A studio based series that seeks to get behind the spin surrounding the most pressing issues of the past week to find out what our politicians, businessmen and celebrities are really saying.
Spin is an important part of any political or publicity game. Politicians, journalists and celebrities become salesmen, appealing to our hearts to sell themselves or their agendas. The underlying questions the audience at home are asking are ‘what are they really saying’, ‘what unseen game are they playing’, and ‘how do we separate the spin from the real story’?
The Spindoctors is a show that will take recent speeches, interviews and sound-bites on the nations most publicised issues and put them through a satirical but informed critical process to get to the heart of the issues at hand and reveal all the factors at play.
There will be one main studio based presenter acting as master of ceremonies, with features from daring and opinionated reporters in the field. He will act as an all knowing figure, seated on his throne surrounded by books.
Each feature will have a particular style of reporter depending on the theme of that piece. This structure will allow every episode to move effortlessly between hard political topics, trashy celebrity gossip and everyday issues affecting the ordinary people at home.
On the subject of hard politics, recent events have shown absolutely how spin can be used to manipulate, frighten and control the mob. People deserve to be informed about all the factors at play, rather than being treated like children who must be prevented from interfering in the decision making process of powerful interested parties.
The master of ceremonies will seek to deal with these larger issues by going beyond the average news reports that are constricted by time, the use of spin and the partisan sound-bites of conflicting interested parties.
A typical episode will begin with him giving a run down of this week’s topics. He takes the first one, for example Condelessa Rice’s visit to the Lebanon and Bush’s related speech on the spread of freedom and democracy around the world. The master then takes us through a quick history of America’s plans in the Middle East and close links to Israel, as well as the reasons for Iran’s desire to destroy Israel.
The show moves swiftly into the field then with the show-biz reporter seeking out the truth behind this week’s Big Brother eviction, because he/she simply doesn’t believe the interview she gave to Davina. He/She interviews all the local gossip columnists and tries to grab an interview with the evictee.
After each feature, the master gives his own sound-bite on what he has seen and introduces the next piece. This is followed by a feature on recent trouble in the traveller community and the results of the Morris Tribunal, both of which were reported on the evening news. The reporter tries to pin down the agendas of all parties involved, rather than just giving the audience the simple facts and sound-bites.
Then its back to the studio for the masters own sound-bite and his feature on recent news reports relating to the issue of global warming following the release of Bob Dole’s new movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
Each reporter will be interviewing as many independent parties as possible – journalists, historians, comedians, celebrities, political analysts with some sound-bites from the general public – deciding on the actual factors at work.
As the credits roll, each original speech, interview and sound-bite will be replayed with the voices dubbed to what these reporters believe each individual is actually saying.
Some topics will involve a very detailed and wide-ranging examination, while others will require just a sound bite or two. All will revolve around the main news stories of that week.
The show is interested in democracy; in giving the people all the information they need to make informed decisions, whether that is on Iraq, the smoking ban, or Ronan Keating’s campaign to promote his new album. As such, using the spin angle becomes an interesting tool in addressing the most pressing issues facing the nation and the world.
[...] Spindoctors [...]