We're sticking with our planned topic on Media7 this week – that being the Auckland Super City election campaign. We have a great panel – Simon Wilson, Efeso Collins, David Slack and Vaughn Davis – and it should be illuminating.
We'll be looking at two principal areas – the way that candidates have marketed themselves, and the way the whole campaign has been covered in the media.
Jose has done great job with two video tracks – one covering the Metro Super Mayoral Quiz and catching up with candidates at the Coatesville Market, and the other with Brian Edwards, who sizes up Brown and Banks' performances in the Campbell Live debate last week.
I've done a Newsmash looking at the sometimes bizarre foreign coverage of the quake, and at the prominent media role of Mayor Bob Parker.
Last night's day-spent-with-Bob-Parker on Campbell Live was fairly extraordinary. It reminded me of what in TV-land is a called a "mission doc", as they rushed from place to place, but there's no denying that Parker's ease in the media has served him well in the past few days.
It has helped people feel something is being done, and it certainly hasn't hurt the mayor's chances of re-election. But I gather some citizens are beginning to feel that the media marathon has run long enough go the man in the orange jacket.
At any rate, it's hard to imagine either of Auckland's mayoral candidates doing the same thing in a crisis, even if Leighton Smith made his preference clear yesterday morning (I'll let you guess) -- right after he compared Parker to Churchill and John F. Kennedy.
If you'd like to join us for tonight's recording, we'll need you at the Victoria Street entrance of TVNZ before 5.30pm.
And meanwhile, your thoughts are welcome as always.