A couple of weeks back, much of the province, especially those with access to Twitter and such, was given the quintessential example of the photo-op — those occasions when image is as crucial as content, those opportunities, for politicians especially, to display a human side, to show voters that, damn it all, they're just ordinary folks like you and me.
Now, I'll have to take Andrew Furey and his chief communications lead Fred Hutton, at their word that the taping of the premier doing his “I'm the piano man” routine at Government House just before being sworn in as Newfoundland's 14th first minister was “impromptu” — that it wasn't the traditional, orchestrated photo-op, that they hadn't talked beforehand about the public relations benefits of a video showing the (temporarily) semi-retired surgeon tickling the ivories and producing a laid-back version of the heavy metal band Motley Crue's song “Home Sweet Home.”
But I'd be willing to bet a couple of loonies that the devilish Hutton (I use the adjective with admiration) had an advantageous photo-op in mind when he, by his own admission, encouraged the premier to "give us a tune" after his boss had hit a few notes while standing at the piano.
Furey takes a seat, a la Billy Joel, launches into his Newfoundland's Got Talent bit, Lt- Gov. Judy Foote enters the room, Fred the photographer gets his mini camera purring, and, Voila!, the newly-minted premier can be seen on the internet — just another “ah shucks” sorta fella, the kind you'd love to have in your living room, entertaining the neighbours over a few drinks.
(A digressive tale of caution here: Back in the early 1970s, my late friend and fellow journalist Bill Kelly told me that Gerry Korbai, then press secretary for Frank Moores — and, like Hutton, a VOCM alumnus — was taking a picture somewhere around the bay of the premier being presented with a gigantic cod by a fisherman. After the photo was taken, and the plastic smile dissolved, Moores tossed the fish at Korbai, ordering him: “Jesus, Gerry, do something with this, will ya?” It was shortly afterwards, according to Kelly, that Korbai, not all that enamoured with having a gutted cod soil his fancy suit, requested a change in positions in the administration).
Some old-timers can probably recall that infamous photograph taken during the 1974 federal election campaign of then PC Leader Robert Stanfield awkwardly fumbling a football thrown in his direction, a shot Pierre Trudeau's backroom boys couldn't wait to contrast with a snap of their man gracefully paddling a canoe down some Canadian river. (Trudeau handily won the election).
Now I have no idea whether Furey's Liberace moment at Government House was on the unofficial schedule or not, but it did re-emphasize for me the power that video and even photographs have had, and continue to have, in the world of politics, how image can play an inordinate role in the way in which politicos are perceived.
How does the politician look? Is he or she sweating in front of the cameras? Is that skirt too tight? Does that tie match the shirt?
And speaking of ties: Back in 1989, while producing a behind-the-scenes documentary on Tom Rideout's quest to win the PC leadership and, thus, the premier's chair, I watched (and cameraman Kevin Hanlon recorded) as the candidate and his campaign manager laboured over which tie he should wear while giving his convention speech that evening. Rideout's people had paid a fortune to import the renowned political organizer from the mainland (sorry, but his name now escapes me), and here he was, providing the candidate with advice on his evening getup.
Some old-timers can probably recall that infamous photograph taken during the 1974 federal election campaign of then PC Leader Robert Stanfield awkwardly fumbling a football thrown in his direction, a shot Pierre Trudeau's backroom boys couldn't wait to contrast with a snap of their man gracefully paddling a canoe down some Canadian river. (Trudeau handily won the election).
Now I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't acknowledge that I spent many a year working in a business where the on-air types were as concerned, as were their bosses, with how they looked, how they appeared to the viewers — the image, again, as important, some would argue, as the script they were reading.
When I worked as a reporter for "Here and Now" in the early 1980s, I was ordered to lose my beard if I wanted a job, the producers at the time not wanting one of their journalists to look like a member of some rag-tag outfit; I complied, of course, but there was at least one personal consequence: I was, at the time, a bonafide barfly with a perpetual case of the morning after shakes, and found it mighty difficult to shave without transforming my face into an extremely rare piece of beef. (And just for the record, the CBC canned me, justifiably so, because of the boozing. But, six years later, after I had sobered up, mother corporation placed me in charge of all its television programming, including the same show from which I had been unceremoniously dumped, an event in my life I still cite, ad nauseam, some might suggest, with unadulterated pride.)
I'll end this somewhat meandering weekend homily where I began, and suggest that the more appropriate song our new premier should have played at Government House was the Newfoundland folk song, “Hard, Hard Times.”
One verse, in particular, comes to mind:
“Then next comes the doctor the worst of them all,
Saying what is the matter with you all this fall,
Says he will cure you of all your disease,
And when he gets your money you can die if you please,”
Bob Wakeham has spent more than 40 years as a journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador. He can be reached by email at bwakeham@nl.rogers.com
