Dumbing down or powering up? We’re always fascinated to hear how commercial current affairs programs — with their nightly serving of diets, dresses, scams and scandal — justify their place in the world. Walkley Award-winning inquisitor and A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw has, to her credit, stood up for dumbing down early-evening television. Earlier this week she took to the internet, via a Channel Nine live stream Q&A, to mount another defence — and reveal just how populist the agenda really is.

Mortgages and power bills are the push-button topics, the veteran Nine star said. Which is exactly what the audience says it wants:

“What people tell us now; they vote with their remote controls now. We get minute-by-minute ratings and they tell us what they want to see and what they don’t want to see. So whatever we’re giving them is not because we sit in our ivory tower and say this is what you should watch, this is because we are reacting to what they have told us on the previous night and the night before that and the night before that what they have an appetite for.

“I think probably what’s happened these days; I think people can get their news all day long, they can get their news and information from so many different sources. Twitter is one of them, there are so many news services during the day, so where it used to be they would sit down for an hour a night and they’d watch the news and it would be the first time they’d watched those pictures, and then they’d expect A Current Affair to go behind the news and give them an analysis, they’ve had that all day long on radio and various other news sites.

“What we feel now is, largely, they want hip pocket nerve stuff. They want to know how they can best manage their mortgages; power bills is massive at the moment, people cannot get enough stories about power bills and smart meters, they want to know how they can circumvent all of that. If that’s dumbing down, that’s what they’re telling us they want.”

Don’t like it? Well it’s your fault.

It’s probably viewers’ fault, too, that Nine’s own hip pocket is $140,000 poorer after pinching footage from bitter rival Today Tonight. Nine settled out of court yesterday after Seven complained the station had nabbed its schoolboy bullying story without attribution. Seven calls it “vindication” — seems any win in the race to the bottom is a good one. — Jason Whittaker

Front page of the day. Holy cucumber! Europe’s front pages have gotten all veggie-oriented (complete with cucumber-brandishing diplomats) as the row over whether Spanish cucumbers have caused E. coli deaths continues…

Blair, Middleton embroiled in phone hack probe

“Pressure is building on the Metropolitan police to expand their phone-hacking inquiry to include a notorious private investigator who was accused in the House of Commons on Wednesday of targeting politicians, members of the royal family and high-level terrorist informers on behalf of Rupert Murdoch’s News International. Guardian inquiries reveal that the former prime minister Tony Blair is among the suspected victims of Jonathan Rees, who was involved in the theft of confidential data, the hacking of computers and, it is alleged, burglary.” — The Guardian

New ABC studio stokes outsourcing debate

“The ABC board has approved the construction of a large television production studio at Melbourne’s Southbank, leading to the sale of the old Elsternwick studio… In an attempt to appease staff anger about outsourcing, [ABC managing director] Mr Scott emphasised the new studio would be used for both internal productions and co-productions, as well as external hire.” — The Australian

Financial Times’ new App snubs iTunes

“The Financial Times on Tuesday introduced a mobile Web application aimed at luring readers away from Apple’s iTunes App Store, throwing down the gauntlet over new business conditions that Apple is set to impose on publishers who sell digital subscriptions via iTunes.” — The New York Times

News appoints puts news producers in ‘product’ mode

“News Limited has appointed Sigrid Kirk as chief product officer — digital, and will lead the development of all new digital products and applications by the company… Kirk joined News Digital Media in 2004 as editor-in-chief before being promoted to group publisher in 2006.” — B&T

Face-recognition-book worries privacy advocates

“Facebook stoked fresh concerns from privacy advocates and lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe by rolling out technology that uses facial recognition to identify people.” — The Wall Street Journal

Journalists talk of s-xual assault on the job

“The Committee to Protect Journalists has released a report about what it calls ‘the silencing crime’: s-xual assault against journalists.” — The Huffington Post