A story of two tapes

Let me tell people of the story of two tapes. We’ll call it Tape A and Tape B.

• Tape A was secretly taped in a cocktail party, while Tape B was openly taped on a television political programme.
• The questioner in Tape A was an enemy of the political party’s function he was at, who lied and misrepresented himself, while the questioner in Tape B was a professional journalist.
• Tape A has had the questions and possibly some of the answers edited out so context is impossible to define, while Tape B shows the full exchange with no editing.
• Tape A was recorded around four months ago while Tape B was recorded a week or so ago.
• Tape A has comments about US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama while Tape B has comments about US Presidential Candidate John McCain
• Tape A has very very mild criticism of Obama being “I am a bit worried about this whole Obama and Europe thing just because there is a limited effectiveness in being moralistic about international relations” while Tape B mocks John McCain for his disability due to torture as a prisoner of war – “But Jim can put his hands up over his head and claim victory, McCain can’t do that”
• Tape A quotes Bill English, the Deputy Leader of National while Tape B quotes the Deputy Leader of the Progressives, the Government’s coalition partner.

I consider it incredible that Tape A is deemed so newsworthy that TV3 runs it as their lead item – even before the Melbourne Cup, while Tape B continues to be ignored.

One could argue over relative worth as to which is more newsworthy in terms of prominence – but to have one as the lead item, and totally ignore the other is an editorial decision that baffles me.