It’s amazing how spontaneous live television can be. Just ask Sunrise’s David ‘Kochie’ Koch, who’s interview with Queensland Premier Anna Bligh yesterday ended in a fantastic idea to organise tradies to help with the reconstruction, dubbed Operation Bounce Back.
But was it as spontaneous as it seemed? One Crikey reader thinks not. If you take a look at the video of the interview from Tuesday morning, it seems a little like Kochie’s line of questioning is leading up to his epiphany and Bligh seems like she’s been ambushed or hesitant to reject any kind of help.
Whether a stunt or not, one must also ask if Bligh was in on it from the start.
Later that morning, Sunrise newsreader Samantha Armytage tells the audience of a planned announcement by the Premier and that it is a joint venture:
While helping out with the flood clean up isn’t something Crikey wants to discourage, shouldn’t Anna Bligh and Sunrise look to organisations such as Volunteering Queensland, who are already involved in recruiting volunteers, rather than a television program?
Either Bligh prefers Sunrise to Channel Nine’s Today, or Sunrise needs to look up the dictionary definition for ‘announced’. — Crikey intern Emma Buckley Lennox
As with anything to do with the MSM, doesnt everyone err on the side of total fabrication & bull$hit. The only time I’ve watched any morning media programing in the last 10 years was during the recent Brisbane floods, given i was house bound & channel flipping for disaster pron. Sunrise & Today are terrible excuses for tv. It amazes me how anyone would watch sunrise or today. I now fear for the intelligence of the citizenry of my country.
I watched it too. To be fair to Sunrise, they did the same thing after a hurricane or other massive storm in QLD last year and it was a great success. To be fair to Anna Bligh, if I must, it seemed completely sprung on her and her first reaction to Kochie was actually something along the lines of “well anything would have to be coordinated with the operations already in place who are already doing a great job”.
Sunrise want to do something good, and yes they want ratings too, but who cares really, they will get tradesmen where they need to be. I don’t doubt Kochie’s authenticity in the slightest.
This was obviously a shameless PR ratings stunt by Channel 7 and Sunrise! You only have to read what some of us in construction have to say about CH7 ‘charitable’ nature from the comments posted on the Operation Bounceback website. By asking others to do the work and supply the materials and for Ch7 to get the credit. Bligh was put on the spot and if I was her I would be removing myself from this PR stunt. Kochie “Chk Chk boom”.