When airport security comes to shop centres

IT BEGGARS belief by the number of rules by which we are governed and subjected to these days.

What used to be a simple task, now turns out to be a monumental exercise – and that’s just getting permission to do the task in the first place.

Oh, for the days before PR people — “PR”, acronym for Public Recalcitrant.

Allow me to explain.

Last Sunday I was working and was tasked to report on what would normally by journalism standards be considered a straight forward story.

The Salvation Army was conducting a gift wrapping stand at a particular Toowoomba shopping centre.

Nothing controversial in that, you might think.

However, the story was soon turned into controversy when trying to simply get permission to enter the shopping centre to cover this “good news” story.

“I’m sorry but I’ll have to get on to (Julie) who is duty manager today,” said the PR person, who for sake of anonymity we shall refer to as “Clarissa”.

About 15 minutes later, Clarissa called me back – on behalf of Julie – to say they couldn’t give permission and that I’d have to email the head PR person, who we will refer to as “Di”, and get her permission.

Now, Di wasn’t working last Sunday and the only email address we had for Di was her work email. However, email Di I did, to no avail.

To her credit, Di did get back to me but by then we’d replaced the story with another yarn.

Fair dinkum, I’m an old journo and I’m used to turning up, doing the story and heading back to the office. No

‘‘ UNFORTUNATELY, I FEAR THE PROCEDURES IN OBTAINING PERMISSION TO COVER STORIES IN SHOPPING CENTRES WILL ONLY INTENSIFY INTO THE FUTURE.

controversy, no interference, no problem.

But because more and more people these days want to exercise their little bit of perceived power, we’re left having to jump through more hoops than a circus lion just to get permission from people who basically have nothing to do with the story.

The result? The story wasn’t done and the good people of the Salvation Army who were only doing good in the spirit of Christmas missed out on valuable media coverage.

But the Grinch of Christmas Present that is shopping centre PR people put paid to that.

Unfortunately, I fear the procedures in obtaining permission to cover stories in shopping centres will only intensify into the future.

I foresee the days of journos having to fill out questionnaires in order to obtain permission to even enter shopping centres.

In order to access our shopping centre please answer the following questions:

1. Have you and your photographer had this season’s flu vaccinations? Check!

2. Have you and/or your photographer ever been in a Turkish prison? Check!

3. Have you and your photographer had up-to-date tetanus/ rabies/ distemper shots? Check!

4. Do either you or your photographer support the Manly Sea-Eagles (actually I can see merit in that question). Check!

5. Are you married? And, if not, why not? We have an online singles chat room on the shopping centre’s website. Check!

Thank-you for answering these important questions.

All seems to be in order and provided nothing untoward is found during the compulsory cavity search you may enter our store.

However, you will be accompanied at all times by a department supervisor, three security guards and a Rottweiler named Killer who will be stationed near you during the whole interview.

Should you stray from the agreed questions during the interview Killer will latch onto your nether regions like a pitbull on a raw T-bone.

We hope you enjoy your visit to our shopping centre.