EDIT (02/12/09): A follow-up blog post on TV Tonight exhibiting further lack of research on the issue: “Australia slapped again over FlashForward leak“. It’s an excellent example of journalists copying whatever has been published elsewhere, without checking any facts. Read after this blog entry.
Tonight, I shall be presenting you with an example of Bad Journalism!
This morning, I read an article from the Hollywood Reporter, titled “Thanksgiving-averse Aussies leak FlashForward“. It was quite an uninformed and insulting article. The writer, James Hibberd (naming and shaming for the win), is noted as being “a senior TV reporter and senior online editor of THR.com”. Hmmm. Anyway, onto why it was so bad.
ABC didn’t air the drama last week because of Thanksgiving. But wouldn’t you know it, Australians don’t care about our guilt-tinged empire-expanding holiday traditions and didn’t take a break.
Firstly, cry more? Hibberd appears to have some sort of vested interest in FlashForward succeeding in the American ratings. I doubt an episode being leaked online a few days before it airs there is going to dent the ratings much. Also, since the episode was aired in Australia, I’m pretty sure ABC would’ve allowed it to air, or else legal trouble would ensue.
(For the record, Aussies do have a Thanksgiving holiday…
What. Pretty sure there is no such thing as Thanksgiving here. A look at the comments of the article indicate that Hibberd was referring to some completely unofficial holiday (i.e., not a national holiday), that no-one here has even heard of. Someone called it “religious propaganda”.
Further, shouldn’t a serious journalist actually research, rather than Google “thanksgiving australia” and trust whatever the first result says? (Hint: yes). For the record, I also Googled it, and indeed, aforementioned pseudo-holiday’s website was the first result, what a surprise! And we know that’s the website Hibberd looked as, as he mentioned that Australia celebrates Thanksgiving in May, which is nice and clear in the header image of said website.
…but it’s in May and they don’t really do it right).
How insulting. Disregarding that we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, it is really offensive to tell another country/culture that that are celebrating their holidays wrong. I’m pretty sure Thanksgiving has historical origins, and I wonder whether the reason he thinks we’re not doing it right, is that he’s under the impression that we aren’t celebrating it for the same reasons he is. Pretty sure Australia isn’t America, and our national holidays are for own own reasons.
Admittedly, more that just one country celebrates Thanksgiving, and each for their own reasons, but well, there’s the research issue again. Someone wanting people to take them seriously should look at more than one source. Or maybe that’s just entertainment reporting for you?
Oh, and finally:
Whether the U.S.-Aussie “FlashForward” schedule being jolted out of sync will result in future episodes also being leaked isn’t known.
Just chill the hell out, seriously. It would’ve been extremely easy to find out that the episode that aired early here was the last aired for 2009, and FlashForward will evidently be aired behind the US again in 2010.
