OPINION: The Project’s #JacquiForPM excuse doesn’t pass the pub test

What started off as a viral sensation for THE PROJECT quickly descended into claims of misrepresentation from none other than Australia’s Prime Minister and now the Channel 10 show has been forced to apologise.

As earlier reported by TV Blackbox, a 3 second clip depicting a firefighter named Jacqui seemingly taking a pot shot at Scott Morrison has proven to be fake news. The clip showed the lady being introduced to the Prime Minister with her responding;

“He’s not my Prime Minister”

The clip went viral but this morning an extended version released on twitter showed the original clip had been edited to tell a vastly different story;

Pretty misleading editing last night on Ten, spurring the #JacquiForPM hashtag – here's what happened between the British citizen and PM after their selective 3 sec clip pic.twitter.com/irruUKOWCa

— Thomas O'Brien (@TJ__OBrien) December 23, 2019

Andrew Gee: Jacqui, this is the Prime Minister

Jacqui: He’s not my Prime Minister

Andrew Gee: Laugh

Jacqui: I’m not a resident

The new clip very clearly shows the interaction with Morrison was jovial and respectful as Jacqui pointed out she is a British citizen.

Tonight, Waleed Aly tried to set the record straight about the editing;

“We need to make a correction in relation to that clip. It turns out that there was a longer exchange between Jacqui and the PM that followed that where she explained that she was in fact a UK citizen and that that’s why ScoMo was not her PM, quote. The problem for us is that significant parts of that were inaudible so we couldn’t actually deduce what was in that exchange.

“So this was clearly not a deliberate mistake on our part, it was however a mistake nonetheless, we think it’s important to own up to your mistakes and come clean about these things and so we take full responsibility for it and we hope that clears it up”

The problem here is that anyone who has watched the full exchange can see the exchange was jovial and while Aly is correct there are sections that are inaudible, key elements can be heard where Jacqui is talking about being a UK citizen. Additionally, Calare MP Andrew Gee, who introduced Jacqui to the PM, can clearly be heard saying;

“We need to sign you up as an Aussie, Jacqui”

Scott Morrison then chimes in saying;

“You can be, you can be”

There’s no doubt the researcher who transcribed the clip would have seen the moment in full and understood its context, but that was obviously not relayed in their notes to producers higher up the chain of command.

The Project hires researchers who go through every news clip added to the channel 10 server. It is their job to go through the material looking for moments to be used in the program. A transcript is then sent to producers who will read the material and make the decision to include it in the program.

The show has previously created headaches for the news division when material has been used out of context as a punchline. One instance resulted in local police refusing to do interviews with 10 News after an out-take was shown of a police officer trying to deliver serious information. The officer had gone out of his way to provide an on camera statement when no-one else was available.

While I do not believe this was a ploy by the producers to purposely misrepresent what happened, it is disingenuous to say “we couldn’t actually deduce what was in that exchange”. The show will need to look at its processes to avoid embarrassing mistakes happening like this in future.

Unfortunately this will harm the reputation of the show which does strive to deliver a program that delves deeper on issues.