Inside the Hour Inside Sixty Minutes: the story Central to the program’s approach This kind of personal detail is cen­ behind the stories was the idea of the reporter as star. ‘If tral to the book’s ‘inside story’ preten­ by John Little you don’t give a shit about Afghani­ sions, but it’s often just soap opera - Allen and Unwin $19.95 stan you might care what George wacky practical jokes from Ray Mar­ [Negus] is doing in Afghanistan,’ as tin ordering multiple breakfasts to be Gerald Stone put it. sent to Jana Wendt’s room, and the Sixty Minutes first went to air on The first three reporters - Negus, truth behind Mike Munro’s various 11 February 1979. Ray Martin and Ian Leslie - went into nicknames The Blue Heeler’, ‘Munzie’ Ray Martin did a piece on a new a public stratosphere unknown in Aus­ and ‘Psycho Boy’. The story board set­ form of pay TV in America, Ian Leslie tralian current affairs television. Of ting out proposed stories for budding did one on cigarette smuggling across course, they had to deliver each Sun­ reporter Bob Hawke (Keating, Pilots, Australian state borders and George day night. The program broke stories, Child Poverty 1991, Defamation and Negus had a story on Primal Therapy. like the on-camera arrest of Miranda the Print Media, Sobriety and Fidel­ John Little claims Kerry Packer Down’s killer, Ernie Knibb (Ian Leslie). ity) makes up for some of it. rang executive producer Gerald Stone The Chelmsford Scream’ (Ray Mar­ Little spells out the Sixty Minutes to say ‘You’ve blown it son’. tin) won the program a Logie. Negus’s gospel, absorbed, he says, from Don Nearly sixteen years later, the Nine Margaret Trudeau interview sold Hewitt’s style. ‘Always concentrate on network’s current affairs flagship around the world (‘I was unfaithful the person not the event’ (Noah, not draws an average audience of around and therefore our marriage was over. the flood). ‘Go where the research takes 3.5 million Australians each Sunday A one night stand. Seems a shame you’ (If you want to find out what the night. A 30-second national advertis­ doesn’t it?* she said. The crew alleg­ American President is thinking, go to ing spot costs $30,000 and Little esti­ edly supplied vodka and dope to her America and ask him). mates the program annually earns $25 while the film magazines were Then there are Stone’s own obses­ million (and costs $12 million). 'If you changed). His ‘just plain pig-headed’ sions. Remember that the viewer has can stand the pace,' says Little, '[it’s] question in an interview with Margaret to take your work into their living still the best gig in town’. Thatcher brought him celebrity sta­ room. Get rid of excess facts. Re-intro­ Perhaps more than any other pro­ tus. duce people who were last seen in the gram, it signals the turnaround at the Little writes about the ways the story more than a few minutes ago Nine network, from its doldrums in attention affected all the reporters who (‘Remember so-and-so?’). Tease early the mid-1970s to the top in the 1980s. have worked on the program. Jennifer in the story (‘More of that later’). ‘Get The program had a significant effect Byrne was uncomfortable from the time the filming done and save the nasty on television in Australia, changing she recorded the first ‘mantra’ ‘I’m stuff for last. That way, if you get not only current affairs TV but laying Jennifer Byrne’ and Mike Munro is thrown out, or the victim walks out, some of the basis for the ‘infotainment’ supposed to have missed his family so you still have a story*, explains Little. programs which have become such im­ much on overseas trips that he would Find ‘the Sixty Minutes moment’ (Vin­ portant prime time fare. ring airlines ‘to find out if there was a cent Lingiari removing the bandages John Little worked as a producer tailwind...in the hope that he might after a cataract operation by Fred Hol­ on Sixty Minutes for nine years. He arrive a few minutes early’. lows, to find his sight has returned). says the program was, ‘like most ideas in Australian television...an Ameri­ Continued on page 2 4 ... can invention’. Don Hewitt at CBS had conceived of ‘a television version of Life Magazine, with a hard, newsy story, a colourful feature or two, per­ haps a personality profile and a ‘back of the book’ section that would cater for the arts’. Elsewhere, Hewitt has said he had seen documentaries scoring 15-20 shares on ABC, CBS and NBC. He thought ‘I’ll bet if we made it multi­ subject and we made it personal jour­ nalism - instead of dealing with issues we told stories; if we packaged reality as well as Hollywood packages fiction. I’ll bet we could double the rating’.1 Communications Update ♦ 23 ♦ September 1994 ... Continued from page 23 ... Continued from page9 petition to the Australian Academies Inside the Hour A Text Book Case of the Humanities and Social Sciences There is some discussion oftheSwtfy The implicit message to students is asking that teachers set four or five Minutes audience. The figures say that that you should stop reading when you paperbacks to be studied in each sub­ in late 1993, it included more than get to 10% of any book. Move on to the ject in depth. “We’ve got to get students 43% of the women over eighteen and next source. Change the channel. Or to value books again and to get used to more than 46% of the men over eight­ better still, the teacher will do it for reading something from beginning to een who are watching TV at the time you. end,’ she says. (‘share’) - ‘an advertiser’s dream’. Educational publisher Eleanor Cur­ She also believes the fee payable by Current executive producer, John tain also stresses the consequences of educational institutions to CAL needs Westacott thinks there’s a core audi­ photocopying for reading practices. to be increased and ways found to ence which brings in ratings in the low ‘Publishers spend a lot of time on lay­ ensure all authors photocopied for in­ 20s. This is not sufficient to justify the out and design, turning a manuscript clusion in anthologies actually receive program’s costs. The rest has to be into something that readers will want remuneration. (Because use is meas­ lured week by week. Even the core to read. Teachers and lecturers go and ured across a sample of institutions, audience has to be nurtured if they are photocopy double pages onto A4 or do some authors receive no payments from to remain loyal. Hence the hard fight reduction copies and then complain CAL despite the fact that their work is to secure the prestigious first inter­ that the students don’t want to read. It known to have been copied in an insti­ view with Paul Keating after the 1993 is actually much easier, and better, for tution not included in that particular election, despite its predictably low students to use books.’ sample.) Thirdly, she argues that the rating from audiences tired of politics. There is a further question of the cost of photocopying by students in Packer’s direct interest and involve­ integrity of the work. A statutory li­ campus libraries should be increased, ment in the program is referred to cence means an author has no right to and the funds raised spent on univer­ several times. The book begins with object to excerpts being taken from sity publishing. (Under the “fair deal­ Little recounting an exchange between their work, and reproduced as self- ing’ provisions of the Copyright Act, no Packer and Stone during which Packer contained works in different contexts, payment needs to be made to the copy­ said he'd cancel the program before it although authors have never been able right holder for students’ own copy­ even went to air, furious that Stone to control the way an individual reader ing.) was not doing a story about the British may choose to ‘excerpt’ their work in elections. Little also claims Packer de­ actually reading it. th e y're not textbooks, manded to see Jeff McMullen’s story Iremonger suggests that many of they're showbags99 on John Hewson’s children and first the hook blocks’ do not actually do wife before it went to air to satisfy what the academics claim. They’re John Iremonger himself that the children had not been often just chapters of secondary manipulated. He also asks whether sources, rather than original or hard- Packer, who had sold the network to to-find sources, and they’re often quite John Iremonger says one of the ways Bond, would have continued with the old material. They’re not textbooks, to combat the problem is ‘to produce program through its bad ratings they're showbags,' he says. 'The key to better versions of the book blocks’. He stretch from the beginning of 1987, a textbook is structure - providing the mentions Henry Mayer’s classic Aus­ when first Alf, then The Comedy Com­ discipline necessary to approach a sub­ tralian politics reader, which was once pany beat it in its timeslot. ject.’ used extensively in politics courses. ‘It And Little recites Packer’s response included quotes from political speeches, to the new megastar Negus, when, newspaper articles, everything. It had over lunch, Negus told Packer he un­ What to do structure. One of the problems was it derstood he talked often to Stone about became too unwieldy, and competition the program *but it was nice that he A decision in the CAL/VUT case is grew up around it.’ wasn’t interfering with them’ - ‘When expected by the end of October.