A South Australian in Paris

Premier Jay Weatherill’s decision to take an Adelaide film crew with him to the Paris climate talks has created an awkward dilemma for the media.

On the one hand, the footage, shot especially for Weatherill by Adelaide production house 57 Films, has made it possible for local TV news to cover the Premier’s trip without the expense of sending a crew themselves.

At the same time, the media has been getting stuck into him for spending taxpayers’ money on self-promotion.

Ratings leader Seven has used the footage to illustrate stories about Weatherill’s activities in Paris, but political reporter Mike Smithson also did an excellent expose of the fact that the crew was sent especially from Adelaide for the gig – and had worked for the Government before.

Veteran Seven news director Terry Plane told Media Week that he wasn’t precious about using the supplied footage, because his journalists were still in control of the wider story.

“I see the conflict,” he added.

“We would always prefer to have our reporter there asking the questions we wanted answered.”

Despite shrinking budgets, Plane said sending a crew overseas with the Premier was something that Seven had done before, and would do again.

“To be honest, we would have looked at this one very seriously if they had come to us to tell us what they were doing. We didn’t have an itinerary (but) it would have been a pretty worthy trip, I think.”

Weatherill’s style is a far cry from the Rann era, when the Premier and his entourage would be regularly accompanied by camera operators and reporters from the Adelaide commercial stations and The Advertiser (the ABC didn’t always participate, given that the costs were met by the news organisations, and it had an extensive overseas bureau network).

On those trips, Rann’s staff would lay on a regimented smorgasbord of stories – daily picture opportunities, local talent, the odd stunt for visual interest, media releases and more. Rann’s long-term adviser Jill Bottrall tells us the television stations once considered sending just a single camera operator on a trip, but she rejected the idea.

“I told them, ‘I’m not going to let you interview Mike because you’re not a journalist’,” she said.

How things have changed. Weatherill’s footage includes “grabs” from interviews presumably conducted by the two-man production team.

While Weatherill’s style is completely different from Rann’s, the media environment has also been revolutionised. As well as shrinking budgets constraining media travel opportunities, politicians have access to new ways to communicate directly with constituents.

The videos shot for Weatherill in Europe are available on his Facebook page, where they are gathering thousands of hits (one is edging up towards 4000 views). The people watching are likely to be interested in the substance of his trip – the climate change conference – rather than politics.

While he has been embarrassed by the publicity, Weatherill won’t be too upset.

“It’s a means to an end,” said Bottrall. “It gets him coverage where he wouldn’t otherwise get it.”

Plane agrees.

“There’s not a lot of downside in it for him,” he said. “It was always going to be quite a positive story for him, so how much does he need to control the story? He’s not controlling the story (that’s going to air) – just the pictures we use.”

As for the cost, it has not been revealed, however the Department of Premier and Cabinet, which organised the crew, is expected to release the details soon.

The bill, of course, will run into many thousands of dollars – probably tens of thousands.

Haese the co-star

Lord Mayor Martin Haese features in one of the Paris clips – and he reckons the money (whatever that works out to be) is well spent.

He told FIVEaa today the footage would be useful in South Australia’s pitch for low-carbon investments.

“I’m going to come to the Premier’s defence here; they were very good,” he said. “There was two guys on the ground in Paris filming a lot of what Team South Australia was doing. Now, let’s look at what we’re going to do with that. I’d imagine the Premier will use that footage for when we’re talking to clean-tech industries, when we’re looking for investment … We’ve then got some footage about what South Australia is saying and doing on the world stage when it comes to clean-tech energy.

“Also, just to share with us, South Australians, about what everyone’s elected officials have been doing in Paris. I’m sure the Premier will use that for social media and other forms of media. I think that investment was worth every single cent.”

Hope for lowly hacks

Our story this week about the retirement of public-sector union boss Jan McMahon included an image of the union newspaper from April/May 1998.

We noticed the lead story was written by a scribe by the name of Kym Winter-Dewhirst (we also noticed the sub missed a grammatical error in the first paragraph).

Winter-Dewhirst is now the boss of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, which organised the aforementioned film crew for Premier Jay Weatherill.

His salary is now north of $500,000, which not only indicates he’s had an enduring interest in public-sector salaries, but also offers some hope to every hack out there bashing out copy for in-house newsletters.

Mixed performance for newspapers

The latest figures on newspaper readership are again grim – with a few bright spots.

Data for the 12 months to October, compared to the year before, shows falls in readership across the country, with a couple of interesting exceptions.

The only major newspapers to increase their total monthly readership were the Canberra Times and the Australian Financial Review.

For the rest, it makes distressing reading, particularly as the Emma figures include print and digital readerships.

In Adelaide, The Advertiser lost readership despite increases in mobile and tablet audiences.

The Tiser’s average monthly print readership fell from 1.023 million in 2013-14 to 924,000 over the past 12 months. The paper’s web audience plummeted from 910,000 to 749,000. The mobile/tablet audience increased from 197,000 to 233,000 – but not by nearly enough to stem the print and general web losses.

Equally depressing is the tendency for media companies to manipulate the figures to make themselves look good (The Australian was particularly selective). Journalists rail against corporations and governments for selective reporting – we should hold ourselves to the same standards.

Last chance to have your say on Radio Adelaide

The University of Adelaide’s consultation on the future of Radio Adelaide ends today.

The university, as we explained last week, wants to rid itself of at least some of the costs of running Australia’s original community radio station.

The complicating issue is that the station needs to relocate its studios before the middle of next year, after the university sold its North Terrace premises to bolster its coffers.

Station management has been overwhelmed with public support, including a motion in the Legislative Council which garnered cross-party support.

Radio Adelaide general manager Deborah Welch says she believes it is now clear to the university that it will have to support the station’s move to new premises. The move will cost about $1.4 million.

“I think there’s a stronger understanding that that responsibility still sits with the university, regardless of the longer-term outcomes,” Welch told Media Week.

The possible longer-term outcome she’s referring to is the transition of the station’s ownership to a new, not-for-profit entity – one of the more likely options for Radio Adelaide’s future.

To have your say, go here.

Naughty corner

The Liberals’ David Pisoni took a very average swipe at Labor MP Nat Cook via social media this week.

Cook’s crime was to pen a column for The Advertiser questioning whether the current approach to illicit drugs was working.

Pisoni chose to Tweet an unflattering photograph of Cook taken during her days working for the Sammy D Foundation – named in honour of her son, who was killed in a one-punch attack.

How about debating the actual issues?

Top of the class

One of the great media success stories of the past 20 years is magazine The Big Issue, which creates jobs for homeless and disadvantaged people.

The magazine today releases its 500th edition, which is also the annual Christmas edition. The fortnightly magazine was launched in Melbourne two decades ago, with its sellers now a welcome feature on the streets across Australia. Over the run it has sold more than 10 million copies, earning $21 million for sellers.

It also happens to contain some excellent writing.

Celebrity sellers, including Simon Bryant and Poh Ling Yeow, will also be on the streets over the next few weeks. Go here for a list of their locations.

Media Week is published on Fridays.