Make the scene
THE photo opportunity has been with us since public figures became aware of the media’s power.
It’s a simple equation. Put the right people together in the right place at the right time, and then the photo-op can be a two-way street.
Consider this: Astronauts meeting the President of the United States. They may be standing together in the Oval Office, shaking hands in NASA uniforms. Before Space X took over the American space program, pictures like these would be transmitted around the globe, promoting the importance of the program, at the same time inflating the popularity of the politician. Win-win, as they say.
Since the turn of the century the photo-op has become an essential piece of electioneering.
George W. Bush was experiencing all-time low levels of popularity in 2001. Then, in the days after the toppling of the Twin Towers in New York City, he made his way to Ground Zero.
Bush stood in the rubble with the firemen. Casually dressed, like he was there to lend a hand.
He spoke to the crowd within earshot. This unrehearsed intimacy in the midst of tragedy was broadcast to the world.
The photo-op became a global media event, and it branded this unpopular president as a man of action and shot him to stratospheric heights in the polls.
Since then our TV screens have been visited by pollies preprepared with situation-appropriate costumery.
Baseball hats, leather jackets, Akubra hats and flight suits are all popular. CFA yellow jackets were pretty big in the last federal election. And we know that it is now law in Australia that pollies must wear R.M Williams when they ‘visit’ our farmers.
The outfits always look suspiciously freshly-pressed, and media staff tightly script these apparently authentic moments. But we know that we are looking at.
Maybe that’s why it feels so wrong to see Donald Trump standing in the smouldering remains of the California wildfires.
Tan pants, baseball cap and first responder style jacket. Over 70 people have perished in this disaster and more than 1000 peo- ple are still missing. But instead of listening to the story of the tragedy, he offered his own advice on what could have been done to prevent the devastation.
“You gotta take care of the floors,” he said. “You know the floors of the forest, very important … I was with the President of Finland … he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don’t have any problem.”
None of this was necessary, and some of it was apparently made-up. Finland and California have polar-opposite climate conditions. The President of Finland later said that they had met and they had talked, but he denied that he ever discussed the concept of “raking”.
Too late! The message was already out there and the photo-op had been published, realised and capitalised.
Only days earlier, Scott Morrison had conducted a media call outside Pellegrinis.
This cafe has been made famous because of the death of Sisto Malaspina, one of the original owners of the Melbourne coffee spot.
Morrison stood outside with Opposition Leader Matthew Guy behind him. They were loitering in front of the cameras when a journalist asked: “Is it in poor taste … visiting a site of mourning campaigning in the Victorian state election?” Morrison snapped back that he was not doing that: “I’m here to talk about the very issues that took place … in this street.”
He was of course referring to the Bourke St tragedy from the previous Friday, and he was relying on the cameras capturing him in the shadow of the tragedy in order to draw a connection with the law and order electioneering of the Matthew Guy campaign.
Perhaps it was bad taste, perhaps it was just ham-fisted. But visiting the scene of a tragedy is a difficult landscape to traverse. It’s all about respect and timing.
What is to be gained from us hearing our leaders tell us about talking points that even they do not understand? Why do we keep reporting these visits?
We want to know that our leaders are present, they are getting first hand information from first responders, they are able to make assessments based on primary source evidence. But they can do all this without microphones being present.
When it’s done properly, we don’t read about it. We don’t even know it’s happening. Ross Mueller is a freelance writer and director.