Seven’s Election Night: still done right?

With news that bogus Islamic flyers have been distributed by the husband of retiring Liberal member Jackie Kelly in the seat of Lindsay, she was forced to feebly defend the blunder as something of a gag.

“My view is that it is a bit of a Chaser-style prank,” she said on ABC radio today.

Hardly.

So while the parties brawl over the rights and wrongs, media attention should now turn to the Seven Network, which has Kelly as a commentator in their coverage this Saturday night.

“Election Night Done Right” is the slogan Seven has run with.

Seven says of Kelly, “In May, she announced that following this federal election, she will quit politics to spend more time with her family. John Howard couldn’t convince her to stay – but Seven has managed to lure Jackie Kelly onto the commentary team for election night.” Lucky Seven.

Today in this online blog a story detailing the bogus flyer on Seven’s own website, conveniently buries any mention of Kelly deep in the bowels of the article. You’d swear the network is distancing itself from her already. It doesn’t even mention the small detail that her husband Gary Clark was one of those responsible, merely that she said, “I think its intent is to be a send-up, but it obviously hasn’t worked.”

Nine was quick to jump on the Kelly-bashing bandwagon today. She appeared on the Today Show getting a suitably-cynical response from host Karl Stefanovic. And A Current Affair didn’t waste any time trawling over the affair either. Given her Seven role it’s in Nine’s interests to throw the mud in the lead up to the stoush that’s to follow Saturday evening. Of course, it neglected to mention Kelly had been a participant in its own Dancing on Ice last year.

Nevertheless, while Seven keeps Kelly on the commentating bench this weekend, it’s Your Call:07 is starting to look like the one on thin ice.

Sources: The Australian, ABC Radio, Seven Network