THEY’RE ALIVE!
Oh, for crying out loud, they’re ALIVE. I can’t say or hear that word enough: ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
Got the call at 0340 this morning that things were stirring at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine, so picked up the top layer of discarded clothing from the bedroom floor, dragged it on and got to work by 0355. (It's now 1620 and no-one is coming to my desk anymore because I need a shower.)
What a madhouse. It was all right while the Beaconsfield crew could do crosses into the nationally networked Overnights program – only one lot of lines and switching and producers/presenters to talk to. However, from 0500 markets start to go to local Breakfast shows – in fact, some cross out at 0500, some at 0530, 0555, 0615… more than sixty different Breakfast shows across Australia, if one includes RN and NewsRadio, who were also hanging off our feed. We turfed our own Breakfast show out into the standby studios, to their understandable chargrin.
But YES we got into them all… At 0615, just as the Early AM program finished, the first thing Auntie listeners heard around the country was the cheers of the crowd at the mine mouth as Todd Russell and Brant Webb walked out to their family and friends (not to mention media).
What a bizarre week, and not just regarding the miners. One moment we were making jokes about gourmet hampers (on air no less), the next we were dragging out obits for Ratbag Carleton. It was surreal; one of my colleagues was at that press conference, and saw the collapse and resuscitation attempt so we had immediate first hand goss before it hit the news. Oh boy.
It’s almost a reflex to sneer, but this time I was also sad. I met Ratbag’s son when I spent a few weeks working with him on Delroy’s production crew aeons ago; Ratbag Jnr is a really top bloke, shy and funny, a news junkie journo and good broadcaster, completely unlike Snr except for The Voice (he’s now producing RN Breakfast). I think he and his dad may have had a strained relationship, and all I could think is that he probably would have heard about his father’s death first from the TV newsflash.
The sublime became the ridiculous when Know-Me Robson made herself the news story. She discovered a SMH gossip columnist slagging off at her luxury caravan, over-attention to hair and makeup and other alleged princess behaviour. In one evening’s coverage of what was supposed to be a story about a rescue effort to free two trapped miners, Know-Me spent some time defending herself from the column’s claws. It was gloriously highlighted on Auntie’s Media Watch. Schadenfreude strikes again.
We all expected the miners to be out overnight Saturday night, and by Sunday morning the staff on deck in Beaconsfield and those of us on standby at Hobart were about ready to tear each other’s heads off. The past two days we just dragged our asses around, hoping for the best but feeling it was more likely they’d never get the miners out and we’d end up with Beaconsfield’s first Cave Clanners (or maybe Morlocks).
Around to this morning. I am not ashamed to say that when the miners walked out of the mine shaft and into Auntie’s TV pool footage, and thence onto the studio TV as our broadcaster Tim shouted it out on Local Radio across Australia, I cried.
I cried because I was tired; I cried because all the intra- and inter-network spaghetti switching I didn’t properly understand had somehow succeeded; I cried because the miners had the good grace and timing and luck to wait until Early AM was finished so their emergence was captured on radio around the country.
I cried because Know-Me was no-where to be seen at the critical hour; I cried because Ratbag couldn’t be there at the big moment of the story he died covering.
I cried because miner Larry Knight never came home from the rock fall in the mine, and his family would be burying him that afternoon.
But most of all, I cried because Todd Russell and Brant Webb were ALIVE.
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