On Friday the ABC announced a $1m fund for podcasting at its OzPod 2017 conference in Ultimo in Sydney. Podcasting is growing – although it still only gets a fraction of the audience enjoyed by ABC Radio – and ABC boss Michelle Guthrie is keen to push the ABC’s audio-on-demand services over broadcast radio. “This fund allows us to invest not only in the extension of our own podcast content but also content from the brightest, freshest creative talent in this field,” cheered radio director Michael Mason.
These shiny new funds come at a cost however. One senior exec complained to Beast that the $1m fund could have paid to keep the jobs of more than a few experienced Radio National staff who were let go during mass redundancies earlier in the year.
Guthrie is joining 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch in the UK as one of the speakers at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge convention next week. Murdoch junior tops the bill. The biannual conference has the theme of A World of Opportunity this year. Perhaps Guthrie could use the opportunity to have a word with Murdoch about News Corp’s campaign against the ABC, which continued apace this week.
ABC & SBS charters need review. They're outdated, Govt should look at Britain's 'root and branch' BBC reforms htttp://tinyurl.com/yaetm64q pic.twitter.com/t9HN97z5ZF
— Michael Miller (@mm_newscorpaus) September 6, 2017
At another industry conference News Corp boss Michael Miller called on the government to follow the British government’s recent “root-and-branch” reform of the BBC. And the chief executive of Sky News and new Walkleys chairman Angelos Frangopoulos repeated his view that the $1.04bn in public funding should be opened up to Sky as well as the ABC.
“This is a really big area that we as commercial media need to focus on because not only do we have challenges from offshore but we have them here as well,” Frangopoulos said. “There needs to be contestability. There is no way that government funding has to be limited to just one organisation because they don’t have all the great ideas.”
Justice for Lynette Daley
There are some injustices that would never be righted if it weren’t for the media. The death and sexual assault of Lynette Daley seven years ago on a northern NSW beach is one such case. When Daley’s family emerged from the trial which finally gave them justice on Wednesday they thanked their legal team, the police, the DPP and ABC reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna and Four Corners. Gordon Davis, Daley’s stepfather said: “If it wasn’t for her taking the story and running with it, this wouldn’t have happened.” Davis was talking about the Four Corners program Callous Disregard which led to prosecutor Lloyd Babb SC calling in independent counsel, Philip Strickland SC, two days after it was broadcast for an independent review. Strickland ended up bringing the matter to trial for the DPP.
DPP reopened this case after Janet Fife-Yeomans first exposed it in The Daily Telegraph. And today this .... pic.twitter.com/Gab8OmiVWZ
— Christopher Dore (@wrongdorey) September 6, 2017
But on Thursday the Daily Telegraph claimed on its front page that its reporting of the story had led to authorities reopening the case. Sources said Janet Fife-Yeomans was upset she hadn’t been recognised for her February 2016 report which revealed two men had escaped prosecution despite their brutality towards a woman with the pseudonym “Norma”, who they left to die on a beach . The day after the Telegraph’s report the DPP said it would review the evidence again after a request from then-attorney general Gabrielle Upton.
The Tele revealed the story first. But Meldrum-Hanna gained the trust of the family and worked closely with them to bring her story to television, causing a national outcry and pushing authorities to act.
This is Lynette Daley. The two men involved in her death were just found guilty. #4Corners reported her story. Today I feel very proud. pic.twitter.com/1am34tGIyf
— Caro Meldrum-Hanna (@caromeldrum) September 6, 2017
Sleuth women
We’ve brought you a lot of Alan Jones’ random thoughts lately but thought it was worth sharing his views on why women have not succeeded in the blokey world of talkback radio. Channel Ten’s entertainment reporter Angela Bishop asked Jones who the next upcoming talkback stars were and why there weren’t more women in the game.
Where is the female Ray Hadley or John Laws, Bishop asked in an extended interview for morning show Studio 10. Jones: “I don’t know why but the women primarily migrate to the newsroom, they are sleuths … Women are successful everywhere they want to be so I can only assume its because they don’t want that, they choose other roles in the media.”
The 2GB breakfast star also continued his extraordinary attack on his Fairfax Media bosses, saying the Sydney Morning Herald treated him like a “marginalised player” rather than someone who had won 100 surveys in a row.
Well done us
While the prospect of public funds being made available for Murdoch hacks might be tantalising to folk at Holt Street, they were soon distracted by the annual industry newspaper awards. The self-congratulatory awards are fought out between Fairfax, News Corp and a handful of smaller newspapers with the result that the Australian is often the winner. And this year the good folk at the Oz won the trifecta: the newspaper of the year, the weekend newspaper of the year and the website of the year.
Foreign interests
With the demise of the foreign reporting category in the Walkleys, the Lowy Institute’s shortlist for their 2017 Media Award took on extra interest. The award recognises excellence in foreign affairs journalism and, unlike a Walkley, has a cash prize of $20,000. Nominees include the ABC’s Eric Tlozek, Matt Brown and Sophie McNeill; Four Corners/Fairfax for the joint investigation into the Chinese Communist party; Guardian Australia, for the Nauru Files; and Cameron Stewart of the Australian.
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