The chief executive of Foxtel, Patrick Delany, was part of a high-powered panel of TV bosses at an advertising conference this week where he was supposed to be talking up the power of television, alongside Seven’s Tim Worner, Nine’s Hugh Marks and Ten’s Paul Anderson. But with Marks on the panel, the questions about his proposed merger with Fairfax kept coming. Marks was asked by the moderator, Australian Financial Review journalist Joanne Gray, about the editorial independence of the Fairfax mastheads should the bid be successful.
Gray: “Will editors of the mastheads that you plan to buy, will they be empowered to make editorial calls totally on their own?” But Marks didn’t want to talk about Fairfax, he wanted to talk about television, so he went on about how “great content brings engagement, and draws an audience reaction and an emotional response”.
When it came to Delany’s turn to talk about the papers’ editorial independence under Nine, the former Fox Sports boss didn’t avoid the question. “You buy the land, you get the Indians,” he said.
Tim Worner CEO @sevenwestmedia at the @Think_TV event outlining collaboration strategy across the industry ‘....agree on technology and compete only on content...’ pic.twitter.com/8L4fNMd8Ad
— Seven West Media (@sevenwestmedia) July 31, 2018
Delany declined to elaborate, but sources close to him said it was a “politically incorrect” light-hearted comment meant to relieve some of the tension on the panel. He in no way meant to be dismissive of the journalism or the journalists at Fairfax. “What he meant was ‘welcome to the company, you’ve acquired Fairfax but it’s full of all these troublesome, independent journalists’. I know it evoked the American wilderness full of American Indians firing arrows. He was trying to lighten the conversation. When you purchase something you get the good bits and the bad bits.”
News executive says #NotMe
Unfortunately for News Corp, Delany wasn’t the only one of Rupert Murdoch’s top executives to attract unwanted attention this week. The managing director of national sales for News, Lou Barrett, who is responsible for advertising across print and digital media, was sceptical about the idea that women struggle to achieve equality in business. Speaking on an all-women panel called the Female Power Players, Barrett said “too much onus” was put on the #MeToo movement. She saw no gender discrimination around her, and women “should just get on with it”.
“I don’t feel like it’s any man’s job to create me as an equal or have me as an equal,” she said.
“I think the only women who have done well from the #MeToo movement are the black dress designers. I’m probably saying the wrong thing but just get on with it, you know? Don’t worry about it. Just get on with it.”
After a report in the trade press about her comments, Barrett issued a clarification: “There are several issues wrapped up in the #metoo messages and I was addressing the ability of talented women to advance in their careers on their merits.
“In no way was I being dismissive of women whose careers have been held back by gender bias or the appalling instances of women suffering at the hands of sexual predators.”
News Corp’s racial divide
We reported on Thursday that the Australian Press Council had received a complaint about Andrew Bolt’s “foreign invasion” column in which he said migrants were forming colonies and not assimilating.
“Immigration is becoming colonisation, turning this country from a home into a hotel,” he wrote in a column widely syndicated in the News Corp tabloids.
“In Melbourne’s North Caulfield, 41 per cent of residents are Jews, including hundreds who have lately fled South Africa.”
The column sat oddly with a news story in the same edition of the Daily Telegraph about a Sydney bus driver abusing Asian passengers for not speaking English.
“The driver got into an argument with passengers, claiming they did not press the buzzer, despite video footage showing them making multiple attempts,” the Telegraph reported.
“The driver, who yelled ‘speak English!’ at the passengers on Saturday night in Zetland has now been stood down without pay by State Transit while his behaviour is investigated.”
Thailand cave: race to publish
There are now two books being hurriedly written on the rescue of the boys from the cave in Thailand. ABC south-east Asia correspondent Liam Cochrane’s account of covering the story will be published by Harper Collins but it looks like Fairfax’s south-east Asia correspondent James Massola might be first out of the blocks with his book for Allen and Unwin.
Life, be in it – but not you, ABC
When we revealed on Wednesday that the ABC was poised to launch a multimillion-dollar website for lifestyle content called ABC Life, we knew the Australian would jump on the story. But they’ve surprised even us. In just two days the Oz has done three news stories and an editorial. Why? Because ABC Life is something News Corp, and other commercial media, can point to as a direct competitor, the very subject of the competitive neutrality inquiry into the ABC and the SBS. The minister for communications, Mitch Fifield, told the paper ABC Life was “relevant” to the inquiry.
“It’s the kind of thing where there is already a crowded commercial market, and that’s the concern,” the Oz thundered in an editorial. “No wonder the government set up an inquiry into the competitive neutrality of the ABC (and SBS). By virtue of government ownership the ABC enjoys $1bn in public funding. Its charter commands it to take account of the offering by commercial media. Yet, far from serving as a market-failure broadcaster – offering programs where commercial rivals have vacated the field – the ABC has in recent years worked to become a multi-platform media conglomerate.”
The Oz has gone a little further than us, claiming ABC Life will be a BuzzFeed replica. We doubt it.
The ABC announced the site would go live on Monday, but said the cost of the project was vastly exaggerated: “In a cluttered digital environment, fresh approaches are needed to ensure stories are created and shared in ways that are most useful to audiences. ABC Life will make a broad range of quality and engaging ABC content more easily accessible. The project has a small dedicated team and gives our existing employees located around Australia an opportunity to work on an exciting new digital project.”
According to the organisational chart seen by Weekly Beast there are 25 staff and a very clear mission statement: “ABC Life will not tell people how to live their lives, pretend there’s a simple solution to all hardships, sidestep difficult conversations, ignore structural inequalities, pretend that abuse of power doesn’t impact lives. We will focus on how you can feel more on top of everyday matters, how you can help others. And we will build collaboratively (working with the audience and internal partners).” The idea is to grow a new style of digital journalism to attract 25 to 54 year olds, the brief says.
Faruqi targeted over bag ban
The deputy editor of ABC Life, Osman Faruqi, has become collateral damage in News Corp’s coverage. The Australian reported his appointment in May as the hiring of an “ex-Greens candidate”, and on Thursday Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt piled on with stories describing Faruqi as an “Oz hater” and “Green Muslim leftist”. But things took a nastier turn when the Melbourne far-right activist Avi Yemini posted Faruqi’s phone number on Facebook.
The price for having an opinion about the plastic bag ban reversal whilst being brown. Someone leaked my personal phone number and all night I received calls from strangers threatening to kill me and abusing me. pic.twitter.com/BW13LToZfs
— Osman Faruqi (@oz_f) August 1, 2018
Yemini’s page has now been taken down, but he continued to post videos on Twitter complaining about Facebook’s “outrageous #censorship”.
Via @Rashidajourno - this is the Facebook account that shared @oz_f's number, resulting in a barrage of death threats overnight and extremely abusive comments in the thread.
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) August 2, 2018
Post: https://t.co/zTA0J6F5rf
Archive: https://t.co/kWwRbtXTrH pic.twitter.com/UBvgSUC8Dh
Foreign correspondents lose chief
The ABC’s long-serving international editor Michael Carey stood down on Friday after seven years directing the ABC’s foreign correspondents.
In a note to staff, ABC news executive Gavin Fang said Carey had been “the voice at the end of the phone line for correspondents in good and bad times at all manner of hours day and night”. “Mike’s a big thinker and a strong advocate and defender of the journalism and journalists the ABC’s international news team is renowned for,” Fang said. “Mike will be taking a period of leave before returning to a different content role. It has been a pleasure working alongside him… and getting his late night and early morning phone calls!”
In a note to staff Carey said working in international had been a highlight.
“This is not just because the stories are among the most gripping in the world, it’s because I have worked with some of the very best reporting and production teams in journalism,” he said. “I have had the satisfaction of helping oversee great reporting from people at the top of their game. Thanks. On top of that I have thoroughly enjoyed the camaraderie. From the small, top notch international group in Ultimo, to the bureaus everywhere, it’s been my pleasure to work with you all. I’ve decided it’s time to do something new. As much as I love you all, I’ve concluded that it would be nice to get back to some more realistic working hours. I will be going to a different position in the ABC, but that will be announced in the future. In the meantime, I’m taking some time off, starting with this weekend. It’s been a blast. Thanks to you all.”
