A late scratching from the Kennedys?
Last week media outlets were trumpeting the number of nominations they had received for the 2015 NRMA Kennedy awards for excellence in New South Wales journalism. The Daily Telegraph was particularly thrilled, boasting in a page-three story of “dominating” the awards.
The story listed 11 nominees: Phil “Buzz” Rothfield, Janet Fife-Yeomans, Andrew Clennell, John Lehmann, Brett Costello, Scott “Boo” Bailey, Taylor Auerbach, Miles Godfrey, Chris McKeen, Jessica Halloran and Rohan Kelly.
But wait – there were actually 12. The Tele’s Christian Nicolussi had been nominated for the Rod Allen award for racing writer of the year, but was not mentioned. His was the only name left out.
An oversight? Perhaps, but it appears Nicolussi has been sidelined before by his own paper. Sources say Nicolussi has been moved off the racing round – on which he excelled – after writing columns critical of Racing NSW.
Racing NSW is an important client of the Tele’s, paying millions each year to have its form guide published. If this is all sounding familiar it is because Nicolussi’s removal follows the very public resignation of veteran racing commentator Ken Callander from the Tele in May.
Callander quit after decades at the paper over alleged editorial interference: “For some time, I have thought there’s been editing at the Telegraph to stop me commenting harshly on the chairman of Racing NSW, John Messara, and the CEO, Peter V’landys,” Media Watch reported Callander saying.
The Telegraph strongly denied there had been any editorial interference with Callander or any other journalist.
Maintaining a healthy distance between journalism and its sponsors is not always easy. The award Nicolussi has been nominated for is sponsored by Racing NSW and the Australian Turf Club and the hosts for the finalists announcement function were foundation sponsors of the Kennedys, Racing NSW and the Australian Turf Club.
A News Corp spokesman said “The Daily Telegraph had a vacancy in its NRL team when Josh Massoud left last year and Christian Nicolussi asked to move across from racing. Unfortunately, Christian’s name was accidentally left off the Kennedy awards nominations list that ran in the paper.”
Weekly and Cleo not on the same page
The August issue of Cleo magazine is dedicated to marriage equality and carries the rainbow flag at the top of the cover with the banner line “The Equality Issue, Australia Wake Up!”
Lucy Cousins, Cleo’s editor-in-chief, said the magazine was devoted to equality for all, and “most pressingly equal rights for marriage in Australia”. Curiously, in the same month, Bauer Media stablemate the Australian Women’s Weekly had something quite different on its cover – the surprising line “Understanding the case against marriage equality”.
Beast understands several executives in the Bauer publishing empire were unimpressed that the Weekly’s editor-in-chief, Helen McCabe, had chosen to put the argument against same-sex marriage on the cover at such a pivotal time.
One same-sex couple who are not happy are Dr Kerryn Phelps and Jackie Stricker-Phelps, whose marriage 17 years ago in New York was covered sympathetically by the Weekly, as was the renewal of their vows in 2011.
Jackie told Beast it was a “ludicrous” decision to present the case against marriage equality and likened it to giving space to an article defending paedophile priests.
But Kerryn was more measured, saying she didn’t understand why it was on the cover but the magazine had been very supportive of the case over time.
“This is the first time that I have seen them do anything that is not supportive,” Kerryn told Beast. Kerryn, who is a medical columnist for the Weekly, said she intended to have words with McCabe about it.
News Corp takes on Nielsen’s numbers
Last week News Corp’s Chris Mitchell was unimpressed with the monthly Nielsen rankings of Australian news sites, which put the Australian at number 15, below smh.com.au, news.com.au and even digital upstarts Daily Mail Australia and Guardian Australia.
The Australian’s very quotable editor-in-chief slammed Mumbrella for “jumbling” the data and called the commenters on the Mumbrella post “typically ill-informed” for suggesting the Oz should drop its paywall if it wanted to rank higher.
“It would be interesting to compare the revenue from sites focusing on subs [subscriptions] to those driven by lowbrow clickbait,” the Australian’s Media Diary said.
So this week Mitchell got his revenge. The Oz took the Nielsen data and rearranged it into three categories: comprehensive paywall, moderate paywalls and free sites. It was brilliant.
The Australian came up trumps in the comprehensive paywall column, moving into first place, up from 15th spot in the original analysis.
“The Australian has applied its own analysis to official Nielsen online ratings audience data to reflect the newspaper industry’s turn towards ‘paywalls’, that is, charging for online access,” Darren Davidson reported without irony. “Each month the Australian will publish Nielsen figures under three segments: free websites, moderate paywall websites, and comprehensive paywall websites.
“At present, Nielsen ranks Australia’s news websites based on unique visitors alone, which fails to address the dominant trend among newspapers’ owners, which have eschewed free models in favour of paywalls to generate subscription revenue.”
Seven shakes up newsroom with Craig McPherson
Seven’s news division, which is trailing Nine in the ratings, is undergoing a major shake-up. On Sunday night popular presenter Chris Bath said goodbye to viewers after 20 years on air, and on Tuesday Seven’s news director, Rob Raschke, got a rude shock when he was unceremoniously demoted.
Raschke will now have to report to Craig McPherson, who has gone back to Seven to take up the newly created role of director of news and public affairs. Seven rushed out a statement hours after securing the deal because news began to leak.
Known as the king of tabloid TV after years of successfully running Today Tonight, McPherson takes over responsibility for all Seven News bulletins as well as Sunday Night, Sunrise, The Morning Show, The Daily Edition and Today Tonight, which now screens only in Perth and Adelaide.
Being responsible for The Morning Show puts him in direct competition with his wife Sonia Kruger, who co-hosts the rival Mornings on Nine with David Campbell.
McPherson is expected to turn around Seven’s Sydney and Melbourne news bulletins, which have fallen well behind Nine’s since the late Ian “Roscoe” Ross retired. In Melbourne, where former Herald Sun editor Simon Pristel is in charge, the gap between the two 6pm bulletins is as much as 150,000 viewers. Worner has stuck with his hire Pristel despite the bulletin going backwards under his management.
In Sydney, Peter Overton’s Nine News is way ahead of Mark Ferguson, who replaced Bath but failed to stop the exodus of viewers to Nine. Ferguson has been doing the rounds of the media, including Chris Smith’s 2GB afternoon show, to try to improve his profile in recent months – all to no avail.
McPherson returns to Seven two years after walking away when he failed to get the top job after Peter Meakin left. Sources say McPherson was a big fan of Bath, whose departure was accelerated by the acrimony between her and the long-serving Sydney news director Chris Willis.
