We did enjoy the Australian’s editorial on Tuesday, lamenting the poor media standards of rivals the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age who allowed “the social media tail to wag their editorial direction”.
In “Bias aside, we do need to discuss quality of debate”, the Oz complained about the “trashing of media standards” and the “devaluing of journalistic experience” which, of course, Rupert Murdoch’s broadsheet avoided at all times with its “strong and experienced editorial guidance”. “At the Australian we know newspapers and media organisations cannot make perfect calls on each and every issue but the general tone, crucial editorial decisions and quality of coverage and analysis will be greatly enhanced, and protected, by the collective wisdom of journalists and editors who have spent decades amassing knowledge and insight in their chosen fields,” the leader in the august organ said on Tuesday. “Crucial elements such as experience, fairness, good taste and social responsibility should not be sacrificed in the pursuit of Twitter-generated clicks or Facebook shares.”
Ah yes, but where was that “collective wisdom” and “good taste” when the Australian’s experienced editors chose the lead story for the website later the same day? “Bill Shorten forced to eat s*** sarnie”, was the top story. Underneath, in stark contrast, was the editorial lecturing the media about lowering its standards. The headline was later changed.
Indigenous media shut out of Abbott’s Torres Strait tour
The editor of Torres News, Aaron Smith, who managed to cover Tony Abbott’s tour of the Torres Strait last week despite being shut out, has written a scathing account of the prime minister’s office’s treatment of the local Indigenous media who were not invited to cover the big story on their own turf.
Neither the Torres News nor 4MW Radio, which would have covered the visit in traditional language, was allowed to join the “hand-picked media junket”. “It is one of the great mysteries as to why a prime minister would take a week out of his schedule to visit our region and then for his media team to do their absolute best to ensure the local population are kept in the dark about what occurred, particularly when most of it reflects positively on Mr Abbott,” Smith wrote.
“Here at Torres News, we can only conclude that it is because the PM and his media team care more about the southern media portraying Mr Abbott as being concerned about Indigenous Australia as a higher priority over him actually doing anything real for the benefit of Indigenous Australia. And what a shame our friends at Radio 4MW weren’t able to provide coverage of such an historic event to the people of the Torres Strait and NPA in their own languages.”
Smith said the PM’s media adviser, Nicole Chant, was surprised to see him at Eddie Mabo’s grave and demanded to know how he got there and how he was getting about. The answer was Smith had the support of the local community, who managed to get him transported to events, fed and accommodated despite Chant’s best efforts to exclude him. Smith was invited to stay with the Injinoo community where Abbott was staying and Chant ordered him not to take any pictures of Abbott eating. We approached Chant for a comment but she didn’t reply. “Not an official guest for dinner, it was an Injinoo resident who shared half a lobster tail that fed me that night,” Smith wrote. “Everyone at Torres News wishes to thank the communities of the Torres Strait and the NPA, for the lifts (land, sea and air), the kai kai, the beds and for keeping the bush telegraph running hot with up-to-date information.”
PM likens himself to Nixon
Smith may not have had the same access to power that the big guns had, but he managed to report two good stories. The first was that a Thursday Island business was out of pocket after Abbott’s office cancelled at the last minute after booking accommodation at the height of the tourist season. The second was a comment Abbott made that no one except Smith picked up. The prime minister compared himself to disgraced US president Richard Nixon. “Just as Nixon went to China ... it may well take a conservative leader to bring about the ultimate form of symbolic reconciliation,” Abbott said while standing on the beach at Mer, the birthplace of native title.
Latham ‘the new age man’
Since we told you last week that the celebrity agent Max Markson was shopping Mark Latham around to the media, Markson has had some success with his new client. Latham has been booked by Channel Nine for a pilot of a late night panel show, hosted by Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic. Apparently it’s going to be like the ABC’s Q&A but with a more commercial tone.
Markson volunteered to Weekly Beast that it was the former Labor leader who approached him, rather than the other way around. Markson said he hadn’t talked to Latham since 2010 when he was representing Pauline Hanson and he organised for guest reporter Latham to interview the former One Nation leader for 60 Minutes. “He just rang up last week to ask if I’d represent him, and so it was a commercial decision to do that,” Markson said.
We were not the only media to think it was strange that Markson would represent a man who had criticised his daughter – the Australian’s Sharri Markson – both in print and in his infamous Melbourne Writers festival rant. He once wrote that Markson was called “ ‘Hansard’ for her recycling of editor Chris Mitchell’s views at the Oz”. This didn’t seem to faze the celebrity agent. “I love my daughter very much,” Markson told Weekly Beast. “I am very proud of her, she’s a fantastic journalist and a great TV talent as well and when Mark rang I said yes from a commercial point of view. I think he’s a fantastic talent. He’s a smart guy, very intelligent. In the media world at the moment we need people with cut-through. This man has cut-through and he’s cutting through not just in the Financial Review but in social media, which covers all ages. So you have to take your hat off to him: he is a new age man.”
Bob Ellis strikes upbeat tone
There is good news for writer Bob Ellis and his fans. He has reported on his blog that he is doing much better than his doctor had initially predicted when he was first diagnosed with cancer. “It seems the chemo I am on is better ‘targeted’ for this cancer’s particularities than any before 2013,” Ellis wrote. “These things are improving every year. Clive James is on a leukemia retardant that may give him two more years. My current spin-line is I have either 15 months or 15 years … I walk about a mile a day. I can get up off my mattress on the floor without assistance. My need for sudden, engulfing sleeps has abated. My high-protein diet – pork pies, Weetbix, beetroot, spinach, chicken, fish, rump steak – leaves me free of nausea and hungry to eat more. My Burton voice, my Gielgud voice, my Churchill voice, are tested each day and by the afternoon are as strong as they’ve ever been.”
