The mayor of the Gold Coast, Tom Tate, is very hands-on when it comes to dealing with the media, in particular the Gold Coast Bulletin which is the Queensland city’s News Corp masthead.
Last week he took aim at columnist Alice Gorman who had criticised the council’s decision to approve a cruise ship terminal at The Spit. Posting her column on his Facebook page, Tate questioned the Walkley award-winning journalist’s credentials and said she couldn’t write about the city because she didn’t live there any more.
“Moved out of the city and still gets to write a lifestyle / gonzo style column every week … things that make you go hmmmmmmm?” was just one comment made by the mayor.
Tate wrote: “Print media need to understand that the other communications mediums are out there and competing – social media is being a great leveler [sic] with its direct communication approach – no filtering, no bias, no agenda pushing by a privileged few editors.”
When he doesn’t like a story he takes to Facebook to encourage readers and advertisers to boycott the paper. But now Tate has stepped things up. He has claimed responsibility for the departure of Gold Coast Bulletin editor, Cath Webber, last week. Sources told Weekly Beast that Webber, who has been editing the paper since July 2013, was removed suddenly on Thursday after being summoned to Sydney’s Holt Street headquarters earlier in the week. On Friday the Bully announced it had appointed a new editor, Scott Thompson, and Webber had “been offered a senior editorial role in Sydney”.
Later that morning Tate appeared to claim responsibility for Webber’s departure: “I’ve been pretty consistent in my bagging of the GCB … seems the higher ups of News Limited have heard loud and clear and made some big changes yesterday.”
Tate went on to say the paper had been full of “hateful” and “unattributed personal vile” and he welcomed the “new era on the Gold Coast starting yesterday” with the new team in charge. “Time the reporters and especially the columnists get used to that. It’s not a case any more of bowing to those who buy their ink by the barrel.”
Tate declined to speak to Weekly Beast about his role in the change of editors but said in a statement looking forward to the city’s controversial hosting of the 2018 Commonwelath Games: “That is all behind us now and we look forward to a fresh approach as we head towards 2018.’’
A spokeswoman for News Corp said: “Our editorial changes are an internal management issue and we have no comment on those decisions. Nor can we or will we comment on the mayor’s opinions or social media statements. The opinion of mayor Tom Tate had no influence whatsoever in our recent leadership changes at the Gold Coast Bulletin.”
Kate Fischer takes the media on at their own game
We felt sorry for former model Kate Fischer who was targeted by Woman’s Day recently for daring to put on weight, embrace Orthodox Judaism and shun the spotlight. But perhaps we shouldn’t have worried because the former model now known as T’Ziporah Malka has taken the media on at their own game. The former fiancee of billionaire James Packer shocked everyone when she popped up in rival magazine New Idea – in an exclusive lingerie spread for which the magazine made a donation to a charity of her choice.
In between posing in a black corset perched on the edge of a bed, Malka talked about Packer’s impact on her life. “I had to put up with false rumours that I got multimillions out of splitting from him,” she told New Idea.
Brand new issue out now! pic.twitter.com/MEqpfO26Ns
— New Idea magazine (@NewIdeamagazine) October 23, 2016
“Once, I was at the supermarket when someone yelled out: ‘Nice job, getting 10 million bucks for lying on your back, Kate!’ I’d hear those types of awful remarks for years.”
News Corp journos cry foul as ABC nabs Walkley nomination
The ABC’s 7.30 scooped all three nominations in the category of daily current affairs television in the Walkley nominations last week. But it was Louise Milligan and Andy Burns’s entry “George Pell Investigation” that has been receiving some unwanted attention since.
Herald Sun journos have been muttering about how unfair it is that reporter Lucie Morris-Marr’s scoop about the Pell investigation was overlooked for a Walkley but 7.30’s TV investigation was not. While Morris-Marr’s story broke the news of the Victorian police investigation into Pell, there were no alleged victims quoted in the piece and the paper did not follow up to build on the original story. In fact the Herald Sun ran from the allegations after Andrew Bolt said the Pell report was worse than “vicious and shameful” and the leak to the paper “stinks”.
The Milligan-Burns investigation was not just a follow-up to the Hun piece, it was painstaking and detailed and is more than worthy of a Walkley nomination on its own. And to be fair to 7.30, the program took the story so much further, tracking down and interviewing on camera two of the alleged victims, no mean feat.
Student editors bow out with elaborate spoof
The editors of Honi Soit, the University of Sydney’s student newspaper, have excelled themselves. At first glance the 27 October edition looks like a copy of Rupert Murdoch’s the Australian.
Immensely proud to go out on this note as an @honi_soit editor this year. This is our final edition for 2016, on stands across campus pic.twitter.com/6ujIC64P6A
— tom joyner (@tomrjoyner) October 27, 2016
The cheeky stories included: Turnbull and Abbott to settle differences in Maccas carpark, Human Rights Commission accused of “outrageous bias against rights abuses” and Pauline Hanson tells Muslim Australians “to love it or build new nation underground”.
In a statement the editors denied the paper was a prank. “This is untrue: we still do not know who put the papers there. It is possible News Corp has taken over our contract for the campus newspaper stands, to complement the free digital subscriptions to the Australian provided by the university, but the matter is currently under investigation.
“Regardless, as a team, we have always admired the Australian for its balanced reporting and insightful commentary, and are pleased that its respectable, broadsheet pages are appearing in the stands we spent the year filling with left-wing smut. You should pick one up! It’s the last broadsheet in this great country – that means it’s inherently and unquestionably Australia’s best journalistic institution!
“We would also like to personally thank Paul Whittaker for finally publishing our letters.”
The publisher of the Australian, Nicholas Gray, got in on the fun, saying on Twitter: “Room for improvement in story selection but the layout and design get an HD.”
