As long as the story has the word Scientology in it…

“It really is a bizarre public relations battle,” said ACA reporter Tom Steinfort last night.

“A no-holds barred slanging match.”

But while Steinfort was referring to the Church of Scientology and BBC reporter John Sweeney the line could almost have applied to A Current Affair and Today Tonight.

Both tackled the feud between Scientology and Sweeney, but with different agendas.

While one sided with Sweeney (TT) the other spent time questioning his journalism -or at least highlighting the fact that Scientology questions it. Footage of Sweeney losing it in a 2007 confrontation with Scientology representative Tommy Davis was used on ACA to portray him in a dubious light.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxqR5NPhtLI[/youtube]

Of his style, Steinfort said at one point, “It’s a dramatic and in-your-face style of documentary guaranteed to get viewers’ total attention.”

Unlike our 6:30 shows, of course….

Today Tonight has had an ongoing focus on questions about Scientology, including Senator Nick Xenophon’s hounding of the organisation in South Australia. It’s been a ratings winner for them. Nine, with its former ties to Jamie Packer, has previously given Scientology a better run.

Sweeney’s most recent documentary includes a Scientology whistleblower who talks about how Sweeney was stalked by the organisation while filming. This was the thrust of the TT story.

Never one to shrink from a competitor’s promo, ACA drew upon the same Panorama documentary (which Seven had branded as ‘exclusive’) and added that Scientology had been filming Sweeney as he conducted interviews with some of Hollywood’s converted -a case of fighting fire with fire.

But as Today Tonight showed us, and as A Current Affair didn’t, Sweeney himself admits he lost it in that 2007 confrontation. He blames this on the mind games played by Tommy Davis.

ACA did at least include an interview with Nick Xenophon to stop it from being a complete indictment of Sweeney.

As Media Watch noted last week, this was really about current affairs shows chasing the same story, with spoling tactics thrown in to boot.

As for that 2007 outburst on Panorama, an internal BBC investigation found that Sweeney’s conduct at one point in the filming was clearly inappropriate, but also noted that Sweeney had apologised for his outburst and concluded that as a whole, filming of the documentary had been performed in a proper and fair manner.

The irony of it all was that both stories on both current affairs shows revolved around another journalist actually doing the hard yakka to acquire, and ultimately become, the story.