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A Current Affair - News... or Roadtesting Products? © Beverley Paine I'm not a regular watcher of A Current Affair, put off by the blatant promotion of products and all too often aggressive reporting style. I wasn't surprised to find this little gem at the bottom of TVs A Current Affair website - it confirms that this program is definitely NOT a NEWS program:"Would you like to appear on ACA? Simply tell us a little bit about yourself and we'll let you know when we're looking for extras or people to roadtest products!" http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/default.asp I remember when ACA was a current affairs program, reporting on local news and providing background information to many stories presented more briefly in the News. It like the internet now - hard to tell fact from fiction or opinion. In a study done in Australia about consumer's perception of advertising, advertising is said to be more trustworthy because there is no hidden agenda as there can be with news media and politicians. A recent survey by the research organisation Ipsos Australia unearthed signs of growing scepticism about matters far more serious than advertising: 63 per cent of survey respondents agreed that "I don't trust news and current affairs programs as much as I once did". Hugh Mackay, Advertising as the real thing Fairfax Digital, January 3, 2004 I'm not sure if I fall into to growing group of people falling prey to such scepticism, which paradoxically, contributes to a more sympathetic attitude to advertising, but I know that when I'm interested in a product, I'm put off by the kind of fake 'news' reports paraded by programs like ACA. Give me an honest, well-constructed advertsising campaign any day. But what works best? I suspect that the current affair 'ads' win the ever-increasing competitive battle for our dollars. As Mackay asserts in his article, advertising is a cleaner industry than it used to be, with regulations providing protection against false, misleading or exaggerated claims. Plus, I belong to the growing crowd of remote control freaks that don't hesitate to hit the "mute" button or change channels when confronted by ads I find offensive or patronising - like Mackay says, I "simply won't give them space in my mind". But I'm much less likely to tune out or away from a personal interest story that's been cleverly designed to hook and hold my interest. We all know that ads are geared to manipulate our emotions and thus sell us whatever they're designed to do, but how many of us know that these so-called "current affairs" programs are covertly doing the same? Surely programs such as "A Current Affair" would be more suitably named "A Consumer Affair". Was this article helpful? Was it worth $1.00 to you? Your gift of $1 or more helps to keep this site operating offering encouragement and reassurance to families wanting better outcomes for their children. Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home. Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.
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and Learning without School! We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine
The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.
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