Lately I’ve been watching a fair bit of television and have noticed Clive Palmer and Gina Reinhardt have been appearing on our screens on awful lot. “Who cares what they have to say, aside from being rich?”, friends have asked me.
And that’s when I’ve told them of the “Five P’s” that I was told about many years ago as a young journalist/broadcaster. I was sharing a house with a former university professor in journalism and he told me about the Five P’s and the Three B’s. The Three B’s were the three principles of tabloid newspapers – Bingo, Booze and Broads. The Five P’s were the (perceived) top five five news interests of people (in order) – Princes, Prices, People, Places and Politics.
Most of the categories are fairly clear, but it’s important to recognise “Princes” is a broad category that goes beyond the clearly self-evident likes of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana. In an Australian context, Princes could also include people like Kerry Packer, Gina Reinhardt, Alan Bond, Clive Palmer, various sporting heroes and others. They’re the people that, right or wrong, people want to hear about. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Gina Reinhardt 4 Corners program on Monday night was one the highest rating shows, for example, whereas the Four Corners program last year about live exports which, though, poorly rating, was an important program.
So yeah, even if they’re not especially articulated, I thought you might be interested in the “Five P’s” of journalism which may or may not be expressed, but which may be behind a lot of what you see on the teev.
Perhaps we need the 6th P – being Palmer? :)
Leave a Reply