How did Nine Entertainment chairman Peter Costello think this was going to play out?
There are eyewitness accounts of him allegedly pushing Liam Mendes to the ground and then laughing while Mendes reacts with hurt and shock. The video is playing on a continuous loop even on Nine’s own platforms.
And Costello’s doorstop press conference in Parliament House just dug him deeper into the hole.
What the Canberra Airport incident shows is that Costello – chair of a venerable and formidable media outlet – has no idea about how modern media works.
I’d bet my last Nine share – worth a whole $1.43 – Costello would not have gone the shove if he’d been confronted by a full TV crew, including a camera operator with a huge shoulder-borne Sony, a reporter clutching a mic and maybe a sound operator with headphones and a boom.
Costello’s from the 90s. He would have recognised that tangling with a TV crew is always a bad idea. He would have known there’d be witnesses. That all he’d be doing by reacting angrily was providing nuggets of TV gold.
But today’s journos often work alone.
There’s no camo. No soundo. Just a reporter with a phone – and in Mendes’ case, a chest-mounted camera that records every moment.
Mendes always announces himself as a journalist and behaves – as he did in Canberra – with the utmost respect.
This was not an ambush.
It was a bounce: a working reporter, clearly identifying themselves as such, approaching a public figure in a public place for comments on a public matter.
The bounce is one of the greatest things about journalism – a chance to get past all the media units and spin doctors and professional gatekeepers and just ask the direct question.
And – oh, the irony – Nine practically invented the bounce.
A Current Affair wouldn’t exist without reporters jogging alongside persons of interest and demanding answers.
Nine News every night features gorgeous journos in stilettos with fabulous hair barking entirely fair questions at people emerging from the Supreme Court.
Nine’s papers, like all the world’s modern mastheads, have fully pivoted to video – and its TV crown jewel, 60 Minutes, is all about the unscripted encounter.
Because – you following, Peter? – it makes great vision.
Peter Costello has had ample opportunities to avoid this scenario.
He could have answered the questions journalists have sent him on multiple platforms - calls, texts, emails - over recent weeks.
He could have issued a statement.
Instead he has remained silent about the crisis engulfing Nine, and left reporters with the only remaining option - fronting up in person to ask perfectly legitimate, absolutely critical questions.
There are three ways a public figure can respond to being bounced.
First, the John Howard. You can stop, say ‘thanks for the opportunity’, and give a short (and if you choose, meaningless) but polite statement. Politicians (the smart ones) excel at this.
Second, the Victoria Beckham. Completely ignore the questioner and stride on, choosing to risk appearing hearing-impaired. This one’s usually deployed by members of the footballing community facing cocaine charges or CEOs who’ve just sacked a lot of people.
Third, the Alec Baldwin. This is also known as the News Director’s Delight. You can respond with dynamism: start running, try to grab the camera, throw a punch – or, in the case of Costello, utter a couple of muttered ‘Eh? Eh?s’ and then go low with the shoulder. Usually performed by dodgy repairmen on ACA.
It’s fantastic for ratings. Not so good for the corporate career.
Costello says he genuinely believed Mendes tripped on an advertising ‘placard’ and fell, landing flat on his back on the hard tiled floor of the airport.
I wasn’t there. Mendes says he did not trip; he was pushed.
If that was Costello’s belief, why didn’t he help Mendes up, or ask if he was alright?
Instead he kept walking. He tried to get in the back seat of a chauffeured car, accidentally banging the back door into a bollard, then getting into the front seat and continuing to ignore Mendes’ protests at having been assaulted.
Then he went to Parliament House and made a big show of telling the TV cameramen not to fall over one another, claiming he “didn’t lay a finger” on Mendes.
In our new media age, everything is captured on video and viewers can make up their own minds.
How times have changed.
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