★★★★★ 0/5

Cheap shot tweet on Q & A

ABC took a cheap shot in rebroadcasting a tweet at Rex Hunt's expense, during a discussion about hook-up apps.

17
Leave a comment

chshLast night during Q & A‘s broadcast from The Festival of Dangerous Ideas the panel were discussing “hook-up” apps -dedicated apps that facilitate casual sex encounters with smartphone GPS data.

There was much debate over the moralities of those who use them and the age-old love vs sex debate. While Sex advice author and gay activist Dan Savage explained that many relationships had been forged from casual sex, conservative Peter Hitchens didn’t embrace his use of technology.

But I was very surprised to see one of the tweet’s that Q & A flashed upon the screen:

While the former TV presenter’s admissions regarding his infidelities were on the public record in 2006, this was a cheap shot to rebroadcast and I think audiences expect better of Q &A. It may be one thing to have a punchline at the expense of Hunt, but there are two parties in any marriage.

Today an ABC spokesperson told TV Tonight, “Q&A interpreted this tweet as a joke about Rex’s passion for fishing, and so deemed it appropriate to broadcast.”

17 Responses

    1. How is it not newsworthy for a personal blog where I watch television. I don’t mind if you disagree with my point, but for nearly 7 years I have blogged about a range of topics including my reactions to what I have watched. I felt it was incredibly poor of Q&A to republish this one for the reasons stated above, as part of a growing trend to publish punchlines over substance. I also gave ABC right of reply. Thanks.

  2. @ Armchair Analyst: Christopher Hitchens has made much more sense in the last couple of years than ever before. If you look on Wikipedia, you’ll see why…

    Peter Hitchens, on the other hand, is still doing the same old contrarian ‘I used to be a liberal – until I stopped being childish, grew up, and became a cranky Conservative’ schtick he’s done for years now.

  3. Tex @ 1.26pm says “It’s also pretty obvious that Q&A – and I assume other shows with live tweeting – have their list of ‘favourites’ who seem to automatically bypass even the most basic relevance/fact/amusement value checking and get put straight to air.”

    I’ve also wondered the same thing. Out of the thousands of twitter accounts hammering #qanda (and other shows) it is amazing that sometimes the same handful of twitter handles tend to re-appear… Just the mere law of averages indicates that the chances of getting a Tweet to appear on Q&A are akin to winning the lotto… yet some Twitter handles get featured repeatedly, sometimes even in the same episode.

  5. In no way whatsoever was that a reference to fish, fishing or fishing tackle. Having said that, I did have to ask my dad what it meant as I didn’t know about Rex Hunts hooking up shenanigans.

  6. I watched the show live on News 24 but didnt see that tweet, i dont know maybe i was getting into the show and the topics too much to really pay attention to the tweets. I do however have a beef with the rules and how they assess what tweet gets through and what does not. I did thoroughly enjoys the episode liked all of the guests. Christopher Hitchins made sense on some topics. I even found myself agreeing with Germain Greer at some points. The other two were good aswell, overall a well balenced show.

  8. Like several of the other, I also took this as a Fishing Pun. I am sure that Fishing comes to mind first/more when referencing Rex Hunt than anything else.

  13. Hence my hatred for these bogan “tweets” that programs seem to have an obsession for. They distract from the program, rather than add anything to it.

  14. yeah, I honestly just thought it was a joke riffing on fishing. 2006 was, well, a while ago. Its not exactly front of mind with… well, most people. I think you might’ve read to much into a mediocre fishing pun.

  15. It’s also pretty obvious that Q&A – and I assume other shows with live tweeting – have their list of ‘favourites’ who seem to automatically bypass even the most basic relevance/fact/amusement value checking and get put straight to air.

    That reliance on a pre-selected set of reliable twits at the expense of actual public participation, and the preponderance of “Mr Burns, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train”-level scripted questions from the audience, make the whole thing a sad joke and a waste of time.

    Q&A could be good; it could be a successful example of embracing the internet for public debate and a real trendsetter – but it’s really just another shallow-thinking old mates club that pretends to be ‘worthy’.

    (No, not bitter at all – I don’t even have a twitter account!)

Leave a Reply