Social media influencers have made the Australian Financial Review’s annual power list for the first time, alongside Labor politicians and corporate leaders, but not everyone at Nine newspapers is happy about it.
The AFR Magazine’s Power List says the prime minister appeared twice on the podcast Happy Hour with Lucy & Nikki, and singles out the influencers Abbie Chatfield, Konrad Benjamin, Jordan van den Lamb and the Betoota Advocate.
The choice didn’t please the newspaper’s veteran political editor, Phil Coorey, who was a power list panellist: “If it weren’t for people like us breaking news, the influencers would have nothing to talk about.”
In a list dominated by Labor politicians, the podcasters scraped in at number 10: “In the age of distraction, these hosts are the winners,” the mag declared.
(Guardian Australia explored the so-called influencer election and how non-traditional media is becoming an important weapon in politics six months ago.)
Another first for the magazine is the exclusion of the federal opposition leader for the first time in 25 years. While Peter Dutton and Albo both made the list in their time on the opposition benches, the Coalition leader, Sussan Ley, didn’t make the cut this year. The panel’s assessments were brutal.
“There is no authority,” said the pollster Tony Barry, who co-hosts the Back to Back Barries podcast for Guardian Australia. “Sussan is leading an institutionally broken Coalition and so at the moment, there is no power.” The former Labor senator Stephen Conroy said: “She shouldn’t be on the list, especially at this point of the electoral cycle. And if we put her on the list, it is just charity.”
Print deadlines are a hazard, as the magazine was reminded when it published the day after Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian conceded defeat in the seat of Bradfield. The magazine contains a feature about the once safe blue-ribbon seat, saying the final outcome of the battle with the independent Nicolette Boele “will depend on a Federal Court case disputing some of the ballots”.
Paper tigers
As if the newspaper old guard won’t be annoyed enough by the inclusion of influencers, one of Nine’s panellists has taken a swipe at the Murdoch empire itself, declaring News Corp and Sky After Dark influential “only in vastly reduced demographics and on the far right of conservative politics”.
“I’ve been discussing for 10 years, at what point do we not have to care, for the Labor Party, about The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, Herald Sun, and it is now,” Conroy said. “They are irrelevant to the public discourse for the majority of Australians.”
News Corp Australia declined to comment.
Balibo Five honoured
We reported last week that the former war correspondent John Martinkus, who died this month aged 56, was given the highest civilian award last year by the Timor-Leste president, José Ramos-Horta.
We also said Martinkus and the journalist turned lawyer Mark Davis, who both received the honour for documenting the violence before the UN ballot in 1999 that resulted in an overwhelming result for independence from Indonesia, were the only Australian journalists to have received it.
But then we heard from Greig Cunningham, who told Weekly Beast he had accepted the award on behalf of his late brother Gary, a Channel Seven cameraman who was one of the five Australian journalists killed in Balibo in 1975.
Cunningham, along with Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Gregory Shackleton and Anthony Stewart, were reporting on the Indonesian military invasion for competing Australian TV networks, Seven and Nine.
Shirley Shackleton and June Stewart also received the honour on behalf of Greg and Tony.
Courting outrage
In February the broadcaster Marty Sheargold lost his job after saying the Australian women’s national football team was behaving like “year 10 girls”.
The comedian said he “would rather hammer a nail through the head of my penis” than watch the Matildas in the Asian Cup. He also asked: “Got any men’s sport?”
Last week Southern Cross Austereo radio stations where he made the remarks were found to have breached decency rules when they broadcast the “sexist” and “demeaning” comments, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said.
Perhaps embracing the philosophy “never let a good crisis go to waste”, the comedian then announced he was going on tour and his standup would be named The Red Card Show.
“As much as I’ve been trying to embrace early retirement – I’m bored shitless so I’m going to be the 54-year-old man that I am,” Sheargold said.
Talkback trade-in
Nine Entertainment has confirmed it is exploring the future of its radio division which includes Sydney’s 2GB, Melbourne’s 3AW, Brisbane’s 4BC and Perth’s 6PR.
The AM stations, once the domain of the talkback titans Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, are now part of a weakened medium largely consumed by older generations and struggling to attract advertising revenue.
“Nine has commenced a comprehensive strategic review of its audio business with the intention to identify the best strategic approach that will unlock ongoing growth in audio,” a spokesperson told Weekly Beast. Nine said all options were on the table, including investing in the division or selling it off.
The review will be one of the tasks facing Peter Tonagh when he takes over as chair of the board in November. A former deputy chair of the ABC and News Corp executive, Tonagh will replace Catherine West, who announced this week she was stepping down after 18 months.
End of the ABC’s Lattouf saga
After almost two years of destabilising media attention for the public broadcaster, during which a handful of those involved departed, the Antoinette Lattouf v the ABC chapter was closed this week.
Justice Darryl Rangiah firmly laid blame for the unlawful dismissal of Lattouf at the feet of the former content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor while clearing Ben Latimer, who remains at Aunty as director of audio.
He rejected Lattouf’s submission that the ABC lacked contrition because Latimer was not sacked.
“There is no obvious basis for the termination of Mr Latimer’s employment,” he said. “Although I did not accept significant aspects of Mr Latimer’s evidence, it was not his decision to remove Ms Lattouf from her employment.”
The ABC managing director, Hugh Marks, also got a gold star and his decision to keep himself out of the court case and send a human resources executive for cross-examination was not criticised. Rangiah said Marks’ public statement after the judgment in June demonstrated he was “acutely aware of the reputational damage that has been caused to the ABC” and that its conduct was unacceptable.
