One of the offshoots of covering television in Canada for so many years is that when big news breaks, I often get asked to weigh in on radio and TV coverage. This was certainly the case this past week as the Jimmy Kimmel saga went, in a matter of days, from shock to cause celeb to surprising return to record ratings (over six million overnight ABC viewers and a one day total of 20 million social media and YouTube monologue views).
While I expected calls from CTV News Network, CBC TV and radio and regional radio stations in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, the Niagara region and Ottawa, I also found myself as a daily voice on First Edition, the headline-driven morning show on Sky News Australia. Oy!
Here is what astounds me about that, and excuse me for sounding like my dad. I’m sitting in my basement office in the town of Orangeville, Ontario, Canada, about an hour north-west of Toronto. It helps that I’m set up for podcasting, with a proper mic and a decent little digital camera, but it still blows my mind that I can talk to a TV host in Australia (in a studio outside Sydney, I believe) and there is only about a half-second delay over zoom. According to the globe in my office, this international transmission is almost exactly the opposite ends of the earth.
Politically, I suspect, I am also about that far removed from Pete Stefanovic, the impressive host of FIrst Edition. Sky News is no longer owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, but comparisions to conservative opinion programming found on Fox News in America continues in Australia.
That certainly was my impression, too, after four or five appearances on the morning show. As you can see on the clip, First Edition‘s coverage of Kimmel’s triumphant Wednesday night return to his ABC series was headlined as “KIMMEL APOLOGISES DURING SHOW’S RETURN” — with the cheeky sub headline, “REAL NEWS, HONEST VIEWS.”
That slogan already had my back up as I was being interviewed. Also, there was no apology from Kimmel, only clarification.
advertisement
Stefanovic, in either case, was not buying any of what he saw as Kimmel’s “crocodile tears.” This mainly in reference, according to the clip shown, to when a teary Jimmy stated that, “it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man” (referencing Chris Kirk).
I tried to push back on the phony tears notion, having witnessed how Kimmel had become genuinely choked up in the past, especially back when his son Billy was born with a serious heart defect. That is when Kimmel became a lightening rod and ultimately a crusader for preserving the Affordable Care Act in America.
Besides, as he said on the monologue during his second night back on ABC, Kimmel was motivated to push back hard against the current president because the bullying by Trump pushed buttons he’s had since his earliest school days.
In any event, I hope First Edition has this moderate liberal on again. It is invigorating to get thrown into situations on live television half way around the world and know you are going to be challenged. Stefanovic is a skilled professional and those spontaneous exchanges make for good television, I think, because they really do provoke “honest views.”
