After quitting the Australian Financial Review in 2015 after claims of derogatory tweets, being dropped by Channel Nine when The Verdict panel show failed, and being sacked by Sky News Australia on Wednesday, Mark Latham has drastically narrowed his options for employment in the media.
The former federal Labor leader took to Twitter on Thursday to have a whack at the man who sacked him: the Sky boss, Angelos Frangopoulos. Now that Sky is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which employs Latham as a regular Daily Telegraph columnist, this is a risky tactic. But Latham is nothing if not his own worst enemy. Calling his ex-boss “Frangipane”, Latham alleged he was encouraged to be controversial and that Sky even had plans to extend his show, Outsiders, from Sunday mornings to four nights a week. Certainly Sky promoted the Latham, Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean program as one which would “fire up” Sunday mornings with “their no-holds-barred observations on the political week that was”.
It is also true that nothing was done about Latham’s antics until another former Labor leader, the Sky News political commentator Kristina Keneally, made a formal complaint and it snowballed. “Sky execs gave Outsiders every encouragement, always urging us on (love ratings), so thanks for everything, up to point of thrown under bus,” Latham said on Twitter.
The tipping point, according to Sky sources, was his attack on a Sydney high school boy who appeared in a video supporting feminism for International Women’s Day. But if that was the final straw, the episode aired on 12 March and Sky didn’t act until two weeks later, so the wall-to-wall media attention is what got him in the end. Latham accused Frangopoulos of hypocrisy because he invited him to sit at his table for the Sydney Institute gala dinner, an event five days after Latham said a Sydney high school boy looked gay.
Outsiders show with Sydney Boys HS video Sunday 12 March. Frangipane invite "to join him at Gala Dinner" 5 days later, 17 March.
— Real Mark Latham (@RealMarkLatham) March 30, 2017
Latham also took aim at what he calls “ABC lite” presenters on Sky News: the ABC Drive host, Patricia Karvelas, and the Sky News political editor, David Speers. Latham crowed that a replay for his Outsiders show rated twice as much as Karvelas’. “Why: you can watch real ABC for free! Why pay for lite version?”
On Thursday, 24 hours after Latham was sacked, Sky News broadcast two grovelling apologies to Wendy Harmer and Keneally. Sky “unreservedly apologised” to the two women for Latham’s statements. In relation to Harmer, Sky said Latham “falsely imputed that Ms Harmer’s media career over the past four decades has been a failure and that she has only been able to secure her current employment as a broadcaster with the ABC because she is a female with a disability”. In relation to Keneally, management apologised for falsely imputing “that Ms Keneally acted corruptly in her role as former premier of NSW”.
Bleach balls
The Australian’s environment editor, Graham Lloyd, has made a valiant but ultimately fruitless attempt to counter a Media Watch hit on Monday about the paper’s failure to report on the coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. In March research found the survival of the reef hinges on urgent moves to cut global warming, but the Oz found no space to run the news. Unlike the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the BBC. Media Watch’s host, Paul Barry, said: “But one place you couldn’t read any of this was the Australian newspaper, which has had no mention at all in its print edition. And how amazing is that? Here is arguably the most important environmental story in Australia and a tourism asset that’s worth billions of dollars a year. Yet the Oz does not consider it worth reporting, except in a couple of clips online.”
Lloyd, who describes himself in his bio as a “fearless reporter” was determined to defend himself and his reporting in an 1,800-word feature published on Thursday, complete with photos and a graphic. “The ABC’s Media Watch was wrong this week to say the plight of the reef had been overlooked by the Australian,” Lloyd said. Unlike other media and “climate change lobby groups” he hadn’t “overblown” it and reported on the reef like a “blow-by-blow sporting contest”, he said.
But could Lloyd find a single example of his recent reporting on the reef? Well, no … He pointed rather feebly not to something he had written but to the paper’s Brisbane-based reporter Sarah Elks, who wrote on 10 March that Queensland government officials would plead with Unesco not to declare the reef in danger “despite an unprecedented second coral bleaching event in two years”. Too little too late, Lloydy.
University calls it a day for ACIJ
The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney has been formally closed by the vice-chancellor. The ACIJ, ultimately led by associate professor Tom Morton, annoyed the hell out of the Oz with its research into the reporting of climate change between 2011 and 2013. Under the now retired professor Wendy Bacon, the centre published research about the reporting of climate change which is still relevant today. One report that contained a detailed chapter about how the Oz approached climate change across news, editorials and features was titled: “How the Australian builds doubt about climate scientists and their findings.” The paper’s former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell never forgave Bacon, criticising her in the following years.
The dean of the UTS arts and social sciences faculty, Mary Spongberg, said after a “periodic evaluation of performance against the strategic objectives of the faculty and university” the centre would be closed. ACIJ also published a study by Bacon and the Fairfax columnist Jenna Price into the reporting of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in Australian newspapers, along with research into how the media reports the cases of forensic patients (people found not guilty of serious crimes by reason of mental illness), which led to changes to the mental health review tribunals. Spongberg says “the renewal of the journalism discipline” will continue under the new leadership of Prof Peter Fray, former editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Foxtel rapped on marriage ad
Foxtel had some other problems apart from Latham this week, after it was found in breach of political advertising rules. It aired an ad for marriage equality (ironically during The Bolt Report) and, despite it not being a traditional political ad run during an election, it should have been declared, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said. Foxtel also ran a ticker for marriage equality during the Bolt show.
“Both promotions are clearly aimed at influencing public opinion in favour of legislating for marriage equality and encouraging viewers to help with the process of political change,” Acma said.
Foxtel agreed it was a political ad and said it was an oversight that wasn’t disclosed. “The licensee’s submission puts forward the view that the material contained in the ticker and the advertisement was a political matter. The Acma accepts this position.”
It’s the second breach in this political ad category this month after Network Ten in Perth broke the rules by running an ad for the Not Born Yet campaign by Emily’s Voice, an anti-abortion organisation. In that case Ten said it wasn’t political advertising but Acma disagreed.
Domain’s the same?
Fairfax Media reported that the private equity giant TPG Capital may make a full bid for its website Domain as early as this week after it was believed to have bought millions of shares in the online property portal. But by Thursday the bid seemed to be on the backburner and the Australian Financial Review was saying TPG had all its ducks in a row but “appetite for the publisher is believed to have cooled following a surge in the target’s share price this week”.
