Painful media moments

First off, I think we all agree that the situation at Tiaho Primary School, with its flooding playground and sewerage over flows, is awful and should be fixed up. But that's not what this is about, oh no, this is about the painful example of how not to front the media this has provided.

On Close Up the other night, the aptly named Paul Burke stepped up for the Ministry of Education, before totally losing it. He started off solid enough, but when it became clear he was reading a prepared speech (most of which was never going to wash), it all began to go awry. So much so, that he actually ended up sitting there like a deer in headlights not saying anything - you couldn't help but cringe as he totally blew out on national TV. Now of course, the host that evening was the detestable Mr Hair and lip pout, but still, he wasn't being that brutal - my initial reaction was - OMG! what is he doing? just say something - anything!

Well anything other than "mrrrgghh neh". Here's a little transcript of the final (absolute media gold) part of the interview.

HOSKING (Host): Is this the worst school in the country by the way?
BURKE (Min of Ed): I haven't visited every school, but it is unusual to take this long.
HOSKING: Have you visited this one?
BURKE: No I haven't.
HOSKING: Might have paid you to go up the road and have a wee look? Walk through some of the sewerage? Climb the ladder with some blu-tack? Maybe?
BURKE: (Stares at camera in silence for what seems like an eternity in TV time)
HOSKING: No?
BURKE: mrrrgghh neh
HOSKING: Ok thanks for your time. That was Paul Burke, National Property Manager at the Ministry of Education.

You can just imagine the director in the control room latching on to the scent of blood - saying something like "he's losing it - keep that camera on him! Stay on him! Stay on him!". LOL.

We all sat around watching it over and over late today - and we started coming up with ideas for what he should have said - one of my colleagues suggested screaming 'banana', my idea was to make like John Clarke in the Games and reach for the ear piece (even if you don't have one) and pretend you couldn't hear what he said - "sorry? what was that?"

You can watch the full Close Up clip here - but unless you're really interested, I suggest you just skip to the last couple of minutes (its 10 mins long), when it goes pear shaped.

Ok so yeah you do feel sorry for him - but shit there is nothing funnier than TV going bad!