I’ve been reading with interest in several newspapers some disturbing allegations about a service called Advanced Hair Studio — and my interest isn’t a result of the fact that my own hairline has been doing a strategic retreat for the past few years.
No, the stories caught my eye because I was a fascinated viewer of the company’s television advertisements. The ads feature Big Brother loser Riaad Isaacs talking to well-known TV journalist Derek Watts.
Well, it seems the service worked for Isaacs, who now has a full complement of hair to go with his charming personality. Watts interviews him in a current affairs type of way. He is also clearly impressed with Isaacs’s results.
Watts works for Carte Blanche, one of the few investigative journalism programmes on South African television. It has a reputation for hard-hitting, no-nonsense journalism and has done some important work over the years.
Now back to the Advanced Hair Studio. Several people have come forward to say their hair has been coming out in clumps since using the service. The company denies there are problems, but the Department of Health is looking into it.
It seems to me this might be an ideal story for Carte Blanche. Watts could ambush the president of the company while he’s getting into his car to go to work. The cameras would be rolling, the guy would put his hand on the lens and Watts would be shouting: “Answer the question, sir. Answer the question!” Oh, it would be great television.
But it can’t happen. Watts has used his journalistic reputation to endorse the product and so he has no credibility on this story.
Further, he has lost credibility in general. It would have been different if, say, a continuity presenter did the ad. Their job doesn’t involve journalism, with its tenets of balance, fairness and independence. Watts has sold out and hurt the cause of television journalism.
And, while I’m on a roll, let’s talk about Isabel Jones, who was for many years an accomplished consumer journalist. Now she works
for Summit TV “fighting for shareholders and executive consumers” (according to its website).
But come on! How could anyone who’s seen her Bauer Pro Cookware infomercial take her seriously as a journalist? I know I can’t. What happens if it’s discovered that there are problems with Bauer cookware? How could Jones take on the company? She couldn’t. As a consumer journalist, she is damaged goods.
I wonder if Watts and Jones have considered why they were asked to front these ads. Who better to sell a dubious product than someone who exposes fraud for a living? In Watts and Jones the businesses in question managed to buy someone who viewers would recognise and trust.
Well, I believe it takes a lot longer to earn the public’s trust than to lose it. In fact, it takes about the same length of time to lose one’s credibility as it takes to say “That’s amazing!”
Douglas Mitchell is a lecturer in television journalism at Rhodes University. He is also executive producer of CueTV, the university’s television training project