CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact

As society’s lowest common denominator continues to slip, Channel Nine’s investagtive journalism program A Current Affair is now stepping outside its usual format of ‘dodgy landlords’ and ‘bickering neighbours’.

Tracey Grimshaw spoke to The Betoota Advocate this morning.

“What we have found is that we can gee up pretty much anything with a bit of spooky noise and media scrum,” she said

“So we thought why not follow up every day issues… Like the type of things you hear people complaining about on a day to day basis,”

Grimshaw says her team now spend their working hours inside the pub, basing their evening segments around drunken arguments and conversations they overhear.

“Its amazing… Forget the shifty tradesman – we just learnt about Pete rooting the married bird that works in the kitchen,” she said.

“And Dave is a tight bastard. He just missed his shout, what a dickhead,”

Grimshaw says the new and improved format has proven to be a real success. With drunken ‘talent’ revealing far more than they ever should have and ratings through the roof.

“Its what the punters want,”

“Joe just told us that his dad use to put cigarettes out on him when he was little. That might be a bit too heavy for our evening format, but we know for a fact that his neighbours cut down that tree without council permission,”

“And his missus spent the baby bonus on a plasma,”