“Thanks for your company,” Leigh Sales will say, four nights a week, as she wraps up another edition of 7.30. It’s meant to serve as a note of solidarity between the host of the ABC’s current affairs television flagship and the show’s audience, but in 2021, that’s not easily achieved. There’s no other current affairs program on Australian television – either historically or in terms of current reach – like 7.30, and the demands that makes as the expectations of audiences change can be stringent.
Last week, when Victoria’s sudden five-day COVID-19 lockdown unexpectedly stranded her in Melbourne during a private visit, Sales attended the daily press conference of the state’s premier, Daniel Andrews. The back and forth over the subject of why Victoria was in hiatus and what it signified between the politician and the journalist was strident but not combative, yet before the live telecast was even finished, Sales was the subject of much online criticism (and some praise).
Stuck in Melbourne due to a snap lockdown, 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales unexpectedly turned up at Premier Dan Andrews’ daily press conference.Credit:ABC
Watching the exchange put to air on 7.30 that night – Sales attended the presser because Andrews declined an invitation to appear on the show – you saw a divide between the two that is widely mirrored in the pandemic age. While they sparred about what Andrews called “assertions” and Sales declared “facts”, and whether there was adequate confidence in Victoria’s response to a since-cleared outbreak in hotel quarantine, Andrews was clear he would follow the advice of the Chief Health Officer and other experts, while Sales suggested the impact of doing that for a handful of infections was prohibitive.
It was an illustrative questioning, and it was noteworthy that 7.30′s edit fairly gave Andrews the time to make his case. What drove the snap judgments of Sales to a sizeable degree was the partisanship of those watching, whether on a political or home state level, which is a change in the public discourse that has basically been accelerating for the past decade. That trend of taking sides – which is anathema to the ABC’s standing – roughly matches Sales’ tenure at 7.30, following the departure of Kerry O’Brien, and you could make the case that few prominent journalists feel the impact more.
