Beer-drinking bride controversy becomes a global phenomenon

Far and away this week’s hottest media story has been the image of Taranaki's beer-drinking bride. The story has certainly polarized opinion in our office (our girls love their beer – Lion of course). And the fierce debate has continued unabated all this week as the news has spread to become a global sensation. Newspapers and websites as far afield as England, Australia, United States, Brazil, China and India have featured the story and one of America's biggest online news sites, msnbc.com, reported it was receiving 45,000 "clicks" an hour on the photo. But regardless of which side of the fence you fall: “it's cheap, crass and disgusting” or “it’s 2012, if a woman wants to drink beer out of a bottle while wearing a wedding dress –that’s her prerogative”, it gives us a fascinating insight into how newspapers operate. It is rare to see a newspaper editor print an article justifying his decision to run a particular story, but that’s what happened. Roy Pilott, Editor of the Taranaki Daily News published an opinion article of his own in which he commented: “I knew that running the shot on the front page would ensure Monday's edition would get people talking. This shot was a winner on several fronts – it had humour, it was not posed, it was a picture of our people, and it was unique. The selection of pictures is often made not on news value, but on the success the photographer has had in getting a memorable shot. Quite simply, in news there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to selection, but there is accountability. I am happy to stand accused of challenging readers. Journalists face a daily challenge to come up with something different, because doing news by rote is boring.” And what of the woman concerned – well Katrina Hayman seems to be all enjoying the media attention and has co-operated with a number of interviews and has even posed for photographers drinking beer with her husband in a local bar (thankfully Steinlager Pure this time round). Looking at the bigger picture (not the one of the beer drinking bride), no one outside of New Zealand (and possibly even many Kiwis themselves) had ever heard of the Taranaki Daily News before – and now it’s an international sensation. We would imagine the editor is feeling quite smug right now and we expect he will treat himself to a few beers tonight. At the end of the day it’s been a great bit of PR for him and the newspaper!