Comments on: Plane disaster censored from Nine News because of Qantas link

By: m

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:35:24 +0000

is this another example of Mumbrella living off News Ltd (a twitter from Punch). Maybe Hartigan is right?

By: Dodo

Dodo — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:06:22 +0000

Smoking gun,

Perhaps unlike you I don’t jave Foxtel so don’t get Sky News. I also get up early, and Nine’s is pretty much the only choice (if I want TV news instead of Radio National).

This may sound naive, but the way I see it is that the airwaves belong to the Australian people. The TV networks get to use them, and make a lot of money from it. In return they should give us the news, unedited, unbiased and unsanitised for their advertisers.

But actually I don’t blame the TV stations – they’ll make a buck where they can. It’s the regulators’ fault. News should be the one thing that can’t be sponsored.

By: smoking gun

smoking gun — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:13:27 +0000

it’s the news they send to Qantas to be played on their flights, and is just replayed at 5am so mums with restless bubs and early starting (or late finishing!) workers have something stimulating to watch, instead of shitty infomercials selling useless appliances…

It doesn’t have plane incident related stories because of that very reason, it is made FOR plane passengers… it’d freak people out if they saw other planes falling out of the sky whilst they are in that very same sky. get it?

heres a tip, don’t like it? flick over to test pattern or buy the ‘magic bullet food whizz’ for another network… no ones forcing you to watch…

By: peter armour

peter armour — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:46:09 +0000

thanks Tim.
My comments were toward those that are anti qantas no matter what and also those that have a conspiracy mindset for seemingly everthing.
As an aviation veteran of over 30 years I do get a bit tetchy about the amount of utter bollocks that is published at times.

The forum is appreciated.

Peter.

By: mumbrella

mumbrella — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:32:31 +0000

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your comments – it’s useful having the airline staff perspective.

Just to stress, I understand why an airline might choose not to show such news to its flyers.

The issue is that this bulletin was broadcast on television too – the problem being that TV viewers did not see the major story of the day becasue this show was going to be shown on Qantas too.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

By: peter armour

peter armour — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:26:42 +0000

as a further comment..
All news presented by any network is edited in some way .There are too many stories to publish at any one time to cover,some too big so they are glossed over in no detail.
So in that sense they only read/print /publish etc what they feel in newsworthy.

I’ve known passengers to panic and run for the door AFTER departure.Had aircraft come back to the gate with scared passengers .
There is a real terror for some flyers.They dont need any help being scared witless and stand by my comments earlier.

By: peter armour

peter armour — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:10:31 +0000

As an airline employee for over 20 years I’ve seen / heard of plenty of panic stricken passengers getting very edgy before departure and in flight.
The last thing these folks need is an air crash story at 30,000 ft and crapping themselves and doing something foolish endangering themselves and others.It is not uncommon.
Forget conspiracy theories.
For the sake of safety in air this kind of editing IS a good idea.

By: Mumbrella: Australian broadcaster omits air disaster from bulletin link | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:21:42 +0000

[...] Full story at this link… [...]

By: lolo

lolo — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:18:30 +0000

My apologies Mumbrella, I had jumped into the debate after only a hasty read. I agree wholeheartedly that a news service on the telly or other media should show all news, even though I stand by my argument that a news service in the pointy metal thingie can legitimately be edited.

By: CMB

CMB — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:12:15 +0000

Great piece Tim. Delightfully ironic for Nine given their recent low-level pot-shots at Seven with those annoying “Get the news first” ads bashing Channel Seven over certain stories that Nine aired the day before.

Perhaps herein lies the counter-punch for Seven execs if they decide to stoop to their rival’s level.

By: mumbrella

mumbrella — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:50:35 +0000

Hi Lolo,

Thanks for your comment, and apologies for the grizzling.

I think you may have misread the piece. We’re talking about the news that was broadcast by Nine to their TV audience.

As I said before, I’ve no issue at all with Qantas using an edited ‘flight friendly’ version on their planes. But if a broadcaster airs a programme called the news, it should contain news, not an advertiser-friendly version.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

By: lolo

lolo — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:36:09 +0000

If you did a poll of everyone sitting on a plane and asked them about their level of nervousness from a scale of one to ten, you’d find a decent proportion hitting 3 or more, and some people sitting at 5 or above – i.e., nervous. I think it’s absolutely legitimate to not agitate them further.

Why should people expect to get news when they fly anyway? I’m sure in 5 years we’ll all have constant info access at all times, so when that’s the case I’ll sit in J4 watching Nick Cave videos, and you can watch the flight in front of us plough into the sea in real time. Stuff provided by airlines doesn’t have to comply to any standards – so stop grizzling about it.

By: zoe

zoe — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:34:04 +0000

Qantas is just a big baby, with some control issues. It’s impossible to control the corporate message nowadays, and doing it just makes the brand look stupid and petulant. I think Qantas looks just that: stupid and petulant. I think the blame should be fairly and squarely on the brand. However I also think that consuming television news programs as “news” is a naive and old fashioned habit. This situation shows that audiences need to seek news that is democratic, independent (not necessarily commercial or not commercial, as I don’t think this is the issue) and not influenced by brands who are still stuck in communications strategies from last century.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:31:21 +0000

Get your hand off it Con.

It’s clearly poor journalism to skip a story of interest to your audience because of the influence of an advertiser.

And editing news because irrational people might find it disturbing is no defence either. Wishful thinking and rose coloured glasses is no way to approach news.

By: Con Frantzeskos

Con Frantzeskos — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:08:28 +0000

There’s a strange assumption here that Qantas / Nine have a monopoly on news services, and that in cutting out the reference to the crash, the population of Australia are somehow being robbed of their right to an impartial, frank and honest fourth estate. Any thought that it might distress those nervous travellers be discounted…

PLEASE.

OK, it’s not ideal, it ultimately should be up to the viewer to decide if they want to watch the news coverage of the crash, but if you’re so upset about censored news, go and find news by scouring any one of about 10,000 other readily available information sources available.

If I’m catching a flight, by the time I’ve woken up at 5:30am (radio on), jumped online while I’m having my morning coffee (400+ news and RSS feeds), jumped into a taxi (radio), checked into the airport / lounge (TV / newspapers), and got onto the plane – I’m covered. Plane time = sleep time!

However, if I am one of those nervous travellers who is sitting there in the plane, bolt upright, sweating and fidgeting about whether I’m going to reach my destination alive, then I’d prefer not to be reminded that the somewhat irrational cause of my fears has bean realised on the other side of the world.