Don’t be too harsh on Clare Werbeloff – everyone but the media loves a media hoax
I must admit, I’m struggling to be outraged at Clare Werbeloff’s Kings Cross shooting hoax.
Although a new twist may yet emerge in her now much anticipated interview on A Current Affair , the whole incident seems to have created a great deal of fun and not much harm, except for those offended by the word wog.
It sounds like she fessed up straight away when the police made contact, so there’s no issue of her wasting police time. And wasting the media’s time is something the public seems to actively encourage.
Indeed, one of my favourite TV moments was when my uncle managed to get himself on a Sky Sports vox pop outside an English Premier League game. A West Ham fan, he was asked about the team.
Sounding like a very knowledgeable fan indeed, he reeled off a long list of names of the promising youth squad who were, he said, the team’s future. It was duly broadcast. The only thing was, the names were just a list of his mates.
Or on another occasion I worked briefly for a largish news agency in the UK. There was some sort of gas explosion (I forget the details) which one of our journos was sent out to cover the aftermath of.
We were most amused to see him interviewed on television that evening enthusiastically pretending to be a punter who was on the scene at the time.
And for those who move in the right circles and are over having their pictures in the back pages of the Sunday papers, there’s another trick. I was once intrigued to see the caption “Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harold Potter” next to a smiling threesome.
Clare’s in good company.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Tim I agree a good hoax is fun – but not when it relates to someone getting shot in real life. In my opinion that’s bad taste. If she makes it onto Sydney’s A list for parties, that would be typical. But I think we should draw the line around what we “hero” in some cases. Just because it captures people’s attention doesn’t mean it’s worth celebrating.
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That’s a fair point, Fleur.
But don’t forgot, all she did was walk up to a cameraman in the early hours of the morning. We (the media and media consumers) did the rest…
Cheers,
Tim
I am fairly confident that with the current standard of journalism and its focus on tabloid journalism the mainstream media, i am fairly confident that the reporting accuracy wasn’t damaged
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So is the headline now “chk chk Boom needs check check checking?”
Hope people don’t rip into Claire too much over this… although I can see a Ralph or Zoo deal announced in the coming days.
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Looking forward to MediaWatch going to town on this when they air tomorrow night
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/more.htm
I mean someone has to keep the media accountable, and ridicule seems like a perfect weapon.
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Perhaps the best thing to come out of it was the interview with the camera man who shot the video on Channel Nine last night… “She just walked up to the camera and started talking”. Fascinating stuff.
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This is certainly a case of the “any publicity is good publicity” model of C-grade celebrity career kickstarts. Having the agent in place quickly was the giveaway. The coarser and more extreme, the more viral it becomes (it boggles the mind to think she rehearsed a witness acount of a murder scene). Now the Corey ‘career launch’ concept has been re-tested, will this trigger of an avalanche of more “Corey-style” stunts? And if it rates, do the media really mind being used like this?
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I reckon good on her. The journalist who interviewed her obviously didn’t to their fact checking or speak to her post-interview to validate her claims.
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Justin… fuck you!
how do you know she is Jewish?
There will never be another “1933-1945” again
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