The Australian’s media editor, Sharri Markson, reported on Monday that Mark Latham’s media career “could be beyond salvation” but Weekly Beast can reveal another member of her family does not share her view and is a staunch believer in the former Labor leader. Latham has been signed by the celebrity agent – and Sharri’s dad – Max Markson, who believes Latham is someone the audience wants to listen to.
Latham has joined the Markson stable alongside such talents as the boxing champion Jeff Fenech, the former AFL star Warwick Capper and the Demtel guy Tim “but wait there’s more” Shaw. In between saying “fuck, cunt, poo, bum” (actual quote) at the Melbourne writers festival on Saturday, Latham was adamant he had an important story to tell and he was being courted by commercial media operators to continue his career as a paid commentator.
The former Labor leader said he was “flattered” by all the approaches he’d had and he wasn’t going to tell his story for free to his festival interviewer, the ABC host Jonathan Green. Among the revelations he is offering is confirmation he actually is the person behind the @RealMarkLatham Twitter account. Pity everyone knows that already. Latham may have left Sky News, the Australian Financial Review and the Spectator behind, but Markson has been busy on behalf of his new client, shopping the author of The Latham Diaries around to the commercial networks.
Late-night Latho?
Seven’s latest hire, the news and public affairs director Craig McPherson, is also a big fan of Latham’s, we hear. But McPherson is still on “gardening leave” after being poached from Nine so he won’t be able to sign any deals. Seven has not ruled out working with Latham, who is an occasional guest on Sunrise. While Nine has ruled out an appearance on 60 Minutes, the network is still considering him for a role as a panellist on Karl Stefanovic’s late-night news and entertainment show, which is still at the pilot stage. “He’s very good talent if that talent can be harnessed,” a Nine insider said.
Introducing … ‘grievance feminism’
It was a very different Latham who spoke to Miranda Devine on her 2GB radio show on Sunday evening when he was the special guest on her Desert Island Discs segment. As it was a pre-record, Latham had not yet given his obscenity-laden performance in Melbourne but he was still angry about the circumstances surrounding his departure from the AFR. Latham clearly felt he was on safe ground with Devine: they were in furious agreement about those awful leftwing feminists who try to spoil everyone’s fun. On Wednesday Devine continued to support Latham, writing in her column in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph the “left feminist establishment views him as an affront” who must be silenced. “Destroying Mark Latham is the symbolic triumph of grievance feminism over common sense and basic fairness.”
Bum steer
According to Devine and her fellow News Corp columnists, the @AbbottLovesAnal tweet that flashed up during ABC’s Q&A show was no accident. Devine says ABC staff are “vicious anarchists” who are “getting away with murder, accidentally on purpose”. Her stablemate at the Herald-Sun Rita Panahi also saw a leftwing plot behind the tweet. “The content of the tweet … was unremarkable, so much so that one wonders why it was selected out of the thousands the program receives each Monday evening. The only thing notable was the sexually explicit Twitter handle.” Andrew Bolt agreed it was deliberate: “The government is giving the ABC $1bn a year to vilify conservatives and promote the left. Oh, and to drive more conservative media competitors out of business.”
The endgame of this consistent barrage of criticism is to damage the ABC and its brand and to soften the competition the ABC provides to the News Corp business, particularly online. According to Nielsen data, ABC Online has been increasing its foothold in the online news space, at the expense of the Daily Telegraph, the Herald-Sun, the Courier-Mail and the Australian. The only News Corp property to beat the ABC is the free news.com.au website. Devine made the need to rein in the public broadcaster abundantly clear: “If the Abbott government is [loth] to open up a new battlefront, the most effective, and least confrontational, way to start dealing with the ABC’s out-size wealth, power and influence is to curtail its sprawling internet business, where the most extreme activism occurs. The original charter didn’t allow for taxpayer funding of ABC Online. Let the organisation stick to traditional broadcasting of news, and the future will take care of itself.”
Hunger Games II
Although Q&A has been grabbing all the headlines of late for ABC, the broadcaster’s budget cuts may be making a comeback soon. Aunty still has a further 100 jobs to cut, taking the final figure to 500 since the Australia Network was axed in mid-2014 and 80 jobs were abolished. Late last year the ABC announced 400 jobs would be lost as a result of the Abbott government’s cuts to its funding. About 300 jobs went during the notorious “Hunger Games” process. Scott confirmed in a Senate estimates committee hearing a further 100 “back of house” jobs were still to go. While there is no word yet, the best guess is the targets are technology, payroll and transmission. Perhaps that is why the ABC is running special workshops to teach the staff about resilience. Sources told Beast 20 resilience workshops across the country are being conducted by an outside company. The sessions will focus on understanding change, the practical and emotional responses to change, resilience, why resilience is important and tips for building resilience. Quite a lot of resilience in fact.
Anyone got a spare $28.5m?
The SBS board meets on Thursday for the first time since the government failed to get its legislation to increase SBS advertising flexibility through the Senate. On the agenda will be how to fill the $28.5m hole left in the budget now the broadcaster is not allowed to double its advertising in prime time. Weekly Beast understands the SBS managing director, Michael Ebeid, has been knocking cap in hand on the door of Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott asking them to “give the money back”. Ebeid’s argument is when SBS’s funding was cut by $53.7m last year, $28.5m was predicated on the parliament giving SBS more advertising flexibility. “The failed passage of this legislation is a setback and leaves SBS with a $28.5m hole in its budget over the next four years,” Ebeid said in July. “Given this legislation did not pass and SBS has largely exhausted back-office efficiencies, this funding cut is unable to be absorbed without impacting programs and services.” The likely victims of this budget hole are SBS staff, who may face more redundancies.
The Jenner effect
The National Media Excellence category for the Acon Honour awards has had a spike in entries which are transgender-related and organisers put it down to Caitlyn Jenner announcing to the world she is a woman. An incredible 48% of entries have been transgender-related, while issues of marriage equality made up 18% and other LGBTI-related stories 34%.
Breaker bad
The ABC has to deal with so many complaints, some more serious than others, it has an entire audience and consumer affairs department. The latest one to be resolved had to do with the use of a scene from a 1980s movie in the ABC’s 7pm news bulletin. A viewer complained a report on a theft of Boer war memorabilia from the South Australian State Library included footage of a violent execution from the classic Australian film Breaker Morant. “The ABC agreed that the execution scene was a poor choice to illustrate the story; it had marginal relevance and was out of context. The broadcast was therefore not in keeping with the ABC’s editorial standards for harm and offence. The ABC apologised to the complainant for any distress caused.”
This article was amended on 27 August 2015. The original version of it stated, inaccurately, that Latham had been “dropped” by the AFR, Sky and the Spectator.
