Tuesday, April 10, 2007
SHORT STEPS*
The Sydney Morning Herald is seriously unamused by Media Watch’s investigation of its Earth Hour illumination images (my invoice is in the mail, by the way):
[W]e are...extremely disappointed to receive this...query from Media Watch. It in fact implies a fraud. It is an ugly and baseless inference…we warrant the integrity of those photographs...We appreciate shining some light on the truth.
—Email from Alan Oakley (Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald) and Simon Dulhunty (Editor of the Sun-Herald) to Media Watch
The program also sought comment from the SMH’s managing editor, Sam North, who revealed the following (as summarised by MW):
The before and afters in his paper weren’t taken on the same day … The ‘before’ shots were taken two days before the switch off when weather conditions helped make the whole scene look much lighter.
Whoa! The pictures were taken two days apart? That’s not what Fairfax papers told us the morning after Sydney’s hour of darkness. Here’s the Melbourne Age‘s caption:
Hitting the switch: Sydney’s lights shine with their usual brightness last night before the scheduled Earth Hour and are dimmed between 7.30pm and 8.30pm as lights were turned off to reduce electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Wrong. The “before” shot, we now know, was taken not on Saturday’s Earth Hour night but on the Thursday night prior. Another caption, from the SMH itself:
Bright lights, big city ... Sydney last night, before we pulled the plug.
For reasons unknown, Media Watch - although clearly aware of the captions, presenting one at the top of its story - declined to point out the obvious clash between the captions (asserting the pics were taken on Saturday) and the statement of SMH managing editor North (the pics were taken on Thursday). MW host Monica Attard:
Wouldn’t most readers expect the pictures were taken just ‘before’ and just ‘after’ the lights were switched off?
Yes, they would. Because they’d been told exactly that. The segment ended with a bland non-judgment:
Maybe you’d like to decide for yourself by going to our website ... because the jury’s out on that one.
It might help if the jury was aware of all the available evidence.
*“Short steps” is descriptive of a situation in Australian Rules football when a player headed for a contest reduces his speed in order to avoid the pain of colliding with other players.
UPDATE. Albury’s Border Mail - a Fairfax title - is wise to the SMH’s scam:
Even the lights that remained burning seemed to shine less brightly during Earth Hour in Sydney on Saturday night.