When the Australian federal police swept into Ultimo with a search warrant for ABC news on Wednesday it was a mixed blessing for news director Gaven Morris.
Morris’s name was on the warrant, along with reporters Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, and it was a day of high drama, but at least the spotlight had moved off an internal dispute.
On Monday Guardian Australia and Media Watch reported that Morris took a phone call from Adani spokeswoman Kate Campbell about a damaging story which was later spiked.
On Tuesday ABC journalists condemned the alleged editorial interference by the resources company and called on Morris to explain why the radio story by Isabel Roe was not run on Saturday AM, but Morris was in Canberra on Tuesday and the raids on Wednesday delayed the showdown.
Morris finally met staff representatives in person and via a national phone hook-up on Thursday. Sources say he insisted he had nothing to do with pulling the story and that he merely passed on the message from Adani that the company believed it had not been given enough time to respond.
The meeting was tense – one journalist described it as “ugly” – and Morris was challenged on what some reporters see as a cultural problem with the newsroom. Staff feel the normal complaints system is sometimes being circumvented by angry people going straight to the top to complain, which is what happened in the Adani case. This fear of upsetting powerful entities also leads to self-censorship, an issue which was raised by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance in a submission to the political interference inquiry. Morris told them all they had to do was speak up if they felt their stories were being silenced.
An email that went out to all staff after the meeting rubbed salt into the wounds. The ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, said the decision to drop the story was made independently by the program’s executive producer.
“Gaven gave no instruction or direction to anyone to spike the Adani story,” Anderson said.
“The ABC will continue to provide frank and fearless coverage of the Adani story just as it does on other matters of importance to Australians.
“I have complete confidence in the editorial integrity and leadership of Gaven Morris.”
So why did the producer spike the commissioned story? Anderson said it was “because he had too much content for his show and felt the piece, based on a days old article by a Bloomberg journalist days before, didn’t advance the story sufficiently”.
In other words, it was the fault of the reporter for not producing a strong enough story with a fresh angle. Nothing to do with a call from a corporate flack. The response has not gone down well.
Race to the bottom
Tim Blair doesn’t get anywhere near as much attention as the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt, but the Daily Telegraph commentator posts some deplorable content on his blog. When he’s not attacking women he’s mocking asylum seekers in Australian detention centres who have self-harmed.
In a post this week headlined KEY WORD: ‘ATTEMPTS’ Blair said the election result had caused asylum seekers, or what he hilariously calls the “off-shore country-shopper community” to make “plainly inept suicide attempts”. He called on readers to make bets on how many would die by their own hand.
“Can they crack the half-century? Or even make it all the way to three figures? Go for it, boaties.
“(Note: under official Attention-Seeking Refugee rules, multiple attempts by an individual score only a single point.)”
The comments were no better.
“Gag them and bag them and dump them back in their homeland,” one of Blair’s readers wrote.
“So ... what do they actually do in these alleged ‘attempts’?” asked another.
“Slap themselves senseless with seaweed and flaccid lettuce leaves?”
Sharp intake of breath
When Channel Nine poached the Triple J newsreader Brooke Boney last year for a revamped Today show it was a cause for celebration.
The Gamilaroi woman who grew up in the New South Wales Hunter Valley was to be commercial breakfast TV’s first Indigenous star. She replaced veteran showbiz commentator Richard Wilkins, who moved to a later slot on Today Extra.
Today show talent’s 2019 first semester report card from me @TheTodayShow pic.twitter.com/3JNhw7aBDK
— Annette Sharp (@InSharpRelief) June 2, 2019
But the Sunday Telegraph’s gossip columnist Annette Sharp is unimpressed with Boney, giving the 31-year old a C-rating on her “report card”, while handing Wilkins an A and calling for his return.
Boney lacked personality and experience and should be dressed in “age appropriate clothing”, Sharp wrote.
Sharp made similarly superficial judgements about other members of the Today show cast’s appearance, leading to accusations of sexism.
Sharp said Georgie Gardner could improve her sex appeal by showing more cleavage, while Deb Knight was often “neglected by Nine’s hair and makeup” team. Tom Steinfort was “good looking” but a “token male newsreader”.
So @GeorgieG and @deborah_knight need to show cleavage and have perfect hair to rate. Extremely sexist
— TraceyG (@bozza1970) June 2, 2019
News Corp loses big names
Several big names have put their hands up to take redundancies from News Corp following the announcement this week that the company was looking to shed 55 journalists and many more in non-editorial departments across the country.
Senior writers include Walkley award-winning journalist and author Paul Toohey, the Courier Mail’s political commentator Dennis Atkins and the Australian’s veteran football writer Ray Gatt. More names are expected to emerge in coming days.
@aus_sport @australian pic.twitter.com/qdB0cGvpX0
— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) June 4, 2019
The Herald and Weekly Times in Melbourne was hit hard, with at least 15 journalists to go and as many as 25 jobs axed overall.
In Adelaide many of the 10 targeted jobs were in the sports department and included commentator and former Crows captain Chris McDermott.
In a now deleted tweet, Tiser columnist Caleb Bond said “watching colleagues being retrenched isn’t fun”. There were four positions lost at the Courier Mail, six in Tasmania and an additional five national positions.
Another big name to be leaving the Holt St bunker is columnist Miranda Devine. But Devine is not leaving the company, she is going to New York on an 18-month dream assignment to cover the US elections and write for Murdoch’s New York Post. “From New York she will share her insights, analysis and perspective on the election for readers of the Daily Telegraph,” editor Ben English told staff.
Target audience
The Herald Sun appeared to uncover a new threat to public safety this week with a front page splash about attacks on international students near Monash University. Its headline read: “UNIGANG ATTACKS: Police target thugs robbing foreign students”.
Today’s @theheraldsun front page pic.twitter.com/TG6M6M3uZv
— damon johnston (@damonheraldsun) June 2, 2019
“International students are being robbed and bashed in a brutal wave of street attacks plaguing eastern suburban Melbourne,” the report said.
“Monash University students, many of them from China, are among those being terrorised by cowardly groups of thieves who typically zero in on the victims when they are alone.
“Chinese student Kuan Gao, 19, said he had been robbed of his iPhone and wallet while walking along a lane near Monash University in Clayton on the night of April 18.
“‘Three black men very silently ran to me and suddenly took away my phone,’ Mr Gao said.”
But Victoria police told us they don’t believe there are gangs of thugs hanging around the university waiting to attack foreign students.
“Police do not believe international students are being targeted for these crimes,” they told Weekly Beast. “We believe the perpetrators of these offences are opportunistic and are seeing victims of various ethnicities and ages, ranging from the early 20s to early 50s.”
