Philip Quaile
JUST WHEN you’re settling down to some nice Sunday afternoon tea, there’s nothing worse than a bout of apoplexy.
‘Going Bush’ is a half hour program broadcast every Sunday night on Southern Cross TV.
Compered by laconic Nick Duigan and faithful sidekick Andrew Hart the program tells ‘true stories’ of the Tasmanian bush, for example ‘meeting the characters of the bush, including a scientist with a passion for worms, and discovering some of the natural marvels of the bush, like the magnificent Giant Trees in the Styx.’ All of which sounds terribly interesting in the promos, rather like a leafy, blokey Tassie version of Burkes’ Backyard. However the program contains enough pro-Forestry Tasmania comment to sound like a Bob Gordon press release. At one point our likeable presenters are even staged in a clearfell zone with some scripted pro-chipping bullshit that would make even fishermen blush.
Of course, the penny drops and goes clunk when you check out the Forestry Tasmania website.
All is made clear then. Going Bush is a TV program on a ‘quest for the truth about Tasmanian forestry’, and is sponsored by Forestry Tasmania – well surprise surprise, one had no idea. Click your mouse at least 50 more times and apparently funding is sourced from FT’s ‘Community Assist’ grants program in collaboration with Southern Cross TV. Apparently this fund rewards community based initiatives, eg. your local soccer club shed rebuild. If there wasn’t a sour taste in the mouth that expensive propaganda like Going Bush is being publicly funded in this way, it would all feel so good, nice and homespun – just like Mum’s apple sponge.
The boundaries between entertainment, documentary, advertising and product promotion are becoming increasingly blurred in a dizzy media world. In the morally bankrupt world of infotainment and advertorial, elements of suggestion are now de rigeur industry ‘standards’.
One has to ask how or why a GBE like Forestry Tasmania feels the need to adopt these tactics? One can only assume that to counter effective Green media clout, advertising gurus have advised FT to resort to propaganda dressed up as entertainment. And charged rather a lot in the process no doubt.
Going Bush is filled with FT logos and badged FT talking heads, but there is no on-air disclosure of financial sponsorship whatsoever, which is a little bit disingenuous to say the least. So is taxpayers’ money, through Forestry Tasmania, paying for this propaganda under the guise of a ‘community assistance’ grant?
Helicopter footage doesn’t come cheap but hey, FT choppers are free after all.
Sincerely,
Philip Quaile
