Choppergate: Nine News admits faking live cross from helicopter

It’s hardly a fake i.e. a set up – it was forced to be grounded by the pilot for safety reasons

What stopped Cameron Price from clarifying that they were in fact grounded, and not near Beerwah?

But the cross was a live one, to a helicopter, near the scene.

Economical with the truth, rather than faking, surely? Certainly well within BAU for commercial TV in Australia.

Which pales somewhat with the rather morbid long-lens approach to the story itself.

Faking is bad. But the whole “live cross” thing is getting just as bad. In all honesty, what was the chopper going to show us? A bit of dirt, and some tarps as the SES workers continue searching underneath – if that (given its dark, probably nothing woul dhave been visable). Nothing groundbreaking. It is the same scene we have seen for a week now.

Please networks, only do a live cross to the scene if there is any action. If there is nothing, save the cash and carbon burning. Last night’s fake cross shows that a real cross doesn’t make a lick of difference to the quality of the program in the audience’s mind.

TL – the reason is that if you ask punters if they prefer “live” and “on-the-spot” TV to recorded or studio stories, “live” and “on the spot” gets the big thumbs up (obviously)

They don’t ask if punters would prefer this even if it’s contrived, pointless or tedious as it has now become. Which is a shame, as then they’d get a resounding no and this silliness would end.

Funniest examples of this are the Sunrise (and others) who have a live cross to “Sydney” or “Newsroom” when the person is 3m away in Martin Place and sometimes you can see the other party in the background to boot.

Ten used to do this a lot with evening news stories, especially sports ones, with the poor hack shivering outside the Pyrmont offices, delivering their reports “live” some 5m from a warm and cosy news room.

This insight has been dragged to the nth degree with the 24 hour news channels where even a fart warrants a “Breaking News” banner as an hour of solid news has to be smeared (very) thinly across 24.

This sort of ‘fakery’ has been going on for years, but it’s a bit rich for Seven to be claiming the moral high ground.

I remember seeing 7’s Tony Squires in Sydney reading the sports news live from Dawes Point near the Harbour Bridge in total darkness cross ‘live’ to a reporter 500m away at the Opera House – which was of course bathed in sunshine. Neat trick.

My personal favourite was in the mid 90’s – a Ch9 ‘Today’ show producer caused quite a stir internally when they insisted the show cross live to a reporter at the Belanglo State Forest during the famed backpacker murders. Only problem was the reporter was in the Ch9 carpark in Willoughby.

At least he was standing in front of a tree.

Disgruntled crew were told not to worry as “no one would know”.

Remember television producers – not all of your audience are idiots (although the ratio is decreasing for some reason…)

Funny how channel 7 is bringing this up. Every other night they have a ‘live’ cross that is so obviously pre-recorded. They all do it, and isn’t that being just as deceiving to viewers, especially when it happens on an on-going basis? This one isn’t good, but at least it appears a one-off, and there seemed a genuine reason for the chopper coming back.

Weather looked really nice outside to me…. Pretty sure helicopters are quiet loud and would be hard for people at channel 9 to not notice one hovering over the newsroom carpark for 20 minutes…..

Nine compounds its deception by lying in its official response. “Air Control” – whatever that is – does not instruct pilots to “touch down”. That’s the pilot’s call. Pilots know the weather conditions well before they arrive, so it’s extremely doubtful the helicopter was “diverted” from Beerwah. Chances are it never got near the place. And even if the aircraft was diverted from Beerwah, that’s a least a 25 minute flight back to the helipad. I work in television news and there is NO WAY KNOWN the producer would not have been aware of precisely what was going on. “Too late to abort or delay the cross…?” Absolute crap.

Ouch…….

Does anyone else think it’s a bit suss that channel 7 has a camera permanently watching the 9 chopper pad?

This all begs the question : can anything from Channel 9 be trusted?

The quest for ratings, for drama, and so called exclusives has eroded quality and credibility to an alarming degree. This deception is indefensible and we can only assume people posting a defence for it are Channel 9 planys.

We now cross live to Videotape 2

Ahh – it’s harmless ..

Pretty sure everyone posting comments here works for either Nine or Seven… and no one else cares….

Oh…

Cameron Price has as much journalistic integrity as an ACA or TT reporter. Will do anything for a cheap scoop, producer wouldn’t have encouraged him to fake it!

This is rightly disturbing because if a news program is flexible with truth in its methods, it’s not a good sign for authenticity in the approach to content too. What really pissed me off last night was the block auction result being reported in the news bulletin. As a news item. Even Jo had the decency to look sullen at having to do it.

I won’t defend these guys, but to be honest most live crosses are completely superfluous anyway. This one is probably slightly less ethical than most, but viewers are never really served when reporters top-and-tail their reports “live from the scene” when in fact they’d already finished their packages hours before in the studio, as though standing out in the cold instantly makes them better journalists.

Super should have read simply ” nine news helicopter”
And stating that he had been to the scene that day..
Complete bullshit..pretty sad really.

Ryan, your comment of 9:01pm shows a laughable level of ignorance – Cameron Price is a great asset to their Brisbane newsroom, a young journo whose skills & proficiency put to shame many in the business much older than him.

Most high profile example of his work was the fact that Cameron & his crew were actually in Grantham during the flood and during the terrible night that descended upon them after the flood. The coverage by him & his crew were exemplary.

In an age where young reporters are constantly criticised, (and rightly so, most of the dolly birds should flock off to PR and leave our TV screens alone) Cameron is of a rare breed that stands out as a great reporter. It is probably public knowledge by now, but in a further affirmation Ryan that your comment could not be more wrong, Cameron has been headhunted by their Sydney newsroom to add some much needed quality to their reporting team.

This whole beat up has nothing to do with whether a producer encouraged anyone to do anything, directives from the top, beyond Brisbane, dictate a number of live crosses are needed per bulletin, the buck stops with the top, go shoot them and leave those following orders in Brisbane to get on and do a good job.

And I’m happy to post under my real name, continue the conversation with me via Twitter.

Surely someone off screen could have made a ‘wocka wocka wocka’ sound and avoided all this unpleasantness.

Marcus, I appreciate the fact that I don’t know Cameron, nor am I familiar with his work, but the fact that he’s happy to fake his location and lie to the audience doesn’t exactly fill the rest of us with confidence about his credentials. We should all keep in mind that this is supposed to be news – not some reality or game show with fake drama – and that credibility is the very foundation of a successful media news service.

Or a journalistic career for that matter.

Also, given that Nine producers and management know that Seven is watching via their camera, the decision to fake it is even more stupid.

Looking forward to this week’s MediaWatch!

The live cross to the chopper may have been real but was the footage. Frauds.

why not just watch SBS world news and be done with it……vote with your remote

are people here really complaining about infotainment on commercial TV news?

what’s next, the sun will rise tomorrow?

take it outside, 7 and 9 post-ers – to the carpark, the helipad, wherever

the rest of us don’t care!

Davo, I’m pretty sure that camera focussed on the Nine helipad has been there quite some time. The logic is … hey look Nine’s chopper is going up … scramble and follow because there must be a news story breaking (or in the old days … The Goanna musthave hit town).

Wow Marcus.. I think I just vomited

The whole thing exposes just how lazy television reporting has become, or at least how irrelevant most reportage is to the actual news.

Last night they had a live cross to some poor woman up at the Gap in the cold wind to report on what happened to Gordon Wood that day in court. Like someone was going to come along and try and fling a model into the ocean while she was there. Surely the relevant place for the report would be not live, at the courtroom.

If the television newsfolk are so keen to create drama they should withdraw from journalism and start writing for Packed to the Rafters.

Have fun Alex, play nicely in PR land now.

And you’re all shocked by this because…

“Seven know this because they have a camera permanently monitoring our pad.”

haha – Seven, all about quality news

“Near Beerwah”? Bloody miles from it.

This is common practice for commercial news networks. How is it that Ross Greenwood does live crosses during channel 9 news when his radio show is on, live, at the same time? They simply don’t have the capacity to do all the crosses they purport to do, in terms of satellite links.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz.. oh pls .. who cares, they are all(the jurno’s) just a bunch of poor sales reps(liars and con artists) looking for their next commission(story) to earn their keep !

Honestly… WHO CARES??

I don’t work in PR Marcus…

CM had some fun with it: http://video.couriermail.com.a.....to-make-it

Presumably we expect the News to contain the truth, otherwise it might as well be pure fiction like A Current Affair

One things for sure – channel 9 reporters/anchors/readers are so much hotter than 7..

Well done channel 9!

“Cameron is of a rare breed that stands out as a great reporter” Really, Marcus? Shame Cameron lacked the integrity to say no when asked to fake it. But if you’re really convinced that he’s so wonderful, maybe you should offer to be a referee on his CV now that he’s been sacked for being such a great reporter.

I watch the news every day. I have never noticed a live cross or what ever your all rubbishing on about. As a general member of the public it seems the only people who care are jurnos!! Grow up!!!!

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we first practiced to deceive.
They should not have only been sacked they should be charged for fraud and deception.

Can we please stop making every little not that serious issue a “gate” that’s so 90’s dude ;P