Shock and horror. Not the stuff you see on television. Certainly not in the era of delay and drawn-out histrionics. Every reality show from So you think you can dance to Survivor to America's Next Top Model wearies most of us. When the producers get the show and the contestants down to the final four or final three or... as last night in Australia, you would expect a point man, a particular person who has the responsibility to hand the envelope to the right person to get to the announcer. That didn't happen last night.
Sarah Murdoch, herself a model and a warm Aussie host of the Australia's Next Top Model, was being given the information about the winner of the season. The final two were Amanda Ware(pictured) and Kelsey Martinovich.
The Sydney Morning Herald this morning printed, "As the announced runnerup Amanda Ware – the show's eventual winner – made her polite second place thank-yous, a look of sheer panic hit Murdoch's face. Someone in her ear-piece was delivering the news."
Murdoch grimaced. She declared, "Oh my God...I'm so sorry about this. I don't know what to say. This is a complete accident, I'm so sorry. It's Amanda...it was fed to me wrong. This is what happens when you have live TV folks,... this is insane."
We grimaced as well. And now the YouTube of this episode will be aired worldwide for days, months, maybe years. It was Australia's worst live show moment ever.
Both girls, Amanda and Kelsey, were cordial, lovely, and gracious. Each one appeared on morning talk shows today and gave testimony to caring about the other. It was humbling to see. And the producers of Fox8 TV have paid off Kelsey with a trip to New York and $25,000 cash to 'match' the blunder with recompense.
This is the era of the Jewish High Holidays. And this is the season to ask for forgiveness and to extend it. So we applaud Kelsey and Sarah; we applaud Fox8 for their quick payoff and apologies.
Look, mistakes happen, although it's unconscionable and terrible in this instance. This shouldn't have happened, and we have some recommendations to all reality shows to prevent this ever happening again. But in the meantime, grace and forgiveness is the word of the day. Seems Kelsey and Amanda have sorted it out. Maybe you and I should as well.
2 comments:
Mmm "unconscionalbe means not controlled by conscience, unreasonable, and shockingly unfair" which one of these definitions are you referring to Bob? I would have thought if Sarah was not guided by her conscience she would not have apologised and admitted it was a mistake, if the company didn't pay compensation then it would have been shockingly unfair, then are you suggesting the mistake was unreasonable, then it was not of Ruach Hackodesh whose influence is to be reasonable. Who would expect a worldly event to be inspired by Ruach Hachodesh?
Hey Roger, in this era of getting it right, and checking and rechecking, especially on a s-l-o-w moving show like any Reality show, I think the mistake was unconscionable.
But I have nothing but high regard for Sarah and the other girls.
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