Mood: a-ok
Topic: big media
Trigger is an inspired nickname given the similar surname and the quick fire verbal facility that she brought to the work. Too much ego some said early to which we here scoffed derisorily - how exactly can you have too much ego in combat with the larger than life doyens of Sydney? Certainly a healthy ego is essential if not sufficient.
She did the job proud parading her general neutrality like a double edged axe blade like some media style intellectual Xena amazon as the barbarians milled around. Too warlike? It is the home of the bear pit.
Now Deborah, aka Debbie (if you are Sir Jimmy Little), Cameron is in the chair all this first week, and she is quite the worthy and indeed more than that talented, successor. Trigger has left a lasting impression to be sure and now the audience will go on another personal journey.
Cameron has already met the infamous sleep cycle impact which in brutal fashion can steal 20 IQ points turning a charming conversationalist into a leaden bore. Julie McCrossin never quite got to that stage but she got out quickly all the same. Who can forget the Adam Spencer meltdown at one time at unfortunate Trigger's expense early on in his placement - we called it the Margaret and David moment from then SBS Movie Show - the chalk and cheese frisson of friction. Oh how we recognised the symptoms after 2 years night shift at Media Monitors.
Cameron clearly has the intellect and journalistic professionalism and experience, with several years in Japan apparently. She also fits the times for the Federal ALP hegemony in several stylistic ways (refer below).
Also her dead straight no hesitation, just the facts 'breaking news .... 2 killed in a winery in the Hunter Valley' tells you she is tough which she will need, no risk. The vocab is tops with a breathtaking 'confrere' thrown in at an impossible angle like a key in a bank safe going click just when I was sure she'd surely lost her balance on a circus rope.
And sufficient flashes of inspiration and genuine humour to attract more attention.
Appealing broadcast voice with quite a deal of kindness (an under rated quality?) and grace (ditto) to help mediate the brash harshness of Sydney daily grind, sufficient patience to manage a googly of a call back literally 1 minute to first week's end. Made it.
Yep, she's got the goods. Her image on the website reminds of a Japanese style westerner, with a somewhat severe Lathamesque buzz, that could do with more colour to match the Sydney festive season (is black ABC neutrality?) but actually her background looks more Paddy Irish Australian with her career kicking off with the Warrnambool Standard (now owned by Fairfax a long time now), Canberra Times and Sydney Morning Herald. That's Irish Catholic territory as a stereotype, and if so won't hurt with the ALP. She appears in black which is quite their colour too.
All being equal - meaning fair politics - she will be quite good, or good, or very good. However NSW politics and life is not fair, and therein is the white knuckle ride that is 702 radio 'real news' mid morning show. Vale Trigger, entre [insert nickname for Deborah Cameron here, too early to say].