Memo to Matthew Abraham and David Bevan at Adelaide's local ABC radio 891: it's not good interviewing technique, whatever you blokes may think, to ask a question and then interrupt the interviewee halfway through her/his second sentence.
It's an even less good idea to do this in a hectoring and bullying manner. (NB M. Abraham.)
And it's an even less good idea again to do it in a hectoring, bullying manner with a state politician just because s/he is a state politican, or with someone you do not like/agree with/think in your secret heart of hearts that you can outsmart, like Dr Philip Nitschke. (NB M. Abraham in spades.)
I get the feeling these blokes think that hectoring and interrupting makes one look like a good journalist, not giving people a free ride and asking the so-called hard questions. (See that adjective? That's a bit of a clue.) Sorry, boys, that doesn't make one a good journalist. That just makes one a bad interviewer.
Showing my hand here: a National she may be, but I have always liked Karlene Maywald, the SA Minister (due to a unique deal with State Labor govt) for Water Security. She is articulate, realistic, intelligent, pragmatic, reasonable and civilised. She is also all over her portfolio and her constituency.
Matt'n'Dave, on the other hand, might do well to remember that just because they're biggish frogs in a littlish puddle, it doesn't make them kings of the world.
Nor does it make them invulnerable. Rooster, feather duster, etc.
6 comments:
I don't know why they do it. They don't need to. They've proved their excellent journalists.
So do I acknowledge the their which should be they're or let it sit as some kind of ironic statement which only those in the know will get while the rest go 'ffs, doesn't she know her 'theirs' from her 'they'res'?
Excuse me, I'm off to have a cup of tea and scoff a bit of the enormous Easter egg which someone gave to us after they couldn't resist it on special at Target yesterday.
Oooh, Easter egg.
[Off topic]: I can't wait for you, Laura and/or the other people at Sarsaparilla to blog the "English Lit responsible for massacre" topic. Pleeeease!
Cast Iron Balcony
3C, I interpreted it as a mere slip of the paw.
Cast Iron Helen: alas, Creative Writing classes do attract nutters, as I know from long experience. But the chicken of nutterdom came before the egg of creative writing, not vice versa.
Oh I so agree with you.
I like listening to Matt 'n Dave because they usually tackle something a bit biggish.
But they have been annoying me more and more lately because of their arrogant, hectoring, interrupting rudeness.
(I cannot tell which is which though, vocally they are both very similar).
In the case of KM, you are spot on, don't care if she is a National, she is right on the money, confident, sure of herself, no stumbling, and knows her portfolio backwards. She has a crap job and is an excellent performer in spite of it, and deserves better.
In fact, all their guests deserve better. They lads need to learn from Philip Satchel, master of the long pause and well-judged "hmmm".
I'm sorry to say that I've given up on Matt and Dave. I've listened to Matt with or without the beared one for the best part of 16 years (minus however long Matt was a flak for the Catholic Church).
Now, however, their egos seem to have well and truly got the better of them. They did used to set the agenda for the day with whatever they discussed on their 8.30 slot, but the times they have a-changed.
You can see it in the number of press seccies who refuse to let their ministers come on at all to be bullied, or who will only make them available after 9.30 when the audience has dropped off. I suspect that Matt and Dave are not long for this world - 12 months, max before they're replaced.
While I'm having a go at Matt, I might as well really sink the boot. His Messenger column is truly yawnsome and needs serious renovation. It's not quite as dismal as The Yummy Mummies, perhaps, but it's still tedious in the extreme. It's time he put his laurels in his Unley Council green waste bin. Come on, Matt - haven't you ever heard the expression, "If you aren't living on the edge, you're taking up space?"
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