On Thursday afternoon the ABC managing director, David Anderson, sent out an email announcing a major restructure including an unspecified number of job losses. The note advised the troops to check the intranet for FAQ and email the people and culture help desk with any questions they may have. As there was little detail on who was in and who was out, staff had a lot of questions.
Minutes later the ABC intranet crashed, leaving staff with nowhere to go with questions such as which managers were going to lose their jobs and where they would be moving.
“We are working with the service provider to resolve this as soon as possible,” the help desk said in an email as staff tried to access the FAQ.
But some staff saw the funny side, emailing each other about the fiasco. “This is seriously hilarious 10 minutes after announcing a FAQ a restructure and redundancies lol,” one email seen by Weekly Beast said. “All of us trying to work out which one of our bosses is getting the sack.”
Tough at the top
The ABC news director, Justin Stevens, who has expanded his empire to include regional bureaux and parts of radio, proudly told staff the reorganisation means there will be more women than men on the news executive team for the first time: Gavin Fang (deputy); Donna Field (news operations); Lee Glendinning (digital news); Suzanne Dredge (Indigenous); Jo Puccini (investigative journalism); Stuart Watt (news distribution).
But it wasn’t all good news. There are a number of execs who have been restructured out.
“As a consequence of the reorganisation and inevitable role changes, we are losing some talented and dedicated managers, and we sincerely thank them for their huge contribution,” Stevens said. Hopefully there are not too many women among them.
Land of lost content
The ABC has organised the corporation into two pillars, one called news and one called content, effectively removing the divisions of television and radio and scattering radio – now called audio – staff across both pillars, depending on whether they do news radio or current affairs radio.
RN Breakfast with Patricia Karvelas, Drive with Andy Park and Background Briefing will move to news and all the others will move to content: Capital City Radio, Radio National, ABC Classic, Triple J, Double J, Triple J unearthed, ABC Country and ABC Jazz.
Back in 2017 the former ABC MD Michelle Guthrie sold a very similar-sounding restructure, promising to smash the silos of television and radio broadcasting and create a “platform-agnostic corporation for the digital age”.
Guthrie created four pillars: news, investigations and analysis; local and regional; original content; and culture and entertainment.
“The result will be extended reach and relevance, a better experience for our audience and an ABC that, in a fragmented landscape, provides the critical space for debate, dialogue and ideas,” she said.
Just six years later the four pillars have become two, along with another tranche of redundancies.
Heading up the mega “content” division is a newly appointed television executive, Chris Oliver-Taylor, the former director of production for Netflix in Australia and New Zealand.
The word “content” has come a long way in 20 years, and Oliver-Taylor is now the “chief content officer”.
When Fred Hilmer was chief executive of Fairfax – owner of the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald before Nine took over – he dared to call journalists “content providers” and he was pilloried by the industry for the phrase.
Greatly exaggerated death
Earlier in the month news.com.au, Daily Mail Australia and 7news.com.au reported on the death of reality show contestant Dannii Erskine.
Erskine was a participant on Seven’s Bride and Prejudice in 2019.
“Dannii Erskine was driving back from the shops on Friday when an allegedly drunk driver hit her car, her sister Dee told So Dramatic,” the Daily Mail reported.
“Reality star Dannii Erskine dies in horrific car accident, aged 28,” news.com.au reported.
The stories were detailed and graphic.
The Daily Mail: “As she went through a green light, a driver was intoxicated and T-boned her”; “She was alive and taken to the Royal Melbourne hospital”.
The reports claimed her “skull was crushed upon impact with the airbag” and her “injuries [were] beyond repair”.
But soon after the stories were published they were followed up with more reports that Erskine was not in fact dead.
“An Australian reality TV star who had reportedly died in a Melbourne car accident a few weeks ago may not be dead at all,” news.com.au said.
“Doubts have been raised about the death of Dannii Erskine after funeral arrangements had seemingly been organised.”
The news organisations based their erroneous reports on a reality TV podcast called So Dramatic which announced Erskine’s “death” on 1 May based on an email purporting to be from someone claiming to be Erskine’s sister. There was also an Instagram post announcing she had died, which they all used: “REST IN PEACE Dannii Erskine. 1995-2023”.
Erskine has since told the podcast her Instagram was hacked and she doesn’t know who planted the hoax. All the original stories reporting her death were still live.
News Corp did not return a request for comment and the Daily Mail and Seven declined to comment.
Not adding up
The Perth couple interviewed on Nine’s Today after Jim Chalmers’ budget was handed down were not happy with the Labor government, accusing it of “not listening” to middle Australia and doing “nothing to help”.
“If you’re on Centrelink, you’ve got all the help now, you’ve got the increases, but if you’re just getting by on one wage, you’re still struggling,” mortgage holder Corey Michal told Today co-host Sarah Abo on Wednesday morning. “There’s nothing in this budget physically that helps the middle-class struggling people already struggling with everything.”
Abo didn’t so much interview them as agree with them: “There really isn’t very much in it for middle-income earners, which is really the majority of Australians,” she said.
Sarah Michal was upset about overseas aid: “$200m into Ukraine? Why are we helping a country and not our own backyard?”
Abo asked them if they had a message for the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who was coming up next on the show.
“The quick message to him is I think you’ve put the nail in the coffin,” Corey said. “Come next election, I’d probably call on Australians to look elsewhere for your votes.”
What Nine didn’t tell viewers was that, according to his social media, Corey was an active Liberal party member and volunteer in 2016, helping his local candidate with door knocking and office support. It’s not clear whether he’s still in the party.
Nine says they weren’t aware of his political affiliations.
“We had Corey on to talk about his tough experiences of dealing with the current cost-of-living crisis. We were unaware of any political affiliation and he did not have wonderful things to say about either of the two main parties,” a Nine spokesperson told Weekly Beast.
It’s not the first time the couple have been on Today. They were interviewed complaining about a rise in interest rates two months ago.
Hadley stays with Nine
Sydney shock jock Ray Hadley has signed with Nine Radio for another three years, with a contract reportedly worth $9m extending to 2026.
Hadley, 68, has won every ratings survey since 2004 with the Ray Hadley Morning Show on 2GB.
His winning style includes attacking people on welfare, as he did this week after the budget was handed down.
After an ABC TV report about a Queensland couple on benefits, Hadley said: “If that’s the typical person on jobseeker, I want my money back. I want some of my tax back.
“If I’m supporting those people and you’re out there working your rings off, we need a reduction. We need our money back.”
The lucrative deal includes Hadley commentating at the Olympic Games in Paris as well as the State of Origin.
‘Nonsense’ upsetting Humphries’ family
The Victorian premier, Dan Andrews, has denied the family of Barry Humphries is upset with his government. The Australian entertainer died last month aged 89 and has been offered state funerals by governments of NSW, Victoria and the commonwealth. Andrews said reports there was friction between the Victorian government and the family was “fiction” and “nonsense”.
Dan says a certain 'entertainment reporter' should stop to consider the distress being caused to the family of Barry Humphries, rather than pretending his usual anti-Labor fiction is insider information.#auspol pic.twitter.com/IIzMpoZszB
— Squizz (@SquizzSTK) May 12, 2023
An entertainment reporter had claimed Humphries’ family were “greatly distressed” and don’t want the funeral held in Melbourne.
“They said from the beginning they did not want the Victorian government involved,” an entertainment reporter told 3AW.
“They don’t want their fingerprints anywhere near it and yet you’ve got the prime minister announcing that Victoria is co-hosting it.”
Andrews told reporters it was “misinformation”.
“I got a very lengthy text last night from Barry Humphries’ eldest son Oscar,” Andrews said, and “he has no problem with Victoria and no problem with the government”.
