I’m loath to blog about television again, because there are so many more interesting things happening in media.
However, the sight of Cameron Bennett stepping out of the Deathstar (ahead of being pushed) provides an insight as to why I feel compelled to comment on the train wreck that is TVNZ News and Current Affairs.
Bennett was set to become a casualty of News and Current Affairs boss Anthony Flannery’s plan to ‘make staff multi-skilled’ (What? They aren’t already?) and see those who still have jobs work across all news and current affairs programmes.
Oh, and it’ll save around $3.3 million and cut more news and current affairs jobs – this time ‘only’ 15.
There have been disquieting rumours doing the newsroom rounds that Cameron was told he wasn’t “contemporary enough”. One news manager even apparently used the “O” word – no, not awesome. “Old”.
Now age, like gender, doesn’t necessarily confer ability, expertise or talent but Cameron Bennett has consistently demonstrated, year after year, that he posses all of those things.
Broadcaster Cameron Bennett, leaving TVNZ after 24 years
The fact that news bosses didn’t see him as an asset proves TVNZ news managers have no appreciation of the need for a balance of reporters of all ages and many of those with the longest history are part of a news organisation’s vital “collective memory”.
In other words, in losing Cameron Bennett TVNZ has just shed a valuable part of its intellectual property. This mistake from a business whose New Age managers constantly stress the importance of retaining its IP?
It’s this same attitude by news bosses that’s seen Pippa Wetzell fly to Samoa recently for Sunday to report on the country one year after the tsunami (interestingly, Cam originally covered the disaster).
Now, Ms W is a good presenter – and in her day an equally good news reporter - and a nice person to boot.
However, the difference between a news report of 1 minute 30 seconds duration and a crafted story of 14 minutes isn’t just a matter of sticking in slightly longer sound-bites and more stand-ups on palm-fringed shores.
In “long form current affairs” there’s a level of expertise in story telling and structure that I’d be surprised she possessed. The ability to tell and construct a good 14 minute story is something that only comes with training and experience.
I’m guessing her erstwhile field producer, Joanne Mitchell, will be left with the responsibility for making sense of it.
“Disestablishment” is such an Orwellian TVNZ phrase. One hatchet man once told me when I worked there, “After all, Janet, it’s not about people, it’s about cutting positions.”
Disestablishment is indeed all about cost cutting. Otherwise why only choose the oldest and probably the most highly paid?
There are other old, wise heads at TVNZ news and current affairs who either have had their positions wiped altogether or who have to go through the ignominy once again of applying for their jobs.
The female producers on the 4:30, 8pm and Tonight shows have had their jobs disestablished and Hannah Wallis, the long serving and trusted “Fair Go” reporter, has been told to reapply for her job for the second time in three years.
It seems that women, especially the older ones, at TVNZ News and Current Affairs have to worry more about cracking their heads on the glass floor rather than any glass ceiling.
Even in wishing Cameron a cheery “bye-bye and good luck”, the publicity machine at TVNZ has more spin than a Fisher and Paykel. “Cam’s departure arises from format changes to the Sunday programme, which provided him with a natural opening to assess his personal priorities.”
Translation: “We wanted someone younger and sexier and, phew, thank God Cam jumped rather than waited to be pushed”.
The New Zealand Herald’s John Drinnan opined that Pippa Wetzel might take over Cameron’s role as Sunday presenter when she returns from maternity leave next year.
So, with a CV showing a few years as a news reporter, a few more years sitting on the sofa with Paul Henry on Breakfast and a much needed cachet for securing the covers of women’s magazines, it is said Pippa is to replace a former foreign correspondent and current affairs journalist of 24 years?
If true, Cameron Bennett’s departure proves that the cutting edge of TVNZ news and current affairs just got a whole lot blunter.
Journalism is in such a parlous state across the whole country we can hardly be surprised at any new calamity out of TVNZ.
The last time I looked, 14 minutes of TV hardly constituted long form journalism either.
The saying used to be, “The country gets the Government it deserves.” Now the country gets the media it deserves.
On TV3 a while back, we got one minute at the height of the oil disaster in the Gulf – and in the same programme we got a full two and a half minutes on Myley Cyrus’ new image.
While most of us have probably stopped watching as often, the only option left to us is to stop watching entirely.
I wondered how Cameron could be so chirpy when he was clearly being shafted by TVNZ.The reason is, most likely, because he is a professional through and through.
I for one don’t watch TV1 as I’m not interested in seeing clothes-horses paraded as journalists or even worse, “tv talent” which clearly is an oxymoron in most cases.
The way that TVNZ has continued to give Paul Henry free reign whilst deciding Cameron doesn’t fit the new mould, speaks volumes that there are no wise men or women at their Auckland HQ.
At the University of Canterbury we’ve had a similar Orwellian restructuring. The librarians are replaced by managers, positions are “disestablished” and replaced by fewer lower-grade positions, and so on. The method is taught in MBA courses as something like “Creative Destruction”, I gather.
I’ve stopped watching entirely.
Not that anyone cares what I think. It’s all lowest possible denominator
I love this blog! Tells it like it is. Keep it up Janet.
Sorry, but didn’t your husband ‘can’ the entire Assignment team, en masse? I guess the irony might escape you.
@Tim; I didn’t realize that I was personally responsible for any decision Bill has ever made. Nor am I in the business of speaking for him. You’ll also note that this blog contained this comment. “Now age, like gender, doesn’t necessarily confer ability, expertise or talent.”
@Janet Wilson – probably best to avoid feeding the trolls, IMHO.
Regards Cameron.Welcome to the club.Would the last person out the door, let the new owners know where the light switch and the gas meter is. Thanks.
The next question has got to be,”Where does NZTV go from here?” Do we as a people value or even want public TV anymore? Do we want to reflect our own culture, or simply watch endless foreign prgramming?
Now that NZ transmitters are no longer charter bound they have little need for local production or funding, so what role does NZonAir now play on this new ballpark? After all, no charter = no need to make and fund local programs, = no outlet for NZonAIR funding = loads of dosh, but no programs commissioned = local production industry’s death.
Eye candy is only the tip of an iceberg covered in penguin poo.
Whenever bean counters, especially those with exposure to an MBA become involved in operational matters, quality is always sacrificed for quantity. One is easier to audit than the other and is cheap to produce too. Witness the like of Geoff Bryant’s departure in favour of what? Martin Devlin hosting the world cup – what a joke! If the plan is ultimately to sell off TVNZ no one would want to buy what is becoming a shell (looks good on the outside but no substance within.
this comment got me and so I have to ask the questions:
“Now age, like gender, doesn’t necessarily confer ability, expertise or talent.”
So where are all the Transsexual reporters/front people? Why do we see programmes like ‘is she, isnt he’ portrayed as a programme about transsexuals when it really is a programme about a gay male? ‘Man give birth’? wierdos? Why do we get programmes decided upon by ‘str8′ people to show how we should be portrayed?
Why cant we be portrayed as we are and not as we are percieved by society to be?
20/20 did a programme on me some years back and it was pretty reasonable to be honest. I said I wouldnt discuss the sex side. So they got a TS who would – why?
Most other programmes on TS I have seen here are just confusion and sensationalised. Distorted. Emotional.
I have actually enjoyed Cameron thanks xx
Not just telly Janet – look at the sad state of long-form feature writing. Of the seven highly talented writers I worked with at Metro, just one still has a job. At the Herald on Sunday. Everyone else is freelance (which is a recipe for short turnaround fluff pieces) or in PR.
@ Janet: “If true, Cameron Bennett’s departure proves that the cutting edge of TVNZ news and current affairs just got a whole lot blunter”.
Now, that’s just a tad unkind. This blog is very much adjunctive to your previous one, by way of converse. The “tits and teeth” was a little churlish as well as being unfounded. The inference being, that the Law of Inverse Proportionality was being applied — “the more pretty one is, the less bright they are”. There is no doubt, that the presenters are very attractive. Very attractive. But it’s a bit mean, to paint a corollary between “beauty” and “brains”. To be honest, these attractive girls pierce the veneer of the televisual aesthete — that is, part of their attractiveness actually derives from their intellect. It’s a plain empirical fact. My initial reaction, was that many of these “youngies” were a little frenetic and gushing. But as they gain experience and mature, it become less frenetic and more kinetic by way of refining their enthusiasm and checking their energy levels.
Getting back to Cameron Bennett, he has been a real asset to TVNZ, over the years. A real stalwart. But “stalwartness” is not the coin of the realm at TVNZ. Television is always in a state of flux, and by its very nature it will be always be transformative. Every now and then, it needs to buck convention by way of reinvention. And “Cam” is a casualty of that evolutionary process. It’s the Natural Order of Things.
Remember, TVNZ is not discarding Cameron on the junk heap; they are, simply, expressing their good wishes in his new pursuit. As we all are.
Cameron Bennett in Serbia I will never forget interviewing approx 15 year old girl, who had later been killed.
This is a damn good post Janet and does lend credible and justified weight to your previous post… a post which was always going to unleash the cynics and drew the inevitable accusations of ‘sour grapes’ etc, but TVNZ News’s actions with regard their treatment of Cameron Bennett, highlights in a very public manner (which is actually quite useful and timely in this important and long overdue debate/discussion) just how close this country has allowed itself to come to loosing its last remaining keepers of ‘truth and accountability in their name and for the greater democratic good’… those few who can still call themselves true ‘Journalists’.
I worked closely Cameron in the early 90s, at a time when was still relatively new to the business of TV news and current affairs. I still remember vividly the day I first worked with Cameron when David Grey went on his shooting rampage in Aramoana… that was the day I truly came to understand the old adage ‘You can’t beat experience’. You can’t replace it, you cant fudge your way around it, you cant replicate it with make-up, shiny teeth or big hair… and you certainly cant attempt to call yourself a credible, world-class news service without it.
Unfortunately, about 15 years ago, the influence of accountants started to take hold in TVNZ and when that happened the ethos, held the world over by all the major broadcast networks (that your News and Current Affairs offerings were solely responsible for providing the network’s credibility in the marketplace) started to die… I’ve still yet to meet an accountant who is even aware of that, let alone understands it.
To replace a journalist like Cameron Bennett with a ‘Host’ at best, whose experience consists of little more than covering ‘The traveling trampoline troop from Temuka’ for the Breakfast News before being ‘promoted’ to presenter, is just nothing short of complete and utter madness and just shows who’s really running that organisation and how little they really understand about the business of breaking, covering and delivery ‘the news’… its an absolute joke and they should be ashamed to try and call themselves journalists. How dare they.
I, for one, am not surprised.
Any company that hires Ron Cheeseman clearly hasn’t a clue anymore.
We’re in London enjoying the ‘elderly’ journalists on camera on the BBC, Sky News etc. We’re also enjoying the range of reporters in all shapes and sizes, grey hair, wrinkles, unfashionable clothing and lack of make-up when reporting in the field. It’s the story that counts not the pufffery that surrounds it.
Journalists on TV here seem to have street-cred, years of experience and can ask intelligent questions linking events over history. Don’t miss NZ TV anything news as it had become so fluffy and lacking in any decent content.
Very sad to see Cameron go. He is a fine journalist with utmost credibility and professionalism.
Quite apart from the total waste of a quality professional, it seemed both pathetic and spiteful that the day his departure was announced, his bio had ALREADY been removed from the TVNZ website!
PhilBee, albany
http://yardyyardyyardy.blogspot.com/2010/07/bennett-bows-out.html
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