The Australian’s associate editor Chris Kenny, who famously sued the ABC for depicting him having sex with a dog, was quick off the mark to complain about an ABC opinion piece on Thursday afternoon, tagging the communications minister and ABC executives in a tweet and issuing a thinly veiled threat to sue.
The article was by a professor of modern history at the University of Sydney, Dirk Moses, who took aim at News Corp for its “avalanche of criticism” when the ANU rejected the Ramsay Centre’s western civilisation undergraduate program.
Moses: “Do members of the rightwing commentariat think that western countries are succumbing to a poisonous cocktail of multiculturalism, Muslim immigration, political correctness and cultural Marxism that dilutes the white population and brainwashes young people at school and university? It seems that, much like Anders Breivik and Steve Bannon, they do. We are on the precipice of disaster, they seem to believe.”
Perhaps you and the ABC ought to delete this putrid piece. And I wouldn’t delay. @SenatorFifield @gavmorris @asunderland https://t.co/KoYnTFv4v9
— Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) June 7, 2018
After Kenny’s tweet the article was amended and the Breivik reference removed. Given the level of scrutiny the ABC is under after criticism of Emma Alberici’s articles it beggars belief that the ABC websites are not being more carefully edited.
Matters scatalogical
Even esteemed publications such as Guardian Australia and the Australian Financial Review could not resist the outrageous “poo jogger” story , broken by the Courier-Mail on Thursday. This highbrow organ and the AFR jumped into the story when the businessman caught taking a dump in public resigned from his role at the retirement village operator Aveo.
News Corp’s flagship title the Australian even matched its online ads to the story: “we don’t do things half-arsed” and “bottoms up”.
But a shoutout to the website Junkee, which got the best quote on the subject from Queensland police: “Just before 5pm on 11th May, the man attended a unit complex on Logan road and did a poo. He did have toilet paper on him though. At least he made sure his bum was clean, if not the surrounding area.”
Destroy a newsroom to save it (or something)
Australian journalism continues to shed jobs. This week, leading up to the end of the financial year, was particularly rough. There has been a lot of noise about ABC job losses and constant cuts at News Corp but many other smaller outlets are also bleeding staff too.
The wire service Australian Associated Press, which has lost clients in newspapers and broadcasters who have less money to spend, is downsizing. The editor-in-chief, Tony Gillies, told staff on Tuesday he would be cutting 10% of the workforce to save the business and offering between 20 and 25 voluntary redundancies. After AAP gave staff just one week to decide, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance stepped in and management agreed to extend the deadline for applications for voluntary redundancy to a cut-off of midday on Friday 15 June.
“Our media customers say they need us more than ever but declining sales – particularly in 2018 – confirm we need to do even more,” Gillies said. The company, owned by Fairfax, News Corp and Seven West Media, did well in photo services and advertising features but lost in racing data, newswire for television broadcasters and cutbacks in New Zealand, he said.
Sources told the Weekly Beast the treatment of three photographic trainees had been particularly brutal. They were terminated over the phone: one was even told to pull over while he was driving to a meeting with management because they couldn’t wait. They were told their contracts would not be renewed at the end of the month, which marked 12 months of the traineeship. The three snappers were then offered a casual gig at what they say is reduced freelance rates but with none of the benefits of a full-time job. They were also told they could work 250 shifts for AAP before their photographic equipment – which was given to them as part of their traineeship – was considered to be paid off. Gillies told Weekly Beast the trainees had not been made redundant as their contracts were always going to be up after 12 months. “Instead, each of these photographers has been offered contract employment with AAP on the same terms as AAP’s many other contract photographers and they are to get a very good amount of work with us,” Gillies said.
On the heels of the wire service announcing 25 redundancies, staff at Pacific Magazines were told six journalists at New Idea and Who magazines were being let go. The general manager of entertainment and family, Louisa Hatfield, told staff in an email that a group of “fantastic journalists” including Jenny Brown, Amy Reedy, Jennie Noonan, Helen Martin, Michael Crooks and Karina Juncal would be leaving the company. Before you scoff at the idea of fantastic journalists working for New Idea and Who, Who is a cut above the usual entertainment magazine.
Hatfield: “This has been a particularly difficult process for all concerned because, quite simply, ALL of the journalists whose roles have been affected are exceptionally talented, passionate, hardworking and dedicated.” Sources say they have no idea how Who will put out a magazine without the five key staffers, one of whom has been there since 1993 and another for 19 years.
The Conversation, the academic website started by the former Age editor Andrew Jaspan, has also lost a couple of staff in recent months and not replaced them. Funding for the Conversation remains an issue and the rescue package offered by the Victorian government three years ago is about to run out.
Fairfax’s Janz takes flight from EBA fury
While we told you last week Fairfax has promised to halt redundancies for the time being, it is still knee-deep in industrial strife owing to a game-changing enterprise bargaining agreement the company has put before the staff, which waters down career progression, redundancy terms and annual leave conditions. At well-attended stop-work meetings at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age last week the offer was rejected. The negotiations are being led by Chris Janz, the managing director of Fairfax Media’s metro publishing division, and much of the “fury” was aimed at him last Thursday, we are told. But then Janz left the country and the negotiations stalled.
It didn’t go unnoticed in the newsrooms that Janz disappeared at the same time as Fairfax’s newly appointed executive editor, James Chessell, and the chief executive, Greg Hywood. Chessell was elevated earlier this year to a position that gives him control of major metropolitan mastheads the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age as well as the Canberra Times, Brisbane Times, WAtoday and Life Media.
Turns out that Janz, Chessell and Hywood all flew off to the INMA World Congress of News Media conference in Washington, leaving the tiresome EBA negotiations behind. The other lucky Fairfax reps at the #INMA18 conference were the news director, Fiona Buffini, and the federal editor, Bevan Shields. The News Corp execs Julian Delaney, Chris Dore, Nicholas Gray also made the journey. The EBA negotiation has been delayed until 12 June.
Markson’s Penthouse tease
“Helen Dale is in Penthouse” screamed the headline of a media release put out by the Sydney publicist Max Markson. His recent clients include Mark Latham, Alan Jones, Pauline Hanson and Milo Yiannopoulos. What was Dale, formerly known as Helen Demidenko, the controversial author of The Hand that Signed the Paper, doing in a girly magazine? Well, not taking her clothes off, so calm down. The magazine has published an extract of her latest novel, Kingdom of the Wicked Book II. It’s described as an alternative history, set in an industrialised Roman empire, that imagines “what would happen if Jesus turned up in a modern society”. Dale says the book has a sexy character, a Roman army officer called Cornelius. “And since October 2017, when the book was published, I have received hundreds of letters from straight women – telling me they want to fuck Cornelius,” Dale tells readers of Penthouse. Apart from writing, Dale has also served as an adviser to the Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm.
Aunty’s PR point man spins off
In the last two years under Michelle Guthrie’s blueprint for change, the ABC has faced more than a few internal dramas and external controversies and scandals. The man handling all the media inquiries for Aunty is one Nick Leys, the corporation’s head of communications. A former journalist at the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC’s Media Watch, Leys joined corporate affairs almost five years ago under the former MD Mark Scott. Now Guthrie is going to have to look for another spin doctor as Leys, who is married to the ABC Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan, has accepted a new job at the Australian Energy Council as the general manager for corporate affairs. His departure was announced to the executive on Thursday by the finance chief, Louise Higgins. “Nick has worked tirelessly for this corporation and he really does embody what the ABC values are and stand for,” Higgins said. “Nick’s thoughtful and measured manner meant the ABC really had a strong broker, especially when dealing with challenging times. And the humility on this guy! We will miss him.”
