This is one of those Media Glass House offerings where we are not passing out brickbats or bouquets.

Nor would it have really fitted into our little sibling’s Mediocre Bytes that looks at the silly little mistakes that nevertheless still blight the nation’s mediascape.

And the reason? We’re really not sure who among the metropolitan TV networks best handled the recent coronial inquest into that collision of two helicopters at Sea World that tragically claimed four lives. Here’s some background before we seek our BUGgers’ advice.

One of our more senior but still bitter and twisted has-beens who compile both these media columns remembers being at the journos’ drinking spot, the Jubilee Hotel, in Bowen Hills the night Steve Irwin got too close and personal with a rather large stingray.

He made a couple of comments and the response of other scribes surprised him. Not only did he declare that the footage of Irwin’s fatal flirtation should not have been quickly destroyed by the filmmakers, and viewers at sometime down the track should have been allowed to see the ray’s barb striking the Crocodile Hunter. Just up to that moment. No more. He argued it was important for people around the world to make up their own minds about whether Irwin had been particularly foolish in his bid for the most graphic footage possible.

He was largely shouted down by his journo colleagues, even those drinking only XXXX Gold.
So back now to the images (at top and below)

At left is the ABC’s 7pm footage on consecutive nights as the inquest got under way. Each had a lead-in much like this from the newsreader: “.. and a warning, this story contains footage showing the moment just before the helicopters collided”.

That’s right. Despite some pretty graphic footage made available at the inquest, Aunty decided not to show the moment of the collision.

The commercial networks were not so restrained. At right in the main graphic is what Seven News showed; the boy in a rear seat about to alert the pilot of the imminent catastrophe and in-cabin mobile phone footage after the two machines collided, with some pretty horrific audio.

Seven and other network screened other never-seen-before footage of the helicopters colliding and showing the machine in which the pilot and three sightseers died plummeting to the sand.

So, okay BUGgers. You’re the news director at one of the big city TV networks, so what do you do? Go down the ABC track and protect the sensibilities of their aging audience who know nothing about death? Or handle it like the commercial networks and give us a fuller picture – the grim reality – of what happened?

Irwin was sometimes accused of going too far, invading the natural environment of some pretty dangerous critters for ratings’ sake. He was famous around the world so should admirers and detractors have been given the chance to see what really unfolded that fateful day?

Perhaps Irwin was staying quite clear and the ray rose very quickly in behaviour totally unexpected of that marine species. Or did Irwin look as if he was trying to give it one – a sort of wildlife money shot? We’ll never know.

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