No I am not talking about the taking of the alleged ecstasy pill, but rather the Channel Nine Footy Show Interview. Below you can view it for yourself:
You can view the second part of this interview here.
This was aired to what I expect was the shows highest ratings for the year. The numbers are not out yet, but will be posted on Oztam in the next few days. The Footy Show hasn't been rating in the top 10 shows this year - I bet it did this week and I believe that was what this interview was all about - ratings. Now don't get me wrong there is no doubt this was a relevant and topical issue for The Footy Show, and should have been covered. The question I raise is, was doing the interview the best thing for Joey and his public image?
Phil Gould's handling of the interview was dubious and I can only assume aimed at creating sensation. This it did incredibly effectively as you can see from this front page Daily Telegraph (Australia) story and the comments posted below the YouTube videos.
Gould presented the issue of taking Ecstasy as one that was something so shocking and absurd that it had the potential to take up the user's mind space constantly. What Gould didn't inform his viewers, namely mainstream middle/to lower class Australia, was that Joey was not alone in taking ecstasy and that the issue is relatively widespread amongst young Australian men. The facts according to the Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies are that 21% of Australian men aged between 16-24 have tried ecstasy - 15% within the last year. Now I am not suggesting that ecstasy use is a non dangerous activity and is not something that the media should make the public aware of, but to vilify Joey on national television in the manner that The Footy Show did and raise insensitively his issues with mental health and alcohol abuse is not right.
Were I Joey's PR manager I would not have suggested he do this interview, there was never anything to be gained. Before the interview his drug use had never been confirmed. When Wendell Sailor tested positively for drugs he did not have to go through an interview such as this - perhaps because he isn't employed by News Limited and Channel Nine.
It goes without saying that both Nine and News Ltd both benefited greatly from an audience point of view from the situation - the same can't be said for Joey's image. I wonder if it will ever recover?
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