A triumphant night of Masterchef coverage at Telegraph Towers

and then there was the herald sun, jumping the gun last week, announcing chris getting booted off a half hour before it actually aired:

http://twitpic.com/aix0x

at least *they* got it right…

Huh..I can see them announcing the wrong winner early. But the quotes? Wow… must be some heads rolling at Tele towers this morning..

By the way, did anyone else notice the dress the female host (you know, the boring one that repeats everyone else’s statements) was wearing? More of a corset…

Wow – I can’t believe they stuck the quotes in too. It is one thing having multiple stories ready to roll, but surely you would leave the quotes blank until they actually said something.

Do they really think the reader is that thick? That is poor….

Channel 10 obviously provided the outlets with quotes for either scenario so they could have both articles complete and ready to go.

Either that or they are statements she made in a different context – they dont actually comment on winning. If that is the case thats poor form from the Tele.

And the “traditional Media” are concerned that Blogs and social media are proliferating poor journalism in terms of content accuracy?

That’s hilarious

I was a little surprised when i saw the DT story about 15 mins after MCA finished last night. I was a bit more surprised to see Poh’s quotes, and even more surprised to see Julie’s congratulatory message to Poh.

Then I saved the page and sent it to Media Watch before DT took the story down and replaced it with an amended story (with the same posting time of 8.57pm).

Gold

The news that a media outlet writes two stories covering two possible scenarios is nothing earth shattering – but the fact that the story contained quotes from a happy winner and gracious runner-up is the big deal here. Where did these quotes come from? A Channel 10 press release? From the contestants themselves? (“Just pretend you won – how do you feel?”) or were they just made up by the Tele?

Where ever they came from, this is a huge eye-opener on how our media outlets “create” the news.

We might only be talking about a television show in this instance, but if this is how “real” news is gathered, then the Tele has some very serious questions to answer.

Hi Rhys,
As per Louise’s email. I am keen to explore what job opportunities are available at the moment. Are you be around to catch up for a coffee and chat in the near future.

Thanks
John

I see a Mediawatch opener coming up.

Classic – a few heads will be rolling.

Hmm John, think you may be commenting in the wrong window there buddy.

Why are people surprised that the Daily Telegraph journo’s are reporting inaccurate news stories? Don’t they do it on a daily basis

@AC – Yes they do, but this is the first time we have proof!

Hi, this is Kathy Lipari, Online Editor for The Daily Telegraph.

The story was posted due to a technical error. It was up for less than ten minutes. There was good reason why two stories with two outcomes existed in the first place. As with every reality show where the winner is kept secret, news organisations need to prepare themselves for either eventuality. And so on Friday we interviewed both Poh and Julie who were asked to answer as if they had won and as if the other had won. This is where the quotes came from – we did not make them up. We have apologised for the error.

Thanks Kathy, appreciate the response.

Much respect to Kathy Lipari for the response from The Daily Telegraph.

Good to see a straightforward answer.

Kathy, I appreciate that there was a production error but that doesn’t make what the Telegraph did any less palatable. You still had a journalist sit down with contestants and conduct a pretend interview with all parties in on the deception. The quotes were not genuine, and they still aren’t genuine even now that the show has aired.

I fear that this represents the tip of the iceberg as far as news gathering in this country is concerned – not just at the Tele, but all news outlets. The fact that a television program can orchestrate such a charade and there being NOT ONE media outlet questioning the arrangement is of great concern to the Australian public.

If this is what you are willing to do for Channel Ten, what are you prepared to do for governments and other corporations? Do commercial arrangements dictate the way news is reported? These are the big questions that your little “production error” asks and is something that the media consuming public really need answered.

If this was what Hartigan was talking about “original content” (http://mumbrella.com.au/news-l.....ginal-7294) then I would prefer the less-than-original content that non-news websites serve 🙂

Go online newspapers!

Agree with Simon and Sully. Kudos to Kathy for the response from the Daily Telegraph.

I love reading blogs but when i want the truth i look to the traditional media for accuracy. I think its a huge mistake to try for the exclusive or the to be first with the story at the expense of accuracy.

I understand Kathy’s position and the pressures that the larger organizations are under to try and deliver the news faster than the blogs but surely thier reputation for accuracy is more important. Disappointing.

Yeah, thanks Kathy.

Masterchef contestants will no doubt be well trained in how to extrapolate on how they would have felt/would be feeling, if X was going to happen.

After all, throughout this entire show they’ve had to describe how they felt at certain points *in the present tense*, so it can be cut in and used to build suspense.

I’m with Adam Paull on this one – it’s refreshing to hear an honest response from Kathy at the DT, but it still doesn’t excuse the fictional story masquerading as real news. There was NO need for the story to include quotes from the winner if no genuine quotes were available. A standby story could have been written declaring the winner, with quotes cited as “when interviewed before the finale, Poh said…”

This story was a blatant lie. What else does the Telegraph lie about?

Kathy the article was up for more than an hour and more importantly it was posted approximately ten minutes BEFORE Masterchef finished. It ruined my viewing but then confused me when Julie was announced as the winner on tv. I was elated but it was too late the masterchef finale had already been spoiled for me.

The Daily Telegraph – never wrong for too long either!

So two articles were written one which was a pretend article and one which was correct but at the time they didn’t know which was correct. This doesn’t really sound like journalism to me. Why didn’t channel 10 just embargo the result and have the interviews in the late afternoon a few hours before the broadcast?

The story was up for a lot longer than ten minutes though. It says it was posted at 8:57, yet I posted a link to it on my Twitter account at 10:25pm saying how suprised I was that it was still up.

And the excuse that they need to be prepared for either outcome is a bit ridiculous – why not just wait until there is an actual outcome and write a story then?

Dodgy from the Tele and Channel 10

Hi Caitlin,

Now you come to mention it, you’re right about the story being up much longer than the ten minutes being claimed. If you look at the iPhone screen grab above, that was at 9.42pm.

To give the Tele editorial team their due, it may have been that they attempted to take it down after ten minutes, but it stayed cached for longer. Can any technical experts tell me if that’s plausible?

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

Hi to Kathy and other readers – this story not be allowed to go quietly, there it a lot at stake for us readers and indeed the entire Australian public here.

Firstly, this statement: “The story was posted due to a technical error. It was up for less than ten minutes. ” The (recorded) evidence suggests otherwise. Why make this mess worse?

2. You have an automated Content Management System (CMS), which can be overridden. When the Poh story was taken down, it was not immediately replaced with the Julie story, it was a ‘file not found’ (for quite some further time). Surely this is time for an apology (or don’t you think we are watching?) Well by this stage thousands were, it was post-Masterchef entertainment.

3. As several people above have pointed out, when the ‘correct’ story went up the time was not changed. This is the sort of thing a child might try on (on a bad day).

4. The quotes. For goodness,sake, what has happened to the rules of journalism? I agree with Andrew Yoole and Billy C, the story should have been written properly and then embargoed. Your CMS has a clock.

5. 100% agree with Adam Paull on this and all his comments: “I fear that this represents the tip of the iceberg as far as news gathering in this country is concerned – not just at the Tele, but all news outlets. The fact that a television program can orchestrate such a charade and there being NOT ONE media outlet questioning the arrangement is of great concern to the Australian public.” As you say, Adam, they have no doubt done this before, but this is the first time they’ve been caught with their pants as far down as they can fall.

6. Has anyone seen a NewsCorp publication reporting not only the error but apologising for this lapse of ethics? (Not saying they haven’t but I have not seen one.)

7. How can they suggest that they wish to charge for online content – indeed, paid content is the be the saviour of the news industry! – when these are the dishes we are served? I for one am not prepared to pay for such stories and practices, and I doubt many others would either.

I’d rather choke on the cholesterol and fat-laden chocolate dessert, personally.

PS to Tim – most CMSs have a ‘clear site cache’ button. This would remove a deleted story immediately from the Tele’s servers – it could get stored in some smaller caches en route for a while, but very unlikely in larger ones that refresh very regularly, and almost certainly not for 2 hours. It also does not explain the intervening ‘file not found’ period. However someone from an ISP might be able to add more to this.

hilarious

Robyn, you’re not entirely correct regarding the caching. Major websites like the Tele’s use large caching systems based overseas, and they cannot necessarily be cleared that easily. So it’s like the story could have been removed within 10 minutes as stated, but it might still appear on the recipient’s end for quite some time.

Thx for the heads up on that, Anon. Still doesn’t explain a whole heap of other things though, especially the ethical questions. (or why it went up before the program finished). Cheers.

Hi Robyn,

Just on point number 6: The next day’s Tele did mention the error.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

It was a disappointing episode of Media Watch last night which only gave the stuff-up a passing smirk. They missed a golden opportunity to dig deeply into the mechanics of the media – it’s rare that we see proof of their shenanigans, so to dismiss it with a wry smile and then spend so much time on yet another “PR survey” story (a topic they’ve been beating to death this year) was a let down.

This is not just a about a silly little publishing mistake about a frivolous TV show, there are much bigger questions here – questions that really need answering.

Hi Adam,

Although it fell quite well for Media Watch’s Monday episode in terms of topicality, they appear to mostly have the show locked down by the end of a Friday, so I suspect that they didn’t have time to do much more with it.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

I assume media watch had some regional North Queensland local paper editor that made a typo or paraphrased a press release they needed to focus on for the 10 mins.

Locking a show down three days before it’s recorded?? How very old media!

I knew it would be a bit of a stretch (I’m long time ago ex-ex-ex-TV person) but to blow it off as a cheeky “gotcha” without mentioning the fake interview was a dropped-ball in my opinion.

I agree with Mr Littlemore above – MW has spent far too much time picking over fairly trivial matters this year. Daryl & Ozzie used to do it so much better in the original “Media Watch”! (If you’re under 30, ask your parents…)

Do you people whinge about syndication, claiming it’s fraudulent, too?

I fail to see how ethical concerns are breached when you’re dealing with a situation where there is only ONE provider of information (Fremantle/Ten) and they strictly control that flow – including, from what I’ve heard, a lot of NDAs and associated cloak-and-dagger. I’ve no love for the Tele, but this is an easy mistake to make – if anything, the posting on the web is the failure, not the process of writing the stories. Had it been in the hardcopy version, there’d have been more strict subbing at work – if the Tele is anything like the SMH, there just ain’t that level of care given to online posting.

Which just goes to prove the existence of a parallel universe – one inhabited by people (like me) who (somewhat naively no doubt) work on the assumption that if newspapers/the media don’t quite report the truth, then they still make some attempt to seek it out, and what would appear to be a significant proportion of the media (and probably their mutually-dependent bedfellows, politicians).

Don’t you guys/gals ever wonder why most of you have lost our respect? Why we don’t buy your papers anymore? But no, it seems the end justifies the means….

You might have our eyeballs (some of the time) but you don’t have our wallets.

@Luke – What if this was the Government instead of Channel Ten? What if the story was vital to the National interest? Should media outlets bow to every demand of those “controlling” the news? Should news be manipulated like this in the first place?
These are the big questions that need answering.

In this case the story was just a TV show, but it demonstrates how media in this country, and therefore us as well, are being manipulated.

Another consideration here is credibility. When you start an interview by telling your subject to pretend they’re in a certain situation, you lose all credibility – and you don’t sell papers without it.

i guess that’s an issue.. they aren’t exactly selling papers 🙂 anyway.. as you were.

I’m not sure that’s true Great Strategy.

I recall leaving a Waratahs game 3-4 years ago before Del was busted and being handed my free copy of the Tele with a back page story including the line “Del was spotted in a Paddington bar after the game deep in conversation with blah blah blah….”. This was about 3 minutes after the final whistle!