Today Tonight “doesn’t deliberately push buttons”
Executive Producer Craig McPherson slams a Fairfax article which slammed Today Tonight.
- Published by David Knox
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Craig McPherson, Executive Producer of Today Tonight, has defended the content of Seven show following a volatile article in the Fairfax press yesterday.
Strongly branded as an “Opinion” piece, the story’s opening paragraph said:
“Today Tonight is a cancerous growth inside Australian broadcasting. The Channel Seven ‘current affairs’ show, which regularly draws an audience of more than 1 million on weeknights at 6.30, is an amoral production house where the race to the bottom has been won with stories that begin as sensationalist and move towards the sordid. The notion that it’s so bad it’s funny is no longer applicable. It’s so bad that it’s a disgrace.”
The article went on to criticise some of the show’s regular topics and style.
McPherson, who rarely gives media interviews, has since told Mediaweek he didn’t know much about the author, of the piece Craig Mathieson.
“Who is he?” he asked.
“From what we can gather he’s an alternate rock music critic who has decided I guess to delve into the more popular domain of television and he’s come at us all guns blazing. Naturally everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Don’t shy away from that.
“But the way it was written, the tone, the vindictiveness, the rabidness of it I think was totally unjustified and unfair.
“He knew the end before he started the means.”
But while the article provoked a reaction, Today Tonight is often accused of the very same agenda.
“The show is relevant to what’s going on out there, as best as we can be, and that’s always a judgmental thing,” said McPherson.
Asked whether TT pushes buttons he said:
“Push buttons? I guess, yeah, we do push buttons. The community often requires buttons to be pushed. We spark debate, we see what they’re interested in, what they’re not interested in and we go with that.
“We don’t deliberately set out to push any particular button. But we’re there to try and be as relevant as we can to the Australian population.”
He was also questioned about his views on A Current Affair, but despite some robust criticism, arrived at one point on which both shows could agree:
“Both shows do serve a purpose. I don’t care what the intelligensia media try and make of either program. They both actually do serve a purpose, in a community that is crying out for somebody to help them on any given topic,” he said.
So far the Fairfax article has attracted over 600 comments.
The interview addresses content, promos, competition, ratings, interstate editions and more.
You can hear more of it here.
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- Tagged with A Current Affair, Today Tonight
50 Responses
How arrogant is this EP. he keeps going on about how he has no idea who craig mathieson is. he’s been writing for over two decades – but that’s beside the point. I hate him inferring that he’s a nobody therefore not entitled to an opinion. everyone’s opinions matter. he’s obviously hit a nerve.
Craig McPherson – my comment on Today Tonight : “But the way it was written, the tone, the vindictiveness, the rabidness of it I think was totally unjustified and unfair”. Sound familiar – how many of your attempts at current affairs journalism could be described in you own words? Many!
Ell said it all really.
Shows like ACA and TT pander to the lowest common denominator, very rarely have any valuable news or current affair content. It’s articles like this that might actually get the publics attention and the might switch to other show offering more value.
Keep up the good work Craig Mathieson.
Bring back 6.30 with George!!
Craig McPherson, Executive Producer can dish it out but when its turned on him he cries like a baby. Craig get a life ,better still get job that means something if thats possible .
I read it in the Green Guide. Great article.
I can’t even bring myself to watch these shows. The stories are mostly beat up nonsense with zero journalistic merit. My partner made the mistake one day of sending an email to them about something that happened to me. They contacted me and I declined to take part in a related story. They then proceeded to hound my partner & every member of my family they could find in an attempt to track me down in person. This included lying to people about who they were in an attempt to trick them into telling them where I worked & what my mobile number was.
If this is the level of harrassment they subject the people they just want to interview to I can’t even imagine what it is like for the “targets” of their stories.
It’s ok for Today Tonight to serve up trash every night but when someone has a go at them they get all sensitive. This show cannot be defended. It is the most lowbrow show ever aired in this country.
Craig McPherson is a complete hypocrite. These shows (TT and ACA) are no longer “current affairs”(if they ever were). Sunday Night and 60 Minutes are not much better either these days.
The only networks that now have any news or current affairs programs worth watching are the ABC (7:30, Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent) and SBS (Dateline, Insight).
Ten’s 6PM/6:30 with Negus was a breath of fresh air but sadly couldn’t last. It’s a sad indictment on the standard of commercial news and current affairs in this country that toxic crap like TT and ACA are on air and that they actually rate a million a nite.
Sorry about the long post.
I agree with Craig McPherson, Executive Producer of Today Tonight and it’s just sites like this that are filled with “intelligensia”, that is those who think they are the more intellectual types who look down their nose and scoff at anything that they think is below them.
I for one am glad over 2 million Australians who watch ACA and TT are more down to earth and are wholeheartedly interested in issues that affect them which is what these programs are about.
To the high brow “intelligensia” you’ve got your 4 Corners, Foreign Correspondent and George Negus show and we all know how they rate. If you’re not interested in issues that affect your every day life then don’t watch but keep your egotistical pompous attitudes away.
7 called Today Tonight ‘Real Life’ up until 1995. These shows have allot to answer for. Does anyone remember Frontline with Mike Moore and Brook Vandenberg. That is all TT and ACA are good for. Satire!
If advertisers dug just a little deeper into those million TT viewers they might discover some particular demographic and socioeconomic skews that might make that million look like not such an attractive target for their products. Anyone who finds that kind of programming interesting would be less likely to have the means of making discerning consumer choices. I mean, just look at the people that turn up often on the show from the bottom of the barrel.
Today Tonight…..apart of channel 7’s unintentional comedy programming.
“But the way it was written, the tone, the vindictiveness, the rabidness of it I think was totally unjustified and unfair.”
Would that be the same tone, vindictiveness and rabidness with which Today Tonight and A Current Affair treat immigrants, “dole bludgers”, “shonky” builders, insurers, the youth, various ethnic and minority groups etc?
Someone needed to do a story on “Shonky Current Affairs” shows because they wouldn’t do it.
Unfortunately people watch it, there is a market for their sensationalist rubbish. I watched their first segment last night after reading the Green Guide article and it was a totally unbalanced bashing of speed and red light cameras, again!!!!!
The programme along with ACA have nothing in common with their namesakes from as recently as the late 1990s. Have we really all become so stupid in the last 10 years?
What would happen if they all produced a nightly programme like 7:30 did last night, somehow I think people would still watch and would learn.
Come back Mike Moore – we need you.
When Frontline hit the scene, both ACA and TT were at their worst in the mid-90s. As Frontline highlighted the putrid nature of these shows, the audiences abandoned them in droves and it took years for them to build back up to where they are now.
So, it is time for someone to put their putrid behaviour of TT and ACA in their sights. The Hamster Wheel is having a good go, but I think only Mike Moore and his fabulous wig could pack the punch to bring them undone again.
McPherson can protest all he wants. The column merely expressed what most people with any critical faculties think. If there was any proper regulation of journalistic standards in this country, TT simply wouldn’t be allowed to get away with the garbage they nightly broadcast. The real problem, though, is not the more obvious and egregious examples of sensationalism, but the slow drip, drip, drip of narrow-minded, selfish, consumerist tosh that plays on the insecurities and prejudices of susceptible viewers and produces suspicion, hate and cynicism. Everyone associated with the program – and that includes the numbskulls that run Channel 7 – ought to be thoroughly ashamed.
I read the article yesterday and thought it was spot on. Also wondered how long it would take for the slingshot defensiveness to come from TT.
I tend to think of TT as more of a ‘comedy’- how can anyone watch this show and take it seriously? Every second story is one regarding either a shoddy builders, mexican/chinese hackers or miracle weightloss programs.
I guess that TT’s EP’s response shows that the article hit a nerve. The fairfax peice was spot on in its criticism of those alleged current affairs shows.
Both TT and ACA are examples of tabloid television, in my opinion they should not be described as current affairs, which implies content that has a lot more gravitas, ie The 7.30 Report. TT and ACA follow a time honoured formula of foot-in-the-door-exposing-scam-artists stories, disguised advertorials (latest diets, miracle arthritis treatments, wonder bras, etc), human interest (sick kiddies, victimised pensioners) and righteous indignation (consumer rip-offs, bludging asylum seekers, Islamic rabble rousers, etc). They appear to follow a strict story template and recycle the stories every 3-4 months, sometimes more often. Everybody knows this, the Fairfax article didn’t break any new ground in its criticism of the show.
Mathieson is spot on! These Current Affairs shows are an embarrassment to journalism. I find it remarkable that there are a million idiots out there who watch this crap. Guess our ratings system really is flawed.
And isn’t it funny that Today Tonight can bully, chase and bring out the flaming torches on anyone they want, but the moment they are attacked they cry victim..
They do not serve a purpose, they don’t spark any meaningful debate and the term ‘pushing buttons’ implies they are a useful element of the fourth estate. The fairfax piece was bang on.