The ABC’s director of news, Gaven Morris, ordered News Radio broadcasters off air while it was in the throes of covering the breaking news about the Essendon air crash on Tuesday. Morris directed News Radio to immediately switch to the rolling TV coverage on ABC News 24 instead, leaving some radio listeners wondering why News Radio was talking about what they could “see”. The move has confused and infuriated the journalists at News Radio who have all signed a letter to Morris condemning the decision.
“We recognise the directive made, and duly followed it, but we reserve the right to believe it was the wrong call,” the letter obtained by Weekly Beast said. “News Radio’s mandate is rolling news. We have been covering big events for more than 20 years. It is what we do and it is a product the audience has come to rely on. Being radio we are by far the most flexible medium with an unrivalled ability to cross anywhere any time. Every day our desk producers are monitoring international feeds and other ABC stations for the best and most pertinent coverage of any event. Breaking news is not a special event for us. It is our daily bread and butter.
“As we had done recently with the Bourke Street Mall massacre we were poised to cover the Essendon airport event on a rolling basis when the directive was made to cut to News 24. At that time we already had talent ready and packages cut with the latest detail. However, we took the directive and immediately crossed to News 24 where the anchor was on screen for the first couple of minutes talking about live pictures that our audience couldn’t see. However, the main point is when a major news story broke and people turned to us, we turned away.”
The ABC has been approached for comment.
So long, Weekend
After one year in the role, Amelia Lester, editor of Fairfax Media’s Good Weekend, has resigned. “I have resigned as editor of Good Weekend because my husband is relocating overseas and I’ll be joining him there,” she told Weekly Beast on Thursday night. “I’ve loved my time with Good Weekend and in particular working with an outstanding team of editors, writers, subs and designers. Now I’m cooking up some exciting new projects.” Australian-raised and a former executive online editor at the New Yorker, Lester was well liked by her writers and her superiors and is seen as having reinvigorated the magazine.
Her term was not without its troubles, including naming an inmate who had been promised anonymity, and having to pull a published story on a murder in Tasmania. But sources said these errors had not blotted her copybook.
Close, but no cigar
Speaking of errors, an ABC online reader complained last year that a story on the death of Fidel Castro was “effectively a hagiography”. It was certainly glowing. The headline was “Fidel Castro: Cuba’s bearded, cigar-smoking romantic revolutionary” and it said: “To some, Castro – who has died aged 90 – was a romantic revolutionary, a persuasive and moving speaker who had the affection of his people.”
After an investigation by the ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs, which took almost three months to complete, the complaint was upheld and the piece now has a new headline and some new not-so-glowing facts. “To others, he was a ruthless Communist dictator who denied his people basic freedoms, pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, and clung to power by, in the words of Human Rights Watch, repressing ‘virtually all civil and political rights’.”
The ABC has changed the headline to “Fidel Castro: Cuba’s bearded, cigar-smoking revolutionary a figure of both fascination and fear” and added an editor’s note: “This obituary has been updated with further information on accusations of human rights violations levelled against the Castro regime and details of the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
Which left us wondering: did Andrew Bolt complain? The Herald Sun columnist certainly made his feelings clear at the time. “If only Donald Trump was a dictator who killed and jailed his opponents and enslaved his people,” he wrote.
“Maybe then the ABC would give Trump the respect it’s now showered on the belatedly dead Fidel Castro.”
Worner bothers
There was some amusement among reporters at the Seven West Media v Amber Harrison court case this week when Channel Seven senior reporter Chris Reason turned up with a crew to cover the salacious court case. It was the first time Seven News had assigned coverage of its CEO Tim Worner and his highly published affair with an executive assistant which has been the subject of some 300 new stories in other publications since it broke in September. Was Reason’s appearance a result of a question which was asked at last week’s shareholder’s meeting? The Seven West Media chairman, Kerry Stokes, was asked by a journalist from Sky News why Seven’s numerous outlets had not been covering the story. For the record Reason’s report was as professional and didn’t dodge the embarrassing issues for his boss.
While supreme court justice Robert McDougall extended Seven’s injunction against Harrison, he did criticise Stokes and the director, Jeff Kennett, for their public comments vilifying the former employee last week. McDougall said the men had “descended into accusation and counter-accusation” and that remarks from the former premier of Victoria on Twitter were “not well-advised”. “Seven was using, and is working to continue using, the injunction to vilify Ms Harrison at a time when she could not respond.”
Drugs name and shame
It may not be as snappy a title as Media Watch, but AOD (Alcohol and Other Drugs) Media Watch aims to do as many hard-hitting exposes of journalists as the original ABC program. The project is backed by Dr Stephen Bright whose PhD related to the public perceptions and media portrayal of drug and alcohol use. Frustrated by the moral panic surrounding illicit drugs, Bright has teamed up with researchers and doctors to try and set the record straight. The website is designed to name and shame journalists who report drug and alcohol stories in a sensational way, correct errors and assist journalists in their reporting.
The Link effect
Weekly Beast can reveal that the name of Stan Grant’s new Friday night news program on the ABC is The Link. The Link will replace the Friday edition of 7.30 years after a special end-of-the-week show was mooted to replace the state-based edition. “Each week The Link will take the stories we’re all talking about and explain what it means for you,” Grant says.
