To mark the launch of a new culture section, The Australian has produced a list of the top 25 TV shows of the past 25 years.
The best TV show in the last quarter of a century, as curated by the national broadsheet’s writers, is HBO’s Succession – widely seen, of course, as being heavily inspired by the Murdoch family, the proprietor of News Corp Australia’s flagship newspaper.
The drama in the show even prompted Murdoch’s children to discuss their own public relations strategy for their father’s death, leading to a legal battle in a Nevada court.
“Shakespeare’s King Lear by way of the world’s most torturous corporate offsite,” the paper’s summary reads. “Jesse Armstrong’s saga of the Roys turns boardroom squabbling into grand tragedy. It was terrifyingly funny, and funnily terrifying. Masterful storytelling, razor-sharp writing and unforgettable performances make this show the best in the past 25 years.”
Missing from this description was the name of the family who inspired the esteemed series.
The list was selected by “critics and writers” Geordie Gray, Graeme Blundell, Richard Ferguson, Troy Bramston, Bianca Farmakis, Joseph Carbone, Steve Jackson and Milanda Rout.
Only Blundell, an acclaimed actor as well as a television writer, can legitimately claim to be a TV critic – the others are news reporters and producers – but we digress.
To publicise the new section, the Oz has published a video in which its writers talk about career highlights, including the most famous people they have interviewed (literary editor Caroline Overington: Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton) and the prettiest (former literary editor Stephen Romei: Margot Robbie and George Clooney). Very cultured indeed.
All the president’s targets
When you write your own account of being blasted by Donald Trump, you can describe the incident in as mild a way as you like. Which is how Latika Bourke, the Nightly’s writer-at-large, characterised her interaction with the president this week.
“When he told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked a question about his attempts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, it simply demonstrated another instance of how he deals with questions he doesn’t like and how quick he is to feel slight,” Bourke wrote in her dispatch from Washington.
Bourke was not the only journalist given a character assessment by Trump. He called the Sydney Morning Herald and Age correspondent Michael Koziol a “nasty guy” just for asking a question.
The exchange between Trump and Bourke was written up in far more colourful terms by other outlets.
“Donald Trump has savaged an Australian reporter for ‘not knowing anything’ after she questioned why the president could not effect a Ukrainian victory over Russia,” the Daily Mail reported.
“Trump blasts Australian journalist at White House: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about’,” said the Australian.
“Australian journalist Latika Bourke was blasted by Trump after she asked a bizarre question about ending the war in Ukraine,” said Sky News Australia.
For the record, here is the exchange:
Bourke says: “You have within your power – you’re the most powerful man on Earth, why don’t you just enable Ukraine to finish this war tomorrow?”
Trump replies: “Well, if you knew anything about what you were talking about, you’d be able … ”
“I do,” Bourke interjects.
Trump says: “You do? I don’t think you do, really. I don’t think you do. Because it’s a little more complicated than that, but it sounds easy.”
The Nightly did publish a story on the incident by another reporter who reminded readers: “As for Bourke’s credibility on the topic, the Walkley Award-winning journalist has recently spent time on the ground in Ukraine, visiting the country twice in the last four months.”
‘Rough justice’
The Australian’s columnist Chris Kenny could not resist elevating serial troublemaker Avi Yemini when the rightwing provocateur harassed the ABC’s Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran last week. In a Rebel News video, embedded in Kenny’s online story, Yemini is seen chasing Doran through Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, interfering with his attempt to file his report for ABC TV news.
Kenny claimed Yemini was justified in imposing “rough justice” on Doran and making “a salient point in a dramatic way at a telling time and place”.
We asked The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Michelle Gunn, why The Australian would platform Yemini’s antics when he has criminal convictions from 2019 for unlawful assault, using a carriage service to harass his former wife and breaching an intervention order in relation to another person.
It’s not the first time News Corp has featured Yemini, who has been banned several times by Facebook and was denied entry to New Zealand due to his criminal convictions.
Sky News Australia’s Andrew Bolt had Yemini on when he was banned by New Zealand, congratulating him for “having the courage to stand up to the mob”.
The Australian did not respond to a request for comment.
Kenny later accused the ABC news director, Justin Stevens, of “bullying” him after Stevens sent a letter of complaint about Kenny’s report to Gunn, News Corp’s executive chair, Michael Miller, and the chief executive of Sky News, Paul Whittaker.
Stevens said in the letter for Kenny to “publicly support seeing a dedicated, ethical journalist such as Matthew Doran being persistently harassed and abused in this way, and for News Corporation to embed the video in its content to amplify it to a wider audience and promote its content, is a low point”.
On Sky News Kenny accused Stevens of “trying to shut down criticism” and “silence critics” by sending the letter. “While [Stevens] might want to try to bully ABC critics and undermine them with their employers, I am happy to tell you that my employers stand by me, because they value your right to hear the facts, and to join informed debates based on those facts.”
Never apologise
Ita Buttrose’s second memoir, Unapologetically Ita, will be published by Simon & Schuster on 28 October, and her former colleagues at the ABC are awaiting the 83-year-old’s take on recent history with some trepidation.
We say second memoir because Buttrose published an autobiography, A Passionate Life, back in 1998.
The publicity blurb promises the former ABC chair, who was replaced by Kim Williams in March last year, will reflect on her experience at the top of the public broadcaster.
Buttrose says the book will allow her “to revisit important events in my life and career and to set the record straight in a couple of incidences, an extremely satisfying experience”.
But will she shed any light on why she wrote an explosive letter in February pointing to alleged “inconsistencies” in the former ABC managing director David Anderson’s affidavit for the Antoinette Lattouf federal court case?
Buttrose’s role in the Lattouf case was laid bare at the trial, including that she forwarded six complaint emails in rapid succession to the broadcaster’s then content chief, Chris Oliver-Taylor, and said of Lattouf: “Can’t she come down with flu or Covid or a stomach upset? We owe her nothing.”
“Ms Buttrose’s evidence under cross-examination was somewhat theatrical and difficult to follow at times,” Justice Darryl Rangiah said in his judgment. “She had a strong belief that Ms Lattouf was an activist who should have never been engaged by the ABC and she wanted Ms Lattouf gone as soon as possible.”
Will Buttrose use her book to respond?
Airing it out
Another former executive “looking forward to setting the record straight” in a tell-all memoir is the former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce. Hardie Grant Books announced on Thursday it will publish the “polarising” businessman’s memoir next year.
The son of a factory worker and a cleaner was the first of his extended family to pursue higher education. His final year’s earnings were initially $23.9m – before being cut by $9.26m after a tumultuous reign.
“Joyce will acknowledge that some decisions were controversial, but he will emphasise that each was made after considerable consultation and with Qantas’s long-term strength in mind,” Hardie Grant says.
