This week, former ABC directors unveil their quirky next projects, the wider context of Graham Cornes’s column on women in the AFL, farewell to a tough SA journalist, and much more.
The quirky projects of former ABC directors
Two former ABC state directors have launched some quirky projects in their post-Aunty lives.
Drew Radford, the recently departed state director, and the ABC’s last in SA after the position was scrapped, has unveiled a tech-based business – 3D4U – which promises to take a three-dimensional photograph of a subject and then produce a 3D printed miniature.
He’s launching the idea at Royal Adelaide Show. Believed to be the first of its kind in SA, the system uses technology developed by San Francisco company Twindom.
The set-up uses 89 cameras and six projectors which simultaneously snap the subject. The image is then rendered in miniature using a 3D printer (the medium is finely powdered plaster and glue).
The results on the 3D4U website look pretty impressive, in a fun/bizarre way.
Meanwhile, Radford’s predecessor in the top ABC job, Sandra Winter-Dewhirst, has self-published her first crime novel this week – The Popeye Murder.
The heroine is the (fictional) editor of The Advertiser’s food and wine section who gets caught up in a murder mystery.
The first victim is the acclaimed chef “Leong Chew”, whose head is discovered cooked, and glazed, under a cloche at an event on the Popeye.
You can’t get much more Adelaide than that.
And I’m sure legendary Adelaide chef Cheong Liew will find it hilarious.
Farewell to a tough Adelaide journo
Former Adelaide News chief-of-staff and gun police roundsman Geoff De Luca has died after a long illness.
De Luca was renowned as a tough operator and a news breaking journalist, remembered for his coverage of the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance and the Truro murders. He was the first reporter to speak to Michael and Lindy Chamberlain after their daughter’s disappearance.
De Luca was 64.
The eastern states’ view
Premier Jay Weatherill continues to increase his national profile, appearing on the ABC’s Lateline program on Wednesday evening.
Host Tony Jones asked him about the importance of the submarines decision to federal seats in SA, and Weatherill gave the predictable answer, forecasting “carnage” for the Liberals should the contract not go our way.
Jones then attempted to show his knowledge of local politics, throwing in a hitherto unknown MP’s name.
“Yeah, there’s some key Government players of course in some of those seats,” Jones mused. “I mean, Christopher Pyne, a cabinet minister, Jamie Briggs, rising star in the Coalition, you’ve got Matt Williams in Hindmarsh, you’ve got Stuart Southcott. I mean, there are a lot of seats potentially at risk for the Coalition.”
We presume he meant Andrew Southcott, the member for Boothby.
It’s all about the context
Former Crows coach and Advertiser columnist Graham Cornes was widely berated over his column last Saturday about how uncomfortable he is with women playing AFL.
The column was topped and tailed, so to speak, with references to “boobs” – primarily confusion and concern about how women can possibly play the game with their anatomy as it is.
While this seems exceedingly weird in the context of normal life (women, “boobs and all”, as Cornes puts it, obviously achieve great things in all manner of fields), in the context of Saturday’s Tiser sports section, the obsession with breasts starts to become clearer.
Not one, but two, advertisements in the section also played to the predelictions of a certain kind of reader.
This ad for strip joint “The Firm” appeals directly to footy goers.
And another ad for old school Hindley Street establishment, the Crazy Horse, has a special beer offer for sports lovers.
Nine’s weekday win
Nine news continues to nip at the heels of ratings leader Seven.
Regular readers will recall that Seven’s local news won every single night of the ratings in 2014.
This year, Nine has closed the gap and pulled off a rare weekend win in July.
On Wednesday night, Nine had a substantial victory over Seven.
Nine has invested heavily in the Adelaide newsroom, and has more resources than its rivals. Its move to an hour-long bulletin also appears to be paying off.
Nine has also put together a nice new promo in the past few weeks, featuring the babies and partners of co-anchors Kate Collins and Brenton Ragless, which wouldn’t have hurt.
More to the point, Ten’s game show Family Feud averaged only 1000 fewer viewers than Seven’s news on Wednesday, meaning the frontrunners are getting crunched from two directions.
They’re still winning most nights, by a margin of 20,000 viewers or more on regular occasions, but the long period of absolute dominance looks like it’s coming to a close.
Naughty corner
It would be too easy to give the booby prize (sorry) this week to Graham Cornes for his bizarre column referenced above.
But no – the Sunday Mail’s “journalism” about Schapelle Corby wins the week.
You don’t really need to know what was in the story, as it was all just piffle.
Rock bottom stuff.
Top of the class
At the other end of the scale was The Saturday Paper’s report on the treatment of women refugees who have been released from the Australian detention centre on Nauru. Grim reading; substantial reporting by the newspapers’s chief correspondent Martin McKenzie-Murray.
Media Week is published on Fridays.
