletins.  Don’t get me wrong I have been known to read the odd gossip magazine but a good diet is all about balance, variety and moderation. 

   Dee Dee Myers’ piece in Vanity Fair discusses trivialisation of news as she examines the Tiger Woods story.

   The entire country stops for Tiger yet when President Obama makes more important announcements the country barely pauses for breath. Her article concludes with the fact that finally the National Enquirer has been deemed eligible for a Pulitzer Prize. Now that is real news.

   The Tiger Woods saga highlights the potential crisis we are facing in the world of news – that of tabloid style stories stopping the real news stories taking center stage. Rosemary McLeod’s column in the Sunday Star Times was right on the money.   

   Today’s Toyota story relating to their faulty vehicle accelerators is as important as the collapse of Enron, yet was second or third in the morning news items.  The bigger story was a claim that Air New Zealand has a culture of excess drinking despite facts to the contrary being communicated clearly by their CEO. (Declaration of interest here, we do provide PR support to Air New Zealand.)

   Given Tiger’s speech and Robin Brooke’s Close Up interview, is Performance Media a new art form?  For audiences this is something we can watch and critique more easily than substantive news? In Tiger’s case we seem entirely focused on how he, and his team, is handling this crisis and how genuine the apology is.  All know his speech was scripted, rehearsed and stage managed. 

   If the media and public know this, then who is to blame – why did the media cover it?  For the simple reason they knew they could get an audience because it is just the sort of thing we love to watch.  In today’s commercially competitive environment what will sell is what will make the news.

   How can we make sure our media diet is balanced without it being so boring we simply gorge on junk or become undernourished and miss out on essential news and information that could be more relevant to our lives?

   

2. Media training lessons from another country

   Published on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

   A propensity to blame others and our environment while avoiding personal responsibility has become a national trait. It now appears however, that we do not have this on our own…

   We are all familiar with the allegations of corruptions and the dalliances of the 72-year-old Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his apparent shameless predilection for what Italian call “veline”.  This is a term that has come to mean young girls with no talent (but other endowments) except for appearing on television.

   Well in his hour of need, the philandering PM has adopted a media strategy that takes some beating.  Firstly, he uses his lawyer as his third-party advocate (this man is also a parliamentarian); who, secondly, explains that all the allegations are flawed because they are against him – and that’s just anti-Berlusconi-ism!

   We know this because there is this fascinating article about Berlusconi’s scandals in the September issue of Vanity Fair entitled, “All Broads Lead to Rome”.

   Let’s look at some of the key messages in response to Vanity Fair’s questions.

   His separation from his wife?  Response: He still loves his wife. Perhaps if he was able to involve his wife more in his life.  But this is not so easy, because he is a very busy man, and also a man with a strong character.

   His relationship with 18-year-old (barely) Noemi? Response: He has a long relationship with her family. It is common for people to remember things differently.

   The allegation that a British lawyer took bribes from Berlusconi, in exchange for giving false testimony in an investigation into Berlusconi corruption.  Response: But you see he was the main witness, so that must be proof that he was not given money.

   If only dealing with our media was that simple.