News Corp Australia has been laser focused on the travails of rival media entities Nine Entertainment and the ABC lately, while largely ignoring the major restructure in its own ranks.
The empire was quietly reorganised into three silos this week, with no public announcement and scant coverage in the Murdoch press. The Daily Telegraph ran a story on Thursday outlining changes to the Sydney tabloid. Two senior long-serving executives were the immediate casualties in what unions expect to be a long and slow cull of staff to follow. But, nothing to see here.
The Australian has devoted much of its front page this week to attempts by Nine’s chief executive, Mike Sneesby, to manage the fallout from news director Darren Wick’s departure, as well as to comments by the ABC journalist Laura Tingle at the Sydney writers’ festival.
The Oz even set the paps on Sneesby on Sunday to picture him unshaven at his home as he returned from an overseas trip.
The most extreme language in the reporting on Tingle came after the ABC’s news director, Justin Stevens, said Tingle’s remarks did not meet the ABC’s editorial standards and she had been counselled.
The Australian reported that the star journalist had been “publicly lambasted” and subjected to a “stinging rebuke” and a “brutal takedown”.
Make the ABC – and the public – pay
But it was the Australian’s columnist Janet Albrechtsen who again underlined one of the reasons for the Murdoch obsession with Aunty: ending its status as a wholly free service. Tingle’s “vile lack of professionalism” showed the organisation could not control the “ABC untouchables”, making the national broadcaster “a farce”, Albrechtsen wrote.
She called on Peter Dutton to turn “the most boring, partisan bits of the ABC into a subscription-only service” should he be elected, or at least make a “sizeable cut” to its budget.
For good measure Albrechtsen wants Tingle to be sacked for her “wildly partisan and ignorant views about Australia being a racist country”.
Sarah Hanson-Young brought up the point at Senate estimates on Thursday night while she was questioning the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson.
Anderson agreed there was a News Corp pile-on and that it was “obsessed with the ABC”.
Hanson-Young said: “So, every time they go after you and your journalists, it’s not because they care about the integrity of your journalists, or the message that is being sent to the community, it’s because it suits their business model to destroy the ABC.”
Not racist, but also very racist
Tingle and others made the point this week that News Corp had taken her to task for saying Australia was a racist country while heavily promoting a documentary about antisemitism in Australia fronted by Josh Frydenberg.
Never Again: The Fight Against Antisemitism, aired claims that antisemitism was “spiralling out of control”, including comments from Sir Peter Cosgrove that “Hitler would be proud” of what is happening in Australia.
After the doco aired on Wednesday night, a teary Sharri Markson popped up on Sky News to applaud it.
Politicians needed to ask themselves “what more they can do to deal with this explosion in racism against Jews”, Markson said.
“I also have to say as a Jewish Australian, a huge thank you to my bosses here on Sky News.
Award-winning Sky News host Sharri Markson has been moved to tears in an emotional reaction to new Sky News documentary 'Never Again: The Fight Against Antisemitism'.https://t.co/4Wr6lOD55c
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) May 28, 2024
“It was just so emotional watching that; to Paul Whittaker, the Sky News chief executive, and Mark Calvert, the director of programming, for supporting this important documentary, for supporting Josh Frydenberg’s enormous effort. It means more to Jewish Australians than we can ever say.”
Markson’s tribute to her bosses was written up as a story by her Sky News colleagues and circulated on social media.
Et viola!
The Age gave us a gem in the form of a fresh mistake while making a correction.
Correcting the crossword answer from “voila” to “viola” the newspaper misspelt “instrument” as “intrument”.
Exit follows digital success
The restructure at News Corp threw up some winners and losers, and the main loser was Lisa Muxworthy, the editor-in-chief of Murdoch’s most popular Australian website, news.com.au, who was cut loose while on holiday. She was blindsided.
So were the journalists who work for her, who told Weekly Beast Muxworthy was “ruthlessly sacrificed to make way for a veteran member of the Holt Street old boys’ club, Mick Carroll”, until now the editor of Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph.
With the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph merging under editor Ben English – another big winner – a new role was needed for Carroll.
Carroll becomes editor-in-chief of the new free news and lifestyle group that houses news.com.au.
He is an experienced newspaper man but a little light-on in digital skills.
Muxworthy, on the other hand, has made news.com.au consistently the top-ranked digital news site in the country.
While Carroll’s week improved when he emerged a winner from the restructure, it started badly.
On Sunday his paper “sincerely apologised” after accusing the minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, of saying “we must protect Hamas” in a headline, when he actually said “we must protect Rafah”.
Bowen said the claim was defamatory and the people of Rafah are not Hamas.
The headline of an article on page 7 in The Sunday Telegraph today was incorrect. It said ‘Bowen: We must protect Hamas.’ It should have read: ‘Bowen: We must protect Rafah.’ This was the result of a sub-editing error. We sincerely apologise to Chris Bowen for this error.
— Mick Carroll (@sundayteleed) May 26, 2024
Lots of self-care needed
Nervous hacks waiting for news about their jobs did not appreciate an email from HR that lobbed into News Corp inboxes just before they found out their fate.
“Life will always have its ups and downs,” the missive about News Corp’s global project Mind Matters Month said. “Self care isn’t just for the down time.
“Together we can make a difference for ourselves and one another.”
Lisa, lawyers and lunches
Friday is last day Bruce Lehrmann can lodge an appeal against the federal court finding that on the balance of probabilities he raped Brittany Higgins at Parliament House in 2019. It’s been an expensive process for all the parties and the battle for costs is going through the courts. The federal court released some documents this week revealing more details about the cost of Lisa Wilkinson’s defence. The TV presenter engaged her own legal team, led by Sue Chrysanthou SC, and is claiming a little over $1.8m from her employer Ten to pay the bill.
We have previously reported the silk’s fees are $8,000 a day but now we know the details of the extras the law firm charges for.
According to the invoices submitted, Wilkinson’s bill includes lunch on two court days – $89 and $102 – copies of the daily newspapers and even a USB stick from Officeworks which cost $14.50.
Clothes shopping you need to see
“James Packer photos you need to see,” was the headline on a news.com.au story about the billionaire leaving a London hotel.
“He wore loose-fitting jeans, a navy jumper, and some sensible walking shoes,” the report said. “Yes, he’s a billionaire probably on his way to somewhere very fancy, but he is also dressed in what someone’s dad would wear to attend the local meat raffle.”
But overlaid on these rather unflattering shots mocking the 56-year-old’s dress sense was an invitation to “shop this image”, linking to retail sites selling supposedly similar garments.
SBS massages
A mobile masseur who visited SBS headquarters to treat the staff of the current affairs show Insight was so excited about his assignment he posted about it on his Instagram account. “It was an honour to work with such a talented and dedicated group of individuals who bring important stories and discussions to light,” he gushed.
But the bosses were not happy that the extracurricular activity had been made public and the posts soon disappeared. Weekly Beast can reveal that the bill was picked up by the program, which has a “small discretionary budget” it usually spends on an annual dinner.
The total cost of the exercise was $700. SBS declined to comment.
