The investigative reporter and former foreign correspondent Linton Besser has been named the new host of ABC’s Media Watch.
The multi-award winning journalist will take over the Monday night media program from Paul Barry, who will step down on 2 December after 11 years.
“We will put a blowtorch on our ourselves, on our own industry,” Besser told Guardian Australia. “That’s what we’ll be doing.”
Besser has won four Walkley awards, including the business Walkley this week, and has reported from around the world for Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent and 7.30.
He joined the ABC in 2013 from the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, and his work has prompted public inquiries, including a royal commission, corruption findings and criminal prosecutions against business figures, politicians and other public officials.
Making the switch from print to television, Besser noticed how hard it was to convince people to talk on camera because they had a “fundamental distrust” of journalists.
“One of the things that I’ve learned from moving to television has been you can be a newspaper reporter all your life and never put anyone on the record,” Besser said. “It was a shock to have to get people in the chair.
“It’s really hard on a program like Four Corners when you’re asking people to trust you with what is always a really sensitive topic. So you really do have to get into the weeds on trust and integrity an all these important things.”
He is teaming up with another highly credentialled journalist, the Gold Walkley winner Mario Christodoulou, who replaces Tim Latham as executive producer.
“Mario is a really formidable journalist,” Besser says. “I’ve worked with him on a couple of things and, you know, he’s one of these super brains walking around on legs.
While both Besser and Christodoulou have investigative backgrounds they are not planning to concentrate on major investigations in a 15-minute program.
“Media Watch is not an investigative program; it’s not Four Corners,” he says. “It’s a consumer program, that’s the way I think about it, it’s there to serve the viewing public that consumes the media.”
Besser says he has worked almost everywhere, except for Seven and News Corp, and has seen good and bad practice in all of them.
“I’m certainly not coming in with a particular media organisation in mind. I’m agnostic as to who should get some gentle education.
“The media is this big, powerful institution that in many ways is more influential than any other centre of power, with politicians at its beck and call. It sometimes flouts the law. It does all kinds of things that are right on the edge.”
Since its inception in 1989 Media Watch has been hosted by Barry, Jonathan Holmes, Richard Ackland, David Marr, Liz Jackson, Monica Attard and Stuart Littlemore.
