Sydney Siege: Listen To Australian News Crews Joke Around Outside Lindt Cafe

Watching a hostage situation unfold while the world looks on apparently wasn’t enough to rattle Australian news crews. At least that’s the impression international viewers had when, upon tuning in to watch the 16-hour hostage crisis at Sydney’s Lindt café, they heard cameramen casually bantering and joking about the situation.

Audio of the news crews' interactions, culled from news feeds and online live streams, first surfaced on Reddit. Listeners were initially amused that the crews were unwittingly being recorded, but then shocked at their seeming lack of regard for the victims trapped inside the Lindt café as the situation became more serious.

Three people were dead -- including the hostage-taker -- and another four wounded by the time the hostage situation ended in gunfire at about 2 a.m. AEDT (10 a.m. EST) Tuesday. The situation began when a gunman, later identified as Iranian refugee Man Haron Monis, walked into the small café in central Sydney and held 17 people at gunpoint. All have been accounted for, Australian police said, although two of the hostages were killed and others were hospitalized.

For the hostages, the entire affair lasted for nearly 17 hours. Camera crews were on hand for almost that entire time, with the tedium of the wait quickly giving way to swapping stories about previous experiences at major events. Reddit user GravityGod recorded audio from five hours of news footage and, though the recording is largely made up of dead air, it also provides a glimpse into the apparent jaded mind-set of professional newsgatherers.

“These people came up to me and asked how they could be in the newspaper,” one unidentified cameraman said. “I said, ‘You see that cop car? Go and turn it over!’”

Another said, “I was on an amphibious vehicle that rolled down a hill, nearly died after being trapped under it, got three broken ribs, smashed all my camera gear, had no insurance and one year later only just had my knee reconstruction. Now I have to stand here for f---ing hours.”

Short recordings were also posted to SoundCloud. Few of the clips are longer than 10 seconds, but what they lack in length, they more than make up for in substance. In one, presumably after complaining about the length of time he's been waiting for action, someone remarks that “we better have the day off tomorrow.”

That came after some in the crew were overheard talking about another news station jockeying for their spot. Listen closely for “Cheeky, aren’t they?”

Along with some jokes about Instagram (directly below), there was evident jealousy that the crew working for the Guardian news outlet was able to eat pizza as they waited for an update.

The reaction throughout social media has been largely positive, with users on both Reddit and Twitter appreciative that, after such a long day in Sydney, there was at least something to smile about.

“I think this is a result of 50 percent cameraman having seen some s--- and somewhat desensitized and 50 percent bored Australian,” one Redditor wrote, though it was a cameraman’s quote that gave the most insight into what news crews were thinking at the time:

“No one’s really watching anymore.”