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Premature abdication

As political news broke on Wednesday night, some were getting a little ahead of the game.

As political news broke on Wednesday night, some were getting a little ahead of the game.

Seven News‘ Political Editor Mark Riley saw into the future telling Chris Bath, “He’s on his way to a Press Conference to tell Australia that he is standing down as the Prime Minister.

“An extraordinary turn of event this evening in Canberra,” he said.

“Australia will have its first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.”

But in a later report he had to qualify his statement as a leadership vote not a resignation.

“It justs hows how wild this numbers game is Chris, certainly members of the Labor Party texting me and telling me Kevin Rudd had agreed to stand down,” he said.

“Obviously what he had agreed to do was have a leadership spill tomorrow.”

As it turns out, Riley was close to the money if not necessarily the timing.

22 Responses

  1. I watched Sky news on Wednesday night and they got it right, they were more professional and knew what they were talking about.
    They said Rudd would pull out of the vote so he wouldn’t be embarrassed and they were proved correct.

  2. I can’t believe that this has happened…how can the pollies think that this is ok….we elected Kevin…we will never vote labour again.

  3. 7 are becoming a joke with news and current afffairs……..any network that has Kochie as its anchor has MAJOR problems!

    Having said that I watched Sky News on Wednesday night and thought David Speers and Kieren Gilbert were great….seemed to be on top of everything.

  4. Sorry David, in my previous post by writing ‘content of the article aside’ that was not to say that I thought there was anything wrong with the article – 2 thumbs up all around was perhaps a better way to put it? 🙂

  5. Seven were pretty poor last night. Lots of dog whistle reporting.

    They did their best to associate Julia Gillard with the corrupt NSW Government, then claimed Labor voters were angry with the treatment of Rudd, using a line from Tony Abbott as evidence. As far as I’m aware Abbott isn’t a Labor voter.

  6. Seven was just trying to make up for the fact that ABC News broke this story at 7:30pm, the night before. It’s just too bad ABC News24 wasn’t up & running for the event.

  7. I went for the ABC coverage, no frills and not dumb. I am not a fan of 9’s Laurie Oakes after the hatchet job he did on Cheryl Kernot many years ago. Kochie annoyed the beejeezus out of me, like the annoying person who always has to have the last say, I really wish Mel had been able to go to Canberra. I may have been able to stick with 7 if she’d gone and Riley is generally cool !.

  8. The covergae from Sky News was by far the best of all networks.

    David Speers and co. actually knew what they were talking about and the coverage had a very “live and active” feeling as opposed to the ABC, where the presenters seemed almost detached from what was happenning in Canberra.

  9. @Peter Yes, I agree, but if you can find a better run down I’d be very keen to see it.

    Oh, and as for the ABC technical hitches – how’s about crossing to promos for 10+ seconds or so at a time, 3-4 times, during coverage, or did you miss those?

  10. Australia may have it’s first female prime minister, but unlike other countries who have had female prime ministers, our country is yet to vote in its first female pm.

  11. Also it looked as if the ABC was trying out its HD facilities for when the 24/7 news channel starts. A lot of the presentation on 20 was in HD, and a big improvement over SD 2.

  12. @mikeys: it’s also a rather biased summary, with an obvious incentive to play up Sky News and underplay the ABC. Sky News did okay, but the ABC had by far the largest team of journalists covering the story during the day – I counted at least eight, not including the Breakfast and Midday Report presenters – and even more reporters covering the story in the afternoon and evening. They also had the best analysis; while other networks trivialised the transition by obsessing about “what Julia’s feeling” and the “first woman [sic] PM” angle, the ABC talked at length about the actual political implications of the change, which is ultimately what matters in the end.

    The “technical difficulties” which The Australian tries to emphasise on the ABC’s broadcast amounted to the audio feed coming in half a second after the vision came on screen, or an interviewee missing a few words on a mobile phone cross.

  13. I’ve stuck with the Nine coverage as well, it was very organised. Highlight of course was the ‘hug-a-ginga’ from the Today show for Julia and Tony 🙂

  14. There’s a good run-down on The Aus of the media coverage, good and bad, on the evening. All in all, a very well covered event under such circumstances – well done all.

  15. It just goes to show how “Being First” isn’t everything. I watched all networks closely and thought Nine’s coverage the most thorough. ABC was dull, Ten a joke, and Seven’s too much of a Kochie chat & giggle show. Nine’s looked clean and bright, they had better experts and the regular crosses to Julia Gillard’s mum & dad gave the day a nice personal touch.

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