I guess I, like most people, watched “The Great Escape” interview last night about the two Beaconsfield miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb. My overall sense of feeling is one of being “under whelmed” by the interview plus there’s a small amount of commercial scepticism to throw in. Why? I don’t know… there isn’t one major thing but a couple of things thrown together.
Firstly, Tracey Grimshaw. I have always respected her on camera demeanour and have thought that she is a very good journo and sincere in her approach (an insincere example is Mike Munro or Big Eddie himself). However, whoever advised her to have plastic surgery / botox should be shot. She looked like she was melting under the TV lights. Her right side of her lip looked about ready to burst in an oily slick of molten silicon. One thing I have said to people and I am yet to be proved wrong – plastic surgery does nobody any benefit and you always look worse off.
Then there is Todd & Brant themselves. I can’t be too critical because up until a month or so ago they were honest joe working miners in a backwater of Tasmania and have now been thrown into the spotlight. But it irritated me greatly that Todd Russell kept referring to “the Wife” and he seemed very much the dominant personality of the two to the extent that it seems as though Brant was a bit player in the process. Look, I cant be critical of those guys and I wish them the best of luck with their fortune (by which I mean good fortune to have survived and good fortune from interview fees).
Now onto the issue of fees. It’s a free market and supply and demand dictates that those guys have been able to command a significant amount of remuneration and I heard on the radio this morning they are flying to the US to do a series of talkshows. Good luck to them. But seriously Channel 9? What were you thinking by slipping into your “Still The One” promo during the interview that you’re “not ambulance chasers” (cut to David Koch getting into one of the miner ambulances) and that your promotional graphics include the Channel 7 logo being punted? It was very crass. You cant tell me that Eddie McGuire is completely innocent? That he legitimately went to Beaconsfield when it was all over to just “say g’day?” Bullshit, he was “chasing an ambulance” so to speak but did it on the sly after the guys had been reunited with there mates in a pub. It’s sick and its cheap and crass. The honest truth is that those people with Foxtel rarely watch any free to air TV. I’d say FoxSports, Disney Channel and the like are doing quite nicely thank you very much and as Foxtel becomes more prevalent in Australian homes, well the free to air networks will be fighting over the scraps. It’s a long way off but they had better start being more sincere and genuine and factual rather than cheap and hysterically self-promoting. Yes, it was a story of national significance, but no need to carry on like idiots because its on Channel 9 and not Channel 7.
The last gripe was it was a little bit repetitive and they kept going over old ground but used little footage from the rescuers or the Mine Manager Michael (??) Mill. It was clear that they had gathered those guys into a room together but only used one brief snippet from the explosive expert and everything else stayed on the cutting room floor… but they did replay a couple of responses re-edited slightly. Again, Channel 9 thinking their viewing public are idiots.
Anyways, good luck to those guys and I hope they give some of their proceeds to the family of Larry Knight.
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