To my Beloved ... both of you.

I've been a bit negative in my last few posts. Justifiably of course, but I feel I should balance it out with some love.

D'ya know what I love? ABC and SBS. Just when I lose faith in Australian media and media makers, I am reminded just how talented a bunch we are by switching over to our much-maligned National Broadcaster and it's not-entirely-publicly-funded friend. The new digital channels have had me wondering about the state of the nation (not to mention summer programming) and I've been switching off and - you won't believe it - reading books on the balcony to get away from my television. I know, it's disgusting. I am now only 4 or 5 shades lighter than my siblings who are not creatures of the night and who do not recoil at the slightest hint of sunshine and/or daylight.

First of all, bravo to SBS for the wonderful documentary series Immigration Nation. It was beautifully presented, informative and covered the subject matter well. The production values were stunning - considering the limited footage & photographs of early Australian migration -  the program was entertaining and not at all slow and the academics weren't just talking heads, they were warm and allowed character. I loved it and sat squinting in the darkness of my living room, trying to spy my mother on one of the arriving boats.

 image from sbs.com.au

Interestingly, when I told my mother she should be watching, her response was "What for?"

Rather than responding with "Umm, because you're in it?" - which I'm sure seems most logical, I instead told her that it might illuminate for her the plight of the asylum seekers and refugees - a topic we had been arguing about the week before. You see, my mum seems to think that fleeing a country devastated by war and arriving on Australian shores in the hope of a better future was alright 'in those days'. But now that she has been made a citizen and staked claim on this whole nation of 'ours' she feels the imaginary gates should be closed.

Yes, I will be buying her the DVD for her birthday.

While I'm thanking SBS I will reiterate my love for my favourite show, Rockwiz. Over summer we've been spoiled with Rockwiz Rewind - classic episodes introduced by the team. Brian Nankervis is one of my favourite people in the world. Not just the world of television - the world in general. He is such a warm, friendly, amicable fellow. He needs to be made an official National Treasure or some such thing. And Julia, oh Julia. If there is a sexier bundle of intelligence, spark and wit than Ms Julia Zemiro I've not seen it. All hail Rockwiz, may it - like rock'n'roll - never die.

Now to dear Aunty.

ABC News 24's coverage of the floods, fires and cyclone far surpassed any of the commercial station's attempts at quality reporting. Granted, channels Nine and Seven sometimes had better footage - but when you're willing to put your staff in dangerous situations even though the authorities have expressly advised against it - you're bound to get a better shot of rapidly-moving-brown-water than the broadcaster who respects its staff (and viewers) enough to keep them safe and informed and not pander to those wanting to see disaster-porn. 

~~ deep breath ~~

A very good job in very trying circumstances. Kudos to ABC News 24.

I got to watch the film Bran Nue Dae for the first time a few weeks ago. It was on ABC2 the same night that Ten aired its final Oprah special (followed by Baz Luhrmann's Australia- good grief).

I thank ABC2 for airing it that particular night. When my will to live had almost been sucked entirely dry and the strong urge to shove giant, West Australian pearls up the collective arses of the baying crowd at the Opera House was almost too much to bear - I was soothed by the catchy tunes and wise-cracking joy of Rachel Perkins' lovely little ditty. What a sweet, unassuming bundle of joy. 

Speaking of bundles of joy, Tony Jones returned with Q&A last Monday. Oh Tony, we missed you. - And you can take that as a comment. Monday nights haven't felt right without Australian Story, Four Corners, Jonathan Holmes on Media Watch and Q&A. It makes little difference to me what the stories are about or who the panelists are. They are all great programs. Entertaining and well executed. Hoorah for Monday nights.

Following from Monday, it seems once again that I have to cram my early-week playdates into Tuesday, because one night of freedom and I am locked in to ABC1 again. Hello Wednesday night.

Wednesday night has always been a crowd-pleaser on ABC. Some of Australia's best television has graced the schedule in recent years; Both Chris Lilley's We Can be Heroes and Summer Heights High, three series of the wonderful The Librarians, Lowdown, The Gruen Transfer, regular crowd-pleaser Spicks & Specks, and The Chaser's various incarnations.

Last week I was a bit worried about the fate of Wednesday nights. Who knew what we were in for with Adam Hills in Gordon St Tonight? Let alone the very high expectations that had been growing on social media sites for Marieke Hardy's brainchild Laid. I had decided to expect very little (particularly after the horror that was Ben Elton Live from Planet Earth) and was pleasantly surprised.

Adam Hills is a likeable fellow. He likes himself quite a bit too, a characteristic which in some people makes you want to beat them about the head with a blunt object, but with Hills, is quite forgiveable (for now, anyway). Episode one was slightly self-indulgent but as with most 'episode ones' the aim is to introduce characters and make everyone comfortable. I think Hills introduced himself and his new set very well (even though many viewers know him already from Spicks & Specks and his stand-up). The guests were great, Hannah Gadsby was great, the crowd was great, the jokes and segments were great and Hills made everything seem easy - which is so very hard to do. I liked. I hope I keep liking.

And finally Laid. I would have preferred to be tied to a pew at a Hillsong gathering where Kate Alexa Gudinski was performing Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time* than in Marieke Hardy's shoes last Wednesday night. The amount of pressure that was on her and her team to 'come up with the goods' had reached boiling point by 9:25pm. Not only had the ABC been promoting the show to within an inch of its life but social media had created a frenzy around it too. I was imagining Hardy with a cold compress on her forehead, (turns out she had undies on her forehead - jolly good show!) a port in her hand and fingernails chewed to little stubs of raw flesh.

Well, she needn't have worried - or rather, I needn't have worried for her. Laid set itself up very well. Again, it had the 'episode one' task of getting everything in place; introducing characters, plot devices and core relationships - and still managed to include some real laugh-out-loud moments - no easy task with all that other business going on. Episode ones can often disappoint for this very reason. But Laid didn't. Hoorah! And I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the series. Hoorah! And Abe Foresythe is a babe. Hoorah!

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

And so my love-fest comes to an end. Thank you ABC and SBS. I always had faith in you, but thank you for restoring my faith in us, and them.

Much love, M.

 

 

* Organised Religion irks me. Fake cheer irks me. Hillsong very much irks me. Kate Alexa is not a very good singer. Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time is bad. Any performance of it would be bad. I think it's safe to assume that these factors combined would make for a very unpleasant evening.

 

What did you think I would blog about?

Hello stranger!

You may have noticed I've been on a slight hiatus over here while I focussed on a few other projects. Well those are now DONE *jumps with joy*. I missed you, really.

So here I find myself footloose and fancy-free and what just happens to occur on my beloved Q&A?

Shoegate! What joy! what fun! A shoe-throwing incident at our own, civilised ABC!

Right, enough of the exclamation marks. If you missed it, former PM John Winston Howard had the Q&A panel to himself last night on the eve of his memoirs, Lazarus Rising being released. Besides speaking about himself in the third person, avoiding a question from David Hicks with a bout of nationalism and again reiterating the difference between being 'sorry' and showing 'regret' - Howard dodged a pair of shoes;

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has wished for Howard to suffer a blow to the head at one time or another (or at all times, particularly between 1996 and 2007), but I would have preferred if Mr Shoe-thrower kept his smelly sneakers on his feet.

It was only moments before the shoe throwing incident that I was getting annoyed at Howard's response to a video question from Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. He avoided answering the question by stating what a wonderful democracy we have here in Australia where such a question can be posed. I thought he seemed smug - intimating that this freedom we all enjoy had something to do with him. Perhaps he should have utilised that freedom to actually answer some of the questions posed to him, but alas, it was the same old spin from days gone by - no wisdom in retrospect here. 

So what of the shoe-throwing? Whilst I do love a spectacle, it irked me. Firstly, the shoe incident is the only thing being talked about - not the reason behind it. The civilian deaths in the Iraq War are rarely reported, discussed or acknowledged in mainstream media. Let alone the high incidences of suicide and mental illness in the youth of Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Shoe-man was justifiably angry, justifiably outraged, but by resorting to violence, his argument was reduced to a joke. Granted, he was seemingly already a joke; after his initial question a tweet was shown on-screen referring to him as a 'long haired freak' - which I thought was unnecessary. The #qanda Twitter stream was full of nasty comments about the man's appearance as what I would describe as Socialist Alternative Chic. So what would the reaction have been if the shoe-thrower had been a well-dressed, clean-cut, armani-wearing businessman? Or a kindly old lady with a blue-rinse and pashmina shawl? 

Looking like an unwashed hippie is a surefire way to not be taken seriously. Even worse, when people like him do stupid things in the name of us 'leftists' he makes us all look bad. I shower, I have clean hair and I am disgusted by Australia's involvement in the Iraq War. I am disgusted by John Howard, his memoirs, his 'legacy' and his continued ignorance and washing of hands over casualties suffered in the name of imaginary WMDs. 

Q&A is a fantastic program. There's nothing like it on Australian television. Yes, it is more entertaining when there is a bit of argy-bargy, but like Tony Jones, I was embarrassed by the shoe-throwing. I wanted today's reaction to the program to focus on Howard's cowardly responses to the questions of reconciliation, Weapons of Mass Destruction and David Hicks*. 

Instead, we're all talking about the 'long haired freak' and his stinky shoes. We're even hearing Howard's own favourite word being tossed around; unAustralian.

~ ~ ~

Finally, allow me some self-indulgence. Of all my Q&A tweeting over the past year, I finally had a stroke of genius with this little ditty;

Oh what fun to have my five minutes of tweety-fame! Unfortunately, I was too slow for a potential on-screen showing *sigh*, but still, it was fun to be trending for a moment or so.

* yes, I understand the irony that I too, am writing about the shoes    

The quandary of Q&A

The ABC are usually the first to jump on new technology. ABC Online is full of award-winning feature sites and exciting innovations. ABC2 and Dig music were the first of their kind in the move to digital media. The ABC's iPhone and iPad apps, ABC iView and ABC Now make the national broadcaster's content accessible almost anywhere, at almost any time, on almost any platform.  

Last year ABC Managing Director, Mark Scott, made a speech to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association detailing his vision for ABC Online to become a digital “town square”. Scott described ABC Online as a place where audiences could speak and be heard, listen and learn. 

In 2002 the ABC tag-line changed from “It’s Your ABC” to “Everybody’s ABC” - a precursor to the development of a community-based ABC, where the audience is no longer a single entity watching or listening but a part of a wider group with a real opportunity to be involved.

The ABC's social media services can now be found on one page, with links to Facebook, newsletters, iView, YouTube and Twitter, amongst others.

But it's Twitter that I want to talk about today. Ahh, my beloved Twitter. There are many ABC folk on Twitter - as you can see from lists such as this one by Daniel Taylor (@Dt_downunder). 

The ABC's panel show Q&A is an interesting example of the national broadcaster being first to test the waters of new technology. For a while now the #qanda Twitter hashtag has come alive on Monday nights - with a vibrant community of smart, passionate, sometimes hilarious, sometimes ill-informed, sometimes idiotic but always engaged community of people commenting on the proceedings on-screen. 

I'm one of them. I watch Q&A on the TV with my laptop at the ready and my phone on stand-by. I love the interactive aspect of the show - some of the comments on Twitter are more intelligent than what the panelists have to say and often the Chaser boys and members of the Crikey team can be found making hilarious observations that are hurriedly re-tweeted.

At the beginning of the program, host Tony Jones advises us that we can stream the show online, ask questions via SMS or through the website, follow on Twitter or through the random selection of tweets shown on-screen. 

Why the tweets on-screen?

Presumably those interested in following the Twitter conversation are ... well ... following the Twitter conversation. For others I've spoken to, who aren't interested in Twitter (I know, they're crazy), the on-screen tweets are a distraction. And why select those tweets that do go on-air at random? Many of the tweets are irrelevant, inaccurate or pointless observations on what the panelists are wearing. Even worse, that unholiest of unholies, some of them have spelling or grammatical errors!*

Wouldn't it be better to show the most re-tweeted tweets? At least that would be giving the television audience an idea of what comments are popular in the twitter-verse. Or how about the top-tweeters; those people that comment most often with the hashtag (- could be just as pointless as random; just because someone speaks often, doesn't mean they have anything interesting to say). 

Yes, some of the tweets on-screen have been brilliant and it is a thrill to see one's "tweety-friends" get their comments up, I just wonder if it's necessary, and if so, if it can be better managed.

The ABC is again striving to be the first to use new technologies to innovate its content, but has it jumped on the bandwagon unnecessarily? It's nice to have so much ABC content on Twitter, both for news and for commentary, but maybe having a presence on Twitter is enough - and having the tweets on-screen is overkill.

There's also the point to be made, which I have made before, that just because someone has an opinion, doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be broadcast in the "town-square". One tweeter felt it necessary to point out that "young ladies shouldn't chew gum" after an audience member asked a question - and his idiotic comment was put on-screen.

So what do you think? Love it or hate it?       

* I may or may not be being a tad pedantic due to my underlying bitterness at not having my tweets put on-screen.