During yesterday’s ABC Futurecast, it was a blast from the past that got the biggest reaction.
At the invite-only innovation event in Ultimo attended by high-ups from the ABC, other media companies including News Corp, tech companies like TikTok and Meta, media consulting companies, and one nosey Crikey reporter, there was one moment that got chins wagging, laughs muffled and furtive looks around the room to see how everyone else was reacting.
It wasn’t freshly appointed ABC chair Kim Williams’ gripe during an interview about reporting on his comments, saying that his recent “mark[ing] of the [ABC’s] public scorecard … in a private forum … was shared very liberally”, wedged before his gratuitous naming dropping of George (Lucas, obviously) and how the Star Wars creator had frequently invited Williams personally onto set.
Nor was it the awkward moment or two when News Corp Australia’s head of technology Julian Delany was pressed on the company’s use of generative AI to write 3,000 articles a week by ABC tech reporter and MC Ange Lavoipierre. He took issue with these articles being called AI-generated, instead calling them “robotic journalism”. Another panellist called it “not journalism”.
No, it was comments from a former ABC-turned-global podcasting star Wendy Zukerman who couldn’t wait to get through introductions during a panel event to send a pointed message to the ABC executives in the audience.
For those unfamiliar, Zukerman’s stratospheric rise started when the ABC commissioned her podcast Science Vs as one of its shows launched as part of the experimental First Run program scheme in 2015. The enormously successful podcast was snatched up quickly by Gimlet Media, a buzzy American startup that was subsequently bought by Spotify, and Zukerman moved to New York. In the decade or so since then, Science Vs has been one of the most popular podcasts in the world, spending years in the top science podcast charts, with Zukerman still at its helm.
Now back in Australia but still working for Gimlet Media, Zukerman appeared on a panel of content creators speaking to the conference, where she had an opportunity to tell her story — and make a point while doing so.
She told the audience that she heard “rumours around the ABC” she never signed a contract with the public broadcaster while creating Science Vs so, when she was cold approached by Gimlet Media, it wasn’t difficult to jump ship and take her intellectual property with her.
Zukerman said that the ABC was supportive of her move and that she was grateful for this. But she also scolded Aunty for something she’d heard since then.
“I have heard that since that time, though, the lesson that the ABC has gotten from my story is to make sure contractors sign their contracts. And I really wish that wasn’t the lesson that the ABC learned because I think it really should be, that if you have someone that is a producer that is making content that audiences are connecting with, that you support them and you maybe give them full-time work,” she said.
Speaking with Crikey later, Zukerman said she’d heard the ABC now has what is unofficially dubbed “the Zukerman clause” in contracts to stop something like this happening in the future, something that she didn’t think would be particularly useful for the ABC but would make lives harder for content creators.
Ultimately, though, Zukerman credited cross-promotion from the ABC with appearances on Triple J and other stations as crucial for the initial popularity of Science Vs, and said that the public broadcaster’s existing audiences were a great opportunity for anyone with a new idea.
“The ABC has the capacity to really support people who are creating new and exciting things. I think the message I was just spreading is that when a creative is signing a contract, that they make sure there’s stuff in there to make sure they will get editorial and marketing support,” she said on the phone.
The Daily Aus passes around the cap
There’s never a dull moment for media entrepreneur prodigies like the founders of The Daily Aus, Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski.
It’s not enough to have to deal with the daily grind of running a social media-native, youth-focused news outlet, but there’s also the daunting task of running a startup in an industry that, generously, has had better days.
Sometimes that means dealing with all talk, little walk investors like Piers Grove and the subsequent corporate and legal intrigue.
Other times it means scrambling to pivot away from what made them special when the whole media environment is collapsing beneath them.
Australia’s cold war with Meta over the government’s news media bargaining code has been hanging over the heads of media companies who were, until recently, getting nice little cash payouts from the tech giant for the indignity of … choosing to post their content on Facebook?
Since Meta drew a line in the sand and said no more, the spectre of a potential news ban looms large over the industry — and few places would be as impacted as the Instagram-first Daily Aus.
We keenly noted a report about The Daily Aus by former Crikey reporter John Buckley from his new home Capital Brief, a new Australian business publication that’s like if the Australian Financial Review was written for people without grey hairs but fired any sub-editors who tried to reduce their word count.
Buckley wrote that an inquiry submission from the startup, rumoured to be valued at high six to low seven digits, claimed the company had already lost nearly a million dollars in advertising over fears of a news ban, and that layoffs were on the cards if it went through.
That’s why we weren’t surprised to get a tip that The Daily Aus was passing around the cap for donations to their for-profit company. “Contributing to The Daily Aus is a voluntary way to support independent journalism and ensures that quality news remains accessible to everyone. Your contribution helps fund the resources and efforts needed to produce insightful and reliable reporting — as well as keeps TDA an independent, healthy Australian media company,” their website says.
We at Crikey love a vibrant independent scene and so we encourage you to dig deep and give whatever you have left once you’ve renewed your Crikey subscription.
Vale Jane Hansen
Sadly, Australian media has lost a legend this week. Late on Tuesday night, Sunday Telegraph reporter Jane Hansen passed away after an 18-month fight with brain cancer.
News.com.au reports that her brother said “Jane put up an amazing fight right till the end and never once complained, and never lost her sense of humour this whole time.”
I knew Hansen from her fearless reporting on anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and the other characters who emerge from the Northern Rivers region where she lived. She was one of the driving forces behind a successful campaign to get federal and state governments to agree to vaccine requirements for children to stop senseless illness and death from preventable diseases.
I had no idea about her previous work as a war correspondent or as the author of an anonymous novel, Boned, published in 2008, which skewered the misogynistic culture of commercial television. I’m not surprised. She was fearless in everything she did.
I voraciously read her reporting, texted gossip with her about Pete Evans, and had spoken with her a handful of times.
What came through was her incredible sense of what was right, wrong, normal and weird. In an industry filled with weirdos, she was so grounded and normal. That was her superpower — she knew when something was bullshit, and she wasn’t afraid to report on it. And man, she was funny.
A few years back she did an interview for my — shall we say News Corp-skeptical — podcast Murdocracy while still working for them. In a news company known for its ferocious attitude towards detractors, Hansen wasn’t afraid to play an away game to defend her good work.
When news of her passing came out yesterday, I noticed anti-vaccine figures seized on her death, linking it to the COVID-19 vaccine she received a few years ago.
All I could do was laugh, Jane would have! Even from beyond the grave, she is still pissing them off. I don’t think she’d want it to be any other way.
