Fake reality TV dancers forever worrying about 'the Nationals'
And you end up watching the show so often that it becomes burned into your subconscious.
Such is the case with The Next Step, which my daughter - who is now well into her teens - used to watch when she was little.
Looking at this latest episode (from season 10 so the show obviously has some legs) I can see little about this series set in a pretend dance studio has changed.
It is still based heavily around a fake reality TV vibe, where the actors deliver pieces to camera as their character. Sure, it's a show for kids, but this is a really, really lazy way to provide the viewer with information.
Also, there is still the unceasing quest to make "the nationals" - which is some sort of dance competition that forever hangs over their heads.
I swear they mention "the nationals" at least a half-dozen times in every single episode. It's like it is the only thing that matters for these kids.
Still on the subject of dancing, though unlike The Next Step above, this an an actual reality TV show.
The success of this show is a little surprising - there is apparently enough appeal in the concept of dancing celebrities that two different networks have screened it.
It was first on 7 from 2004-15, then jumped to Ten for two years from 2019 and has now returned home to 7 since 2021.
Maybe it's because the show provides relatively wholesome viewing in the reality TV genre - an area that has come to be sordid, tacky or absurdly niche (seriously, how long before we get a show called Outback Truckers Whose First Name Starts with a T?).
The darkest it gets on Dancing With the Stars are the comments from the nasty judge - and every reality TV show with a judging panel has to have one.
The show is not my cup of tea but I do have respect for the celebs that risk the potential for embarrassment and give it a crack.
And, for the most part, the celebs are actually people you know. No Instagrammers looking to eke out the final seconds of their 15 minutes of fame here.
The reality of this TV show isn't quite as revealing as the title would suggest, but it still offers a slightly different view of life in the cooking game.
Host Tom Kerridge has been a chef for a number of years, switching over to the world of TV - as it seems more and more chefs do.
He is pretty honest about the rough side of hospitality - perhaps more so than his guests.
For instance, Kerridge is pretty open about the problems he - and by extension others - have with alcohol.
He worked hard in the kitchen and then, when service would finish, he'd hit the bottle hard too.
So much so that he admits if he didn't stop he would have been dead.
All the other reveals - like exactly what everyone does in the kitchen - can't compete with that bombshell.
Still, they provide some interesting info. Before watching this show I didn't realise there's one guy in the kitchen whose job it is to put together all the bits and pieces others have been cooking to make the dish that goes out to the customer.
Every parent knows what it's like to have to sit next to their kid while they watch some show that is wonderful to them but painful to the adult.
And you end up watching the show so often that it becomes burned into your subconscious.
Such is the case with The Next Step, which my daughter - who is now well into her teens - used to watch when she was little.
Looking at this latest episode (from season 10 so the show obviously has some legs) I can see little about this series set in a pretend dance studio has changed.
It is still based heavily around a fake reality TV vibe, where the actors deliver pieces to camera as their character. Sure, it's a show for kids, but this is a really, really lazy way to provide the viewer with information.
Also, there is still the unceasing quest to make "the nationals" - which is some sort of dance competition that forever hangs over their heads.
I swear they mention "the nationals" at least a half-dozen times in every single episode. It's like it is the only thing that matters for these kids.
Still on the subject of dancing, though unlike The Next Step above, this an an actual reality TV show.
The success of this show is a little surprising - there is apparently enough appeal in the concept of dancing celebrities that two different networks have screened it.
It was first on 7 from 2004-15, then jumped to Ten for two years from 2019 and has now returned home to 7 since 2021.
Maybe it's because the show provides relatively wholesome viewing in the reality TV genre - an area that has come to be sordid, tacky or absurdly niche (seriously, how long before we get a show called Outback Truckers Whose First Name Starts with a T?).
The darkest it gets on Dancing With the Stars are the comments from the nasty judge - and every reality TV show with a judging panel has to have one.
The show is not my cup of tea but I do have respect for the celebs that risk the potential for embarrassment and give it a crack.
And, for the most part, the celebs are actually people you know. No Instagrammers looking to eke out the final seconds of their 15 minutes of fame here.
The reality of this TV show isn't quite as revealing as the title would suggest, but it still offers a slightly different view of life in the cooking game.
Host Tom Kerridge has been a chef for a number of years, switching over to the world of TV - as it seems more and more chefs do.
He is pretty honest about the rough side of hospitality - perhaps more so than his guests.
For instance, Kerridge is pretty open about the problems he - and by extension others - have with alcohol.
He worked hard in the kitchen and then, when service would finish, he'd hit the bottle hard too.
So much so that he admits if he didn't stop he would have been dead.
All the other reveals - like exactly what everyone does in the kitchen - can't compete with that bombshell.
Still, they provide some interesting info. Before watching this show I didn't realise there's one guy in the kitchen whose job it is to put together all the bits and pieces others have been cooking to make the dish that goes out to the customer.
Every parent knows what it's like to have to sit next to their kid while they watch some show that is wonderful to them but painful to the adult.
And you end up watching the show so often that it becomes burned into your subconscious.
Such is the case with The Next Step, which my daughter - who is now well into her teens - used to watch when she was little.
Looking at this latest episode (from season 10 so the show obviously has some legs) I can see little about this series set in a pretend dance studio has changed.
It is still based heavily around a fake reality TV vibe, where the actors deliver pieces to camera as their character. Sure, it's a show for kids, but this is a really, really lazy way to provide the viewer with information.
Also, there is still the unceasing quest to make "the nationals" - which is some sort of dance competition that forever hangs over their heads.
I swear they mention "the nationals" at least a half-dozen times in every single episode. It's like it is the only thing that matters for these kids.
Still on the subject of dancing, though unlike The Next Step above, this an an actual reality TV show.
The success of this show is a little surprising - there is apparently enough appeal in the concept of dancing celebrities that two different networks have screened it.
It was first on 7 from 2004-15, then jumped to Ten for two years from 2019 and has now returned home to 7 since 2021.
Maybe it's because the show provides relatively wholesome viewing in the reality TV genre - an area that has come to be sordid, tacky or absurdly niche (seriously, how long before we get a show called Outback Truckers Whose First Name Starts with a T?).
The darkest it gets on Dancing With the Stars are the comments from the nasty judge - and every reality TV show with a judging panel has to have one.
The show is not my cup of tea but I do have respect for the celebs that risk the potential for embarrassment and give it a crack.
And, for the most part, the celebs are actually people you know. No Instagrammers looking to eke out the final seconds of their 15 minutes of fame here.
The reality of this TV show isn't quite as revealing as the title would suggest, but it still offers a slightly different view of life in the cooking game.
Host Tom Kerridge has been a chef for a number of years, switching over to the world of TV - as it seems more and more chefs do.
He is pretty honest about the rough side of hospitality - perhaps more so than his guests.
For instance, Kerridge is pretty open about the problems he - and by extension others - have with alcohol.
He worked hard in the kitchen and then, when service would finish, he'd hit the bottle hard too.
So much so that he admits if he didn't stop he would have been dead.
All the other reveals - like exactly what everyone does in the kitchen - can't compete with that bombshell.
Still, they provide some interesting info. Before watching this show I didn't realise there's one guy in the kitchen whose job it is to put together all the bits and pieces others have been cooking to make the dish that goes out to the customer.
Every parent knows what it's like to have to sit next to their kid while they watch some show that is wonderful to them but painful to the adult.
And you end up watching the show so often that it becomes burned into your subconscious.
Such is the case with The Next Step, which my daughter - who is now well into her teens - used to watch when she was little.
Looking at this latest episode (from season 10 so the show obviously has some legs) I can see little about this series set in a pretend dance studio has changed.
It is still based heavily around a fake reality TV vibe, where the actors deliver pieces to camera as their character. Sure, it's a show for kids, but this is a really, really lazy way to provide the viewer with information.
Also, there is still the unceasing quest to make "the nationals" - which is some sort of dance competition that forever hangs over their heads.
I swear they mention "the nationals" at least a half-dozen times in every single episode. It's like it is the only thing that matters for these kids.
Still on the subject of dancing, though unlike The Next Step above, this an an actual reality TV show.
The success of this show is a little surprising - there is apparently enough appeal in the concept of dancing celebrities that two different networks have screened it.
It was first on 7 from 2004-15, then jumped to Ten for two years from 2019 and has now returned home to 7 since 2021.
Maybe it's because the show provides relatively wholesome viewing in the reality TV genre - an area that has come to be sordid, tacky or absurdly niche (seriously, how long before we get a show called Outback Truckers Whose First Name Starts with a T?).
The darkest it gets on Dancing With the Stars are the comments from the nasty judge - and every reality TV show with a judging panel has to have one.
The show is not my cup of tea but I do have respect for the celebs that risk the potential for embarrassment and give it a crack.
And, for the most part, the celebs are actually people you know. No Instagrammers looking to eke out the final seconds of their 15 minutes of fame here.
The reality of this TV show isn't quite as revealing as the title would suggest, but it still offers a slightly different view of life in the cooking game.
Host Tom Kerridge has been a chef for a number of years, switching over to the world of TV - as it seems more and more chefs do.
He is pretty honest about the rough side of hospitality - perhaps more so than his guests.
For instance, Kerridge is pretty open about the problems he - and by extension others - have with alcohol.
He worked hard in the kitchen and then, when service would finish, he'd hit the bottle hard too.
So much so that he admits if he didn't stop he would have been dead.
All the other reveals - like exactly what everyone does in the kitchen - can't compete with that bombshell.
Still, they provide some interesting info. Before watching this show I didn't realise there's one guy in the kitchen whose job it is to put together all the bits and pieces others have been cooking to make the dish that goes out to the customer.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
7NEWS
12 hours ago
- 7NEWS
MasterChef judge Andy Allen reveals he did Zonfrillo's press after a 4.30am call from Jock's wife
MasterChef judge Andy Allen has revealed the heartbreaking call he received from Lauren Zonfrillo, telling him his best friend had tragically died. At 4.30am on April 30, 2023, Lauren, Jock's wife, delivered the heartwrenching news to Allen and also to inform him that fellow judge Jock had press commitments scheduled for that morning. She wanted to keep his death from the MasterChef team and didn't want 10 to know he had passed yet. As a result, Allen went in Jock's place, knowing that Jock was dead, and carrying on with press for the season launch as if he had no idea. 'I get a call at about 4.30 in the morning from Lauren in hysterics and telling me what had happened, that Jock had passed away. And I was then like…what do you need? And she was like, 'Well…he's got a lot of press to do this morning.' And I had a bit of press to do as well. I was like, okay, I'll go do his press because she didn't want to go to Ten…she needed to get a plan together,' he told A Life of Greatness with Sarah Grynberg. Allen said navigating grief publicly and privately was the 'hardest thing I've ever been through' for many reasons. 'For him to pass away was shocking, (firstly) it was my birthday, (secondly) I was with him the day before, I was the last person to see him, we had lunch and (thirdly) for it to play out in the public eye was crazy, the first 24 hours I never want to relive.' Allen and Jock were inseparable as soon as they entered the MasterChef kitchen as the new judges, alongside Melissa Leong, taking over from George, Gary and Matt Preston. 'He was like the older brother I never had,' he said. 'I learnt so much from him, cooking, food and saw him with his family and his young kids and Loz and thought 'Wow, he's really great at being present with them.' Allen, who won MasterChef in 2012 at the age of 23, said his grieving process was 'such a journey for the first six months' and found himself being there for others. 'I needed to work on myself more. I went to talk therapy and became very aware that grief is okay,' he told Grynberg. 'I miss Jock every day but I've learnt there's so much more to celebrate, there's days I have really bad days, life is short and they (the Zonfrillos) had a life and they were so amazing at that life and I want to celebrate that.' The 46-year-old Scottish chef was found dead in a Melbourne hotel room in April 2023. His cause of death has never been revealed. In an exclusive interview with 7NEWS Spotlight that aired in May, Lauren spoke about discovering Jock's journal and reading his final words. 'Jock had journalled for a period of time,' she told Seven's Liz Hayes. 'It meant a lot to me reading . . . (about) such a normal conversation, but I got his version. 'It was kind of this encouragement to say, you've got this, Lauren, there's been many times where I've (felt like) I haven't got this.' Lauren — who was in Italy at the time of Jock's death — reportedly asked police to conduct a welfare check after failing to contact him. The couple had relocated to Rome with their young children, Alfie and Isla, with Jock travelling back to Australia to film MasterChef. Lauren now lives in Sydney with the younger kids, and Allen said he is still in touch with family but needed to see them more. Before MasterChef changed Allen's life, he was an apprentice electrician in Newcastle. He didn't come from a background of chefs and only ever cooked for family and friends, inspired by Jamie Oliver and his recipes. Allen took the big leap from sparky to the cooking competition after a mate dared him to enter for $500. After his winning season, he took a full time chef role at a small cafe in Bronte where he enhanced his cook skills.
Sydney Morning Herald
15 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘People are fed up': Why 10 News+ is going back to basics
If you read the comments under any story about free-to-air news and current affairs, you will find the same mix of complaints: Untrustworthy, too woke, too left, too right-wing and, inevitably, 'bring back The Drum '. So launching a new nightly news program, one that promises in-depth coverage and big-picture reporting, is a tough ask: How do you build trust with an audience that is already side-eyeing how news is delivered? It's a question journalists Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace hope to answer as the hosts of Network 10's new hour-long nightly news program, 10 News+. '[Building trust] that's difficult because that requires time,' says Hitchcock. 'But what we're saying from the start is that [trust] is at the core of this program, so you will see that in the reporting and the questioning and the topics that we choose, I think that will change people's opinions because we won't just be taking one side, we'll be questioning both sides equally, and when people see that, I think it will change their opinion.' Brace agrees: 'It is just about treating our audience with respect. People are intelligent. They do have their own thoughts and they do have their own opinions. So it's just about telling both sides of the story and then letting people decide what they think of that, not telling them what they think about it.' 10 News+ is at the heart of Ten's bid to reshape its early evening viewing. The state-based local news is broadcast from 5pm, followed by 10 News+ at 6pm, and then game show Deal or No Deal at 7pm. Gone is The Project, which finished last week after a 16-year run. In another bold move, 10 News+ will be broadcast on Spotify, as well as on YouTube and 10Play, in what Ten says is a 'world first for commercial TV news'. It is an everything, everywhere all at once approach. And it's also a sharp U-turn from The Project, which mixed news reporting with light entertainment and comedy. 'People just want their news straight up,' says Brace. 'There's been, I think, a drift in recent years towards opinion or sensationalism, and in some media even, I think bias. And people kind of leant into that for a while and enjoyed the change, but now people are fed up with it. 'They don't want to be told what to think or how to think. They just want their information and then they can make up their own minds. People are smart. They don't need to be told what to think.' So what does that mean in practice? On the basis of Monday night's first episode, it was an exclusive interview with Debbie Voulgaris, the convicted drug smuggler and Melbourne mother who is currently serving a 15-year prison term in Taiwan, and another interview with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Loading Both stories were longer than most standard news segments and, apart from covering a shark attack on the far north coast of NSW, the show steered clear of the kind of local fracas that are grist to the daily news mill. It's an approach, says Hitchcock, that melds the best of Australia's big TV news hitters: 7.30 and Four Corners on the ABC, 60 Minutes on Nine and Spotlight on Seven. 'Our show is a hybrid of almost all of them,' says Hitchcock. 'We'll see a story in our first two days, I'm pretty sure it'll be Monday [the Voulgaris story], that will be a story that 60 Minutes, Spotlight or Four Corners would kill for. So we're hoping viewers will come to us because they'll get the news of the day, they'll get the things that matter, but they'll also see something fresh.' Brace, 37, and Hitchcock, 48, come to 10 News+ as familiar faces from Seven and Nine, respectively, where they built their reputations as foreign correspondents, with stints in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. They both began their careers at Seven – Brace in regional Queensland and Hitchcock in Sydney. Brace remembers her first day on the job at Seven, when she was a university student on a competitive internship, which involved covering a fatal bus crash. 'I went out shadowing a reporter,' she says. 'I kind of really got thrown in the thick of it.' It's been a wild ride since then, with Brace covering everything from the drought in rural Queensland to being part of a world-record skydive live on air ('It was absolutely terrifying. I cried in my goggles'). In 2020, she won a Walkley Award for her coverage of the protests outside the White House, where she was hit with a baton by police. 'You can't cover these things from a bureau or even from a block back,' says Brace. 'Because what is happening to these people is happening on the front line, and you have to be standing there, and you have to sit with your own eyes so you can actually stand up on camera or in Congress, as I had to, and say what happened wasn't right. Sometimes it's your job to say, 'I saw that and that wasn't OK.'' Hitchcock, meanwhile, got his start in the office of the now defunct current affairs show Today Tonight when he was 18 years old. 'I was answering the phones and filling the biscuit barrel,' he says. 'But within six months, I was a researcher, and within another three months after that, I was a producer at 18. It was fast, but from there I've done almost every job – researcher, producer, editor, reporter, correspondent, all sorts.' Like Brace, he's has the kind of globe-trotting news career that makes great TV – reporting from the frontlines of Syria and Iraq, covering the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines – but it's the quieter story of Sharn McNeill, who was only 30 when she was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, that he names as one of his favourites. 'It always makes me teary whenever I even describe it to anybody,' he says. 'That's one of those stories of human endurance and positivity that always stays with me.' With so long in business, do either of them see a difference in how news is reported or consumed today? Loading 'I don't see a change in the stories of people interested in, just in the way they consume it and the speed in which they consume it,' says Hitchcock. 'Those big stories used to happen and [you] used to be able to chew on it for a whole week. Now it could be the most immense story that you've ever seen, and three days later, we're on to something else.' Brace, meanwhile, thinks people are more overwhelmed than ever before by the 'sheer amount of information out there' and this is what leads to the rise in misinformation. 'It's just selective reporting when you blatantly just tell one side of a story,' says Brace. 'That side is not untrue, but it's dangerous to do that, I think. I bump into people in real life regularly who say, 'Did you hear this?' And I'll say, 'But did you hear this?' And it's not that I'm on one side or the other. I just get really annoyed when they have no idea that that's only half the story.' The US, famously, is home to Fox News, which proudly wears its bias on its sleeve. Do either of them think there is that type of biased reporting in Australia? 'We have more of it than we used to,' says Brace. 'I genuinely think that perhaps 10 years ago, we had a really balanced media with very little tolerance for bias. I remember maybe around the Kevin Rudd kind of time – because I'm very politically focused – there started to be some headlines and some things said, and I'd be like, 'Hm, that's interesting reporting.' I just feel like it's grown over the years, where we now have certain outlets that you just know they're one side or the other. And I really don't like that.' Loading Of course, it's not just bias or misinformation that modern broadcast news has to deal with. The fickle beast that is ratings will probably have more of an effect on 10 News+'s future than any story they choose to do. A dramatic drop in ratings was one of the reasons given for The Project's axing, so what happens when, say, four weeks from now, 10 News+ isn't clicking and it's suggested they start chasing more sensational local stories? 'It'll be a collective decision, the stories that we chase for the day,' says Hitchock. 'So that'll be Dan Sutton, who's the executive producer, and Martin White, who's the vice president [of news on Ten]. Those two will be keeping a keen eye on the show, and then Amelia and I, of course, will have heavy input as well. 'But I don't think it'll change the mission statement or the program. Will it change if the ratings are not as expected? I don't know, but I don't think so, because the show has been pitched as a certain way, and we're filling a national show. It can't be hyper local. The answer wouldn't be to go back to hyper local stories, the answer would be just better stories.' And what if it's suggested a comedian would make a perfect addition to the desk? 'We are very funny,' says Brace, laughing. 'No one's realised that Denham and I are hilarious. So we should be fine.'
The Age
15 hours ago
- The Age
‘People are fed up': Why 10 News+ is going back to basics
If you read the comments under any story about free-to-air news and current affairs, you will find the same mix of complaints: Untrustworthy, too woke, too left, too right-wing and, inevitably, 'bring back The Drum '. So launching a new nightly news program, one that promises in-depth coverage and big-picture reporting, is a tough ask: How do you build trust with an audience that is already side-eyeing how news is delivered? It's a question journalists Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace hope to answer as the hosts of Network 10's new hour-long nightly news program, 10 News+. '[Building trust] that's difficult because that requires time,' says Hitchcock. 'But what we're saying from the start is that [trust] is at the core of this program, so you will see that in the reporting and the questioning and the topics that we choose, I think that will change people's opinions because we won't just be taking one side, we'll be questioning both sides equally, and when people see that, I think it will change their opinion.' Brace agrees: 'It is just about treating our audience with respect. People are intelligent. They do have their own thoughts and they do have their own opinions. So it's just about telling both sides of the story and then letting people decide what they think of that, not telling them what they think about it.' 10 News+ is at the heart of Ten's bid to reshape its early evening viewing. The state-based local news is broadcast from 5pm, followed by 10 News+ at 6pm, and then game show Deal or No Deal at 7pm. Gone is The Project, which finished last week after a 16-year run. In another bold move, 10 News+ will be broadcast on Spotify, as well as on YouTube and 10Play, in what Ten says is a 'world first for commercial TV news'. It is an everything, everywhere all at once approach. And it's also a sharp U-turn from The Project, which mixed news reporting with light entertainment and comedy. 'People just want their news straight up,' says Brace. 'There's been, I think, a drift in recent years towards opinion or sensationalism, and in some media even, I think bias. And people kind of leant into that for a while and enjoyed the change, but now people are fed up with it. 'They don't want to be told what to think or how to think. They just want their information and then they can make up their own minds. People are smart. They don't need to be told what to think.' So what does that mean in practice? On the basis of Monday night's first episode, it was an exclusive interview with Debbie Voulgaris, the convicted drug smuggler and Melbourne mother who is currently serving a 15-year prison term in Taiwan, and another interview with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Loading Both stories were longer than most standard news segments and, apart from covering a shark attack on the far north coast of NSW, the show steered clear of the kind of local fracas that are grist to the daily news mill. It's an approach, says Hitchcock, that melds the best of Australia's big TV news hitters: 7.30 and Four Corners on the ABC, 60 Minutes on Nine and Spotlight on Seven. 'Our show is a hybrid of almost all of them,' says Hitchcock. 'We'll see a story in our first two days, I'm pretty sure it'll be Monday [the Voulgaris story], that will be a story that 60 Minutes, Spotlight or Four Corners would kill for. So we're hoping viewers will come to us because they'll get the news of the day, they'll get the things that matter, but they'll also see something fresh.' Brace, 37, and Hitchcock, 48, come to 10 News+ as familiar faces from Seven and Nine, respectively, where they built their reputations as foreign correspondents, with stints in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. They both began their careers at Seven – Brace in regional Queensland and Hitchcock in Sydney. Brace remembers her first day on the job at Seven, when she was a university student on a competitive internship, which involved covering a fatal bus crash. 'I went out shadowing a reporter,' she says. 'I kind of really got thrown in the thick of it.' It's been a wild ride since then, with Brace covering everything from the drought in rural Queensland to being part of a world-record skydive live on air ('It was absolutely terrifying. I cried in my goggles'). In 2020, she won a Walkley Award for her coverage of the protests outside the White House, where she was hit with a baton by police. 'You can't cover these things from a bureau or even from a block back,' says Brace. 'Because what is happening to these people is happening on the front line, and you have to be standing there, and you have to sit with your own eyes so you can actually stand up on camera or in Congress, as I had to, and say what happened wasn't right. Sometimes it's your job to say, 'I saw that and that wasn't OK.'' Hitchcock, meanwhile, got his start in the office of the now defunct current affairs show Today Tonight when he was 18 years old. 'I was answering the phones and filling the biscuit barrel,' he says. 'But within six months, I was a researcher, and within another three months after that, I was a producer at 18. It was fast, but from there I've done almost every job – researcher, producer, editor, reporter, correspondent, all sorts.' Like Brace, he's has the kind of globe-trotting news career that makes great TV – reporting from the frontlines of Syria and Iraq, covering the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines – but it's the quieter story of Sharn McNeill, who was only 30 when she was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, that he names as one of his favourites. 'It always makes me teary whenever I even describe it to anybody,' he says. 'That's one of those stories of human endurance and positivity that always stays with me.' With so long in business, do either of them see a difference in how news is reported or consumed today? Loading 'I don't see a change in the stories of people interested in, just in the way they consume it and the speed in which they consume it,' says Hitchcock. 'Those big stories used to happen and [you] used to be able to chew on it for a whole week. Now it could be the most immense story that you've ever seen, and three days later, we're on to something else.' Brace, meanwhile, thinks people are more overwhelmed than ever before by the 'sheer amount of information out there' and this is what leads to the rise in misinformation. 'It's just selective reporting when you blatantly just tell one side of a story,' says Brace. 'That side is not untrue, but it's dangerous to do that, I think. I bump into people in real life regularly who say, 'Did you hear this?' And I'll say, 'But did you hear this?' And it's not that I'm on one side or the other. I just get really annoyed when they have no idea that that's only half the story.' The US, famously, is home to Fox News, which proudly wears its bias on its sleeve. Do either of them think there is that type of biased reporting in Australia? 'We have more of it than we used to,' says Brace. 'I genuinely think that perhaps 10 years ago, we had a really balanced media with very little tolerance for bias. I remember maybe around the Kevin Rudd kind of time – because I'm very politically focused – there started to be some headlines and some things said, and I'd be like, 'Hm, that's interesting reporting.' I just feel like it's grown over the years, where we now have certain outlets that you just know they're one side or the other. And I really don't like that.' Loading Of course, it's not just bias or misinformation that modern broadcast news has to deal with. The fickle beast that is ratings will probably have more of an effect on 10 News+'s future than any story they choose to do. A dramatic drop in ratings was one of the reasons given for The Project's axing, so what happens when, say, four weeks from now, 10 News+ isn't clicking and it's suggested they start chasing more sensational local stories? 'It'll be a collective decision, the stories that we chase for the day,' says Hitchock. 'So that'll be Dan Sutton, who's the executive producer, and Martin White, who's the vice president [of news on Ten]. Those two will be keeping a keen eye on the show, and then Amelia and I, of course, will have heavy input as well. 'But I don't think it'll change the mission statement or the program. Will it change if the ratings are not as expected? I don't know, but I don't think so, because the show has been pitched as a certain way, and we're filling a national show. It can't be hyper local. The answer wouldn't be to go back to hyper local stories, the answer would be just better stories.' And what if it's suggested a comedian would make a perfect addition to the desk? 'We are very funny,' says Brace, laughing. 'No one's realised that Denham and I are hilarious. So we should be fine.'
