Caught manufacturing the news...

[Princhester]

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,19306235-5003401,00.html

For those that don’t know the backstory, East Timor has dissolved into civil chaos recently and Australia has sent in some troops to try to get things peaceful.

So an Australian commander is being interviewed on Australian TV:

Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network’s Today show, with helmeted and heavily armed Australian soldiers standing behind him.

He was pressed by Today host Jessica Rowe about whether Dili really was as safe as the Australian military claimed, given the presence of armed soldiers at his shoulder.

Pausing briefly, Brig Slater replied: "Jessica I feel quite safe, yes, but not because I’ve got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good.

Classic!

*This * is the type of soldier we public at home need. I like this guy.

[Miller]

Anyone got a link to the video? I’d love to see that.

[Cunctator]

I saw the clip yesterday. It was priceless. Rival television channels have been having great fun with it too.

[mhendo]

You can find a short clip on this page. Just click the video link down the page a bit.

Unfortunately, while the video shows the interviewer asking the question, and the soldier’s response, we don’t get to see the interviewer’s reaction to his criticism.

One other caveat: the video appears to require ActiveX. Firefox told me that i needed to download its ActiveX plugin to view the video; instead, i just switched to Internet Explorer for a few minutes.

This story contains a rebuttal of sorts by the show’s producer:

Rowe recovered bravely but Today’s executive producer Anthony Flannery said Brigadier Slater arrived with full security and was wearing body armour, which he took off for the interview.

“Our producer on the ground just suggested they come into the shot so there’s no manufacturing,” Flannery said.

Make of that what you will.

[mhendo]

@Cunctator

Rival television channels have been having great fun with it too.

Of course, in the world of Australian commercial news and current affairs shows, where journalistic integrity ranks somewhere behind fashionable hairstyles in the order of importance, every single one of those rival channels has done similar (probably worse) things. The only difference here is that they got caught.