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by Leigh Sales

12 Feb 05:58am

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Filed under: Anniversaries, Journalism, Media, Writing

4 comments

Note: This Well Readhead entry by Leigh serves as an introduction to the special one-off piece she has filed, which is published directly below.

I may be telepathic. I can foresee what will appear in this year’s Christmas Day package on the 7pm ABC news - a grab from the Catholic Archbishop, a grab from the Anglican archbishop, shots of the homeless being served lunch at a shelter, shots of kids unwrapping presents if the reporter’s lined up a family early.

First day at school, and vulnerable to tears, anxiety and journalistic cliche.

There could well be vision from Bethlehem of a Nativity re-enactment. The Pope in St Peter’s Square obviously. If the journalist gets really lucky, there might be some quirky sidebar such as a surfing Santa or a dog that can bark jingle bells. And call me crazy, but I’m going to predict that on Christmas Eve on Channel Ten, the price of prawns will be skyrocketing.

Every journalist knows that there are certain stories that show up annually on the assignments board. They’re so formulaic, the packages are almost identical from year to year: Australia Day, Anzac Day, the Easter Show (cue reporter piece-to-camera on a sideshow ride) and New Year’s Eve (Sydney’s fireworks are always the best in the world).

Indeed, if I grabbed my Good Friday TV news package from 1994, I could probably run it again this Easter and the only thing that would give it away would be my shoulder pads and a hairdo last seen on Melrose Place.

When you’re assigned these yarns, it can be very difficult to find ways of telling them originally. The British writer Charlie Brooker has beautifully satirised the nature of TV news and the various conventions we reporters regularly fall back on.

One of the standard yearly stories is the First Day of School. You know the drill: gorgeous kids in their neatly pressed uniforms and huge backpacks arrive at the gates holding mum & dad’s hand, kids give cute vox pops, teary mums wave good-bye and so on.

Over the Christmas holidays, the looming school year got me thinking: is there a way to tell the first day story that’s not clichéd?

To that end, I spent the first day of the 2010 school year at a Sydney primary school for a fly-on-the wall look. This is a bit different to the usual Well-readhead format which will be back next fortnight. But I hope you enjoy it.

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Most commented

431Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself

390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin

336Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer

313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking

266Who murdered the Arts degree?

246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...

231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.

231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...

4 comments

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- Julia says:
  
  06:33am | 12/02/10
  
  Every year a certain Brisbane paper will publish the obligatory getting ready for school stories. Triplets going to school for the first time, one family still using a horse and cart and the day after the first day, we find one school with nothing but twins and triplets.
  
  I don’t mind this. I like the regularity. It’s like reading the same book over and over again.
  
  What I do mind is reporting hot weather in Brisbane as if its something new. It isn’t new. It’s always been hot. It always will be. So the morons responsible for the front page ‘A state divided’ talking about monsoonal weather in the north and the dry in the south should remember the Tropic of Capricorn is there for a reason.
  
  It’s not news. It’s geography.
  
  Reply
Jamers Hunter says:

09:00am | 12/02/10

the one i realy like is when any story about the economy we have the fingers ,or machine, flipping through large piles of bank notes.
is this to make the wealthy feel smug or the poor feel envious or to make us understand,as if we didnt anyway, that the banks realy dont give a f*&k??
- sneakers says:
  
  08:26am | 12/02/10
  
  Agreed, Leigh.
  
  In fact, I was going to make something of an advent calendar for news stories this year, but missed my chance.
  
  For example - in January, there are sightings of big cats (ooh .. is that a panther?) in Victoria, New South Wales or Queensland (delete as applicable).
  
  I would have thought that February would be the “chocolate is actually good for you” month, but it seems they’ve come up with a “soft drink is bad for you” story instead. I’ll have to file that one for next year .. still, they do still have 2 weeks to slot it in.
  
  Reply
- vicki pavlos says:
  
  10:09am | 12/02/10
  
  I’m not sure there’s much you can do about the repetition, because Xmas, Anzac Day etc come around every year, and people pretty much do the same things every year.
  
  It’s called tradition.
  
  Media could stop dredging up the same old, I guess, and just report on the occasions as a passing mention. Which brave channel/newspaper/radio station is ready to take up the challenge?
  
  Reply