Does the AFR have a women problem?
Westpac has rejected calls to drop its sponsorship of the AFR 100 Women of Influence Awards after a series of articles about female journalists by its columnist, the former Labor leader Mark Latham. Latham raised the ire of some women on the 2014 list when he attacked Good Weekend columnist Lisa Pryor for admitting to taking antidepressants to cope with the stress of being a working mother.
One of the 2014 influential women, Dr Susan Harris Rimmer, the director of Studies at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at ANU, wrote on Twitter: “You can run Latham columns or you can host the 100 Women of Influence Awards but you can’t do both.” Another who was honoured by the AFR, Jane Needham SC, said: “I was one of this year’s nominees and it feels a little sour right now. Please fix.”
Pryor wrote to Westpac’s director of women’s markets, Larke Riemer, and asked: “Given Westpac’s reputation for excellence on matters of gender equity, will you be reconsidering your partnership with the AFR when it comes to next year’s awards?” But Riemer was unmoved, telling Pryor: “Publishing decisions are made at the discretion of the AFR’s editorial team and as you would expect, Westpac is not involved in this process.”
On Monday Latham threw more fuel on the fire by attacking another female journalist, Sarah MacDonald, saying mummy bloggers like her were breeding “a generation of shirtless, tone-deaf, overweight, pizza-eating dummies”. The Daily Life columnist, who has known Latham since he was a local mayor and she was a local government reporter, was shocked. A Change.org petition, set up to pressure the Fin into dropping Latham, reminded us it isn’t just “left-feminists” Latham has attacked. “Mr Latham has a long-standing problem with women who participate in public debate. In 2004, he infamously referred to conservative News Ltd columnist Janet Albrechtsen as a ‘skanky ho’ ”. But we don’t think the Fin is worried about the backlash. It appears to be good for business. Its deputy editor, Aaron Patrick, said on Twitter on Monday: “Mark Latham’s column today on @sarahvmac and other mummy bloggers is our top story right now.”
One Direction five ways
Making sure it covered all bases, the teen magazine Dolly has produced five covers to celebrate the arrival of One Direction in Australia in February. The January edition of Dolly gives fans the choice of five limited-edition covers featuring all of the 1D band members: Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Liam Payne. Dolly says it’s a first for the magazine which has been published for 44 years. It’s also a great way to make sure ardent fans buy five copies of the same magazine. Its editor-in-chief, Lucy Cousins, agrees: “This is a chance for ‘Directioners’ to proclaim who their favourite 1D band member is, or even collect all five covers!”
Lateline still needs a lifeline?
ABC News is piloting two new formats for 2015: a “refreshed” Lateline on ABC News 24 and a national Friday night 7.30. Although Lateline was saved from the axe at the 11th hour by the ABC board, sources say it has lost 25% of its budget and much of the reporting staff. Complicating matters, the Lateline executive producer, John Bruce, is taking long service leave and won’t be around to steer the new ship, called “Lateline Lite”, internally.
One of the original drivers for getting Lateline off the main ABC channel and on to News 24 was that the TV division wanted the timeslot to program non-news content. We now hear the TV division also wanted use of the Lateline studio because there were plans to put a Charlie Pickering Daily Show-esque series to air five nights a week. The show, which does not yet have a name, will now only run one night a week in 2015. In what could be regarded as poetic justice, the news division did get some revenge on TV when about $4m was taken out of the TV budget to fund the new “refreshed” Lateline and some programs on Radio National which had been targeted for decommissioning but were also saved.
Bolt back?
News Corp, which produces The Bolt Report for broadcast on the Ten network, has declined to confirm the Andrew Bolt-hosted Sunday program will not be back on air in 2015. Now four years old, The Bolt Report was offloaded by Ten to News Corp for two years in 2013 because of the network’s dire financial situation. It is unclear whether the contract will be renewed. Ten broadcasts the show but News pays for its production, staff and transmission costs. Bolt has never out-rated the ABC’s Insiders with Barrie Cassidy.
Too much talkies at the Walkley?
Anyone who attended the 59th Walkley awards last week, or watched it on iView, would be aware that it was not only a very long but a very noisy affair and its host, Sarah Ferguson, had a hard time being heard. The venue was a long rectangular-shaped floating tent, so most of the 800 journalists crammed into it were too far away from the stage to care about what was going on. Ferguson says there were too many awards and the night was too long. “It’s a big ask to get an aircraft hangar full of journalists to keep quiet during a marathon,” Ferguson told us. “Probably an unrealistic endeavour. I don’t blame my colleagues for talking through an event longer than the HSC English exam.”
Sloppy Joe dreams of SMH editor revealed
The stage is set for a sensational media trial next year when the treasurer, Joe Hockey, takes the stand in his defamation case against Fairfax Media. Hockey is suing because he claims articles published in the Fairfax newspapers conveyed a series of defamatory meanings, including that he “accepted bribes paid to influence the decisions he made as treasurer”. Hockey’s lawyers produced text messages sent by the SMH editor-in-chief, Darren Goodsir, and his counterpart at the Age, Andrew Holden, which they say show Fairfax was deliberately trying to harm the treasurer. Goodsir, who came up with the headline “Treasurer for sale”, wrote to a reporter “Fucking Brilliant … given what Andrew and I endured last week with Hockey, I want to have this nailed to the cross in more ways than one … keep digging Sean … I have long dreamed (well, only since last Friday), of a headline that screams: Sloppy Joe! I think we are not far off, but perhaps even more serious than that.”
Flying low
It’s been a tough week for Fairfax, with claims in the Australian Qantas dropped its advertising from Fairfax publications after unfavourable coverage of its business. “We value our commercial relationship with Qantas and all of our advertisers – but our commercial relationships have no bearing on editorial decisions,” a spokesman for Fairfax said. “Those decisions are a matter for our editors. ‘Independent. Always.’ is at the heart of Fairfax.”
ABC Washington to lose two
Staff in the ABC’s Washington bureau say they are sick of hearing how their office will get additional resources and become a “hub” for the region in a restructure of the international division. One source told the Weekly Beast the bureau was losing two staff: one reporter and one camera person/editor.
A spokesman for the ABC told the Weekly Beast: “To respect the privacy and confidentiality of our staff we aren’t discussing specific staff changes. We are also still in a process of consultation with the unions.”
Presto v Netflix
Seven announced this week it had signed an agreement with Foxtel to deliver Presto, a streaming video on-demand service they hope will rival Netflix when the US giant lands in the Australian market in March. “Our business had a long-held ambition to be in subscription television and now we’re in it with the best possible people,” its chief executive, Tim Worner, said on Monday. It was quite a contrast from Worner’s comment back in September when he said he wouldn’t be rushing into streaming video: “I don’t see this as being the new Holy Grail that we need to pin our ears back and dive into.” Surprisingly, Seven and Foxtel are only putting $10m each into the $20m venture, according to the AFR’s Dom White, which is just a 10th of the Nine/Fairfax joint venture service Stan.
Contact theweeklybeast@theguardian.com with media tips and information.
